The Bloody, Sweaty Moshpits of Yesteryear

Yeah, that wasn't my best-ever look

The expanded 2020 edition of The Endless American Midnight is on sale now. And to mark the occasion, I'm posting an excerpt on my experience on the Boston Hardcore scene, along with some snapshots of yours truly in the bloody, sweaty moshpits of yesteryear.

The long, torturous wait is finally over: the revised and expanded 2022 edition of The Endless American Midnight is out now.  

What's it got, you may ask? 

Well, how's about 100+ pages of additional articles, new photography, new cover art, a revised layout and re-edited text?

Plus, a trove of articles and essays on movies, music, science, parapsychology, the paranormal, true crime and true conspiracy, including my exclusive interview with former Manson Family member Bobby Beausoleil. 

All in all, a deep diagnosis of all of the social, spiritual and sorcerous symptoms of America's endless night sea journey and long, dark midnight of the soul. A new and greatly improved package for the same mind-shatteringly low price.

Get yours today. Your soul and spirit will thank you, I guarantee it.

Note: I will be taking orders for a deeply-discounted (and personalized) upgrade for those who got the previous edition in the new year.  

Watch this space.

Catching my breath, watching Ian MacKaye 

and Jamie Scirppa of SSD shout it out loud

    WHEN I WROTE THE SECRET HISTORY OF ROCK ‘N’ ROLL I spent a lot of time worrying that some might see it as a major detour from the work I was doing on The Secret Sun. I also had to contend with younger readers, who were justifiably cynical about the music industry, which took total control over the creative process for major label acts sometime in the mid-90s. 

    How could I explain that once upon a time things were different, and there was a scene that kids built from the ground up without realizing they were actually recreating the ancient Mithraic cults? Or that everything I needed to know I learned from punk rock?

Drawing dirty cartoons in the "Smut Gallery"

 of the late David Aronson of Jerry's Kids

My hatred of Seventies soft rock (which was impossible to get away from) was one of the reasons I embraced Punk so passionately. And not only Ramones-type punk. I was especially keen on the post-punk scene: bands like Wire, Joy Division, Killing Joke, Bauhaus and the like. Bands that took the energy and subversion of punk and applied them to a larger canvas. This was the music I listened to when I wasn’t at a Hardcore show. But those bands were out of reach for the most part. I do remember sneaking in to see Killing Joke at The Channel (I never paid to see a show unless it was at a big venue like an arena) by creeping in during the soundcheck and hiding beneath the PA riser until the doors opened. I saw Motörhead by grabbing an amp and walking through the front door while the opening act (Helix, for those keeping score at home) was breaking down. But for the most part, it was all-ages shows or bust. 

But the all-ages shows were where the action was.

And when I say Hardcore punk was a revival of the Mithraic Mysteries, I’m not trying to be cute. I mean it literally. It was an unconscious revival and the connections were not explicit (aside from the Straight Edge X icon, that is), but that just means it was all the more powerful and sincere for being so. 

Yours truly onstage with Minor Threat

Hardcore bands weren’t much different than the Kouretes or the Cabeiri: thrashing, aggressive, militaristic noise meant to alter the consciousness of the listener. There was the same masculine, militaristic ambiance and same puritanical morality; the Straight Edge ethos frowned on drinking, smoking, and drugs, and promiscuity. Mind you, Straight Edge orthodoxy has always been heavily mythologized in Boston Hardcore history. I went to a lot of scene parties back in the day and there was plenty of drinking and drugging going around, believe it.

Your humble host flipping off the cops at the 

infamous Mission of Burma at the Bradford Ballroom

Like any good mystery cult, it was all about experience, first and foremost. Listening to Hardcore records at home was kind of ludicrous and pointless. The music was made for movement, extreme and immediate. It never sounded right on your stereo. 

Your pal (left) and the late Jake Phelps (second from left), 

Media Workshop, 1981

I had a different view of the scene than most, having been part of the inner circle of the Braintree HC bands Jerry’s Kids and Gang Green. I ended up as a roadie (if you can call it that, since the only road was usually the one from Braintree to Boston), lugging amps and drum cases and setting up and breaking down. And it was a privileged view to a scene that was largely self-created. 

It taught some vitally important lessons. I learned to distrust not only the authorities — the first show I ever attended was shut down after 15 minute simply because the cops didn’t like punks — but also the media. I saw how the big local fanzines picked favorites and blatantly rewrote history simply based on the personal whims of their editors.

Getting strong-armed at an early SSD show

I also saw how movements can grow, based almost solely on the conviction of their adherents. Hardcore shows went from being small affairs at offbeat venues to taking over major venues like The Channel and The Paradise. I’d see regional Hardcore bands who even college radio wouldn’t touch fill large venues, while bands with hit singles struggled to fill small clubs. 

Alas, I’d see how movements could go terribly wrong, too. Hardcore sure did.

Left to Right: Duane Lucia (Gallery East), Al Barile (SSD),

and the author showing off his loosened teeth

    BUT I ALSO GOT A FULL BLAST OF THE PHENOMENA that would ultimately lead to the work I do here, documenting how spiritual consciousness can give art a visceral punch lacking in strictly materialist art. The Bad Brains’ Boston debut was a powerful object lesson in this. I did the 'I’m with the band' amp-lugging routine to get into that show, only to get my teeth loosened during Negative FX’s set. Even with a bloody mouth full of loose teeth, the sheer electrifying power of the Bad Brains was impossible to deny.  Their story would get complicated thereafter but when it mattered, the Bad Brains delivered.

Going sideways at the Angelic Upstarts' 

first Boston show. RIP Mensi

It’s a shame then that more bands back then didn’t tap into that source, that spiritual power. New York’s Cro-Mags did so; they were/are involved in the Krishna Consciousness movement, which ingratiated itself to homeless punks by offering free vegetarian meals on weekends. But most bands shunned such things. Especially in Boston, where so many people on the scene were trapped in stifling, all-boy Catholic prep schools like Don Bosco and Xaverian Brothers. Spirituality was the last thing they wanted.

Knocking them over with my 

world famous Peter Garrett impression

    ALTHOUGH HARDCORE FADED AS A VITAL MUSICAL FORCE rather quickly, the DIY spirit and rule-breaking that it inspired was a major influence on the developing alternative rock scene. Many of the big stars of the 1992 grunge explosion got their start playing in Hardcore bands, and Hardcore remained a yardstick with which alt.rock integrity would be measured. 

    So in many ways, Hardcore would take over the mainstream within ten years of its emergence, based almost entirely on the utter conviction of its followers. Something to seriously think about. Think about very seriously, indeed.

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