12XU.

This list is dumbfounding, if only because it leaves out Our Band Could Be Your Life, which is one of my top 5 books EVER. Also, I can't believe that High Fidelity was counted in. Moreover, I wish this list wasn't about "Rock n Roll" books, cos they include Yes Yes Y'all, Can't Stop Won't Stop, and the Ego fucking Trip Book of Rap Lists. But I should mention that all three of those books are amazing; I was thinking about getting the Ego TRip book, cos even though I know nothing about rap, it's REALLY interesting!



Last night Boogie-Down Nicole, Notorious Angela and I went to a free screening of American Hardcore at school. It was pretty good and done with sincerity, but definitely disappointing in its delivery. It wasn't very enlightening about hardcore's significance; like, it was telling me a lot of things I already knew. Y'know, how it branched out from California and over the years the touring network was established and how different scenes developed their own sounds. Well, no shit!

As a documentary, I didn't feel like it was interesting visually. The editing was a bit weird. And this is totally off-topic, but the movie had weird "cigarette burns" (see 2nd definition, or watch Fight Club). Like the movie was shot in mini DV, I thought digital shit wouldn't have crappy cigarette burns in the corner? Like in real movies they have really slick cigarette burns, but these were a bit crummy. I can't believe how hung up I was about it, but after watching Fight Club I've never been able to get over it.

Anyway, the cigarette burns were still significant. Cos about half an hour into the movie, THEY MISSED THE CUE FROM THE CIGARETTE BURNS. WTF! So the movie just stopped and everyone's like, "That's so punk rock" and I was like, "Bitch, please! That's not punk rock at all! That's just fucking ghetto!!!" And it took them like two or three minutes to actually fix the stupid reels. I mean, what the fuck was the projector person doing? If you see the first burn, you have to get ready for the fucking second one! C'mon!

Back to the movie. The only things I pretty much knew nothing about: the music itself. Ha. So... it was sort of the first time I ever listen to Bad Brains and it was sort of really amazing and I can't believe I didn't check them out earlier. Hey, sorry hardcore didn't change my life and I'm a total retard about it.

I really don't understand why certain hardcore bands were mentioned but not others, y'know? Since I don't know that much about hardcore, it all sounds like shit to me, to put it kindly. So even though seeing all this old footage was nice, it makes you wonder about all the stuff that was left out. And Moby's one of the talking heads, how relevant was he to the scene? They even got Jesse Malin. (I guess Peen Wentz was unavailable.) Actually, the interviewee that annoyed me most was Jack Rabid. As soon as he showed up, Nicole and I groaned loudly.

It was interesting the way they tackled certain subjects. One thing that was cool was that there were plenty of people of color. One surprise was that there was some dude named Inouye, which sounded really familiar, and then the dude's like, "Yeah, my dad's a politician" and I was like "Ohhh that's right!" Anyways. So it was nice to see some black and Latino punkers and shit, but it was weird that only the women seemed the tackle the "women in hardcore" issue, or how only Ian MacKaye and this dude named "Straight Edge Hank" seemed to talk about sXe. I think only Ian talked about how dumb the violence in hardcore was.

I feel sorta geeky, you know you've read up on too much about Ian MacKaye when he starts telling a story about the good ol' days and you're like, "Oh, yeah, I totally know that story." Yikes. The hilarious thing, of course, is that I'm totally Team Picciotto and less Team MacKaye, and it's just cos Ian doesn't fucking shut up so of course you end up knowing everything from how he came out of his mom's womb and how ripped his own umbilical cord up to what he had for dinner last night. Hahaha. One really shocking thing about Ian in this movie: they show pictures of him with hair! And it really is toooootally curly!

I didn't realize how funny everyone's accents sounded until the New Yorkers showed up on screen (LOL!), but even then, hardly any time was spent on New York.

The really good thing about the movie was the people interviewed. So many people participated and most of them were pretty funny. Like that Straight Edge Hank guy, he's like a priest now, and he actually was interviewed saying "jackass" in church. AHAHA.

It pains me to say so, but I must confess, I was sort of touched by none other than Henry "No Neck" Rollins. He was just talking about how he auditioned for Black Flag, and how he wasn't sure whether to join, but he talked to Ian and Ian was like, "Yeah dude, join, you're gonna do great," and that's why Henry said aight, cos he just wanted to get Ian's approval on it. I was like, "Wow, they really are good friends, huh?" But then I almost threw up in my mouth when Kira Roessler showed up on screen and mentioned that she and Rollins had had a "thing". ICK!!! Even if I'd already read about this, I must have totally blocked it out of my mind, so I almost shit myself from the horror when I watched her say that... can you blame me?!?!

Anyway, don't pay to see this movie or read the book. Just borrow them out of some place or other (cough). The director (Paul Rachman) and the author (Steven Blush) were there, and you could tell they had the best intentions, but seriously, not the type of movie that would rock anyone's punk world.

To me, this is hardcore:


Oh, shit, here's a bonus vid, just cos I can't help myself, "Vowel Movement" by the Evens: