hardcore
Poison Idea – Lifestyles
Portland OR’s Poison Idea brought a certain advanced tightness to the hardcore scene, on par with Dr. Know or The Dickies.
The lyrics are reproduced in full here
I go full speed don’t look back
Do what I feel and live how I want to
Hide in your big warm house, lock the door and dream of
more
They say the meek will inherit the earth but who’s gonna
pay the tax?
Begging, scraping, sucking my welfare check
Bitching about big brother while big sister scratches my
back
hit and miss lifestyle. Down on whats it’s up to be.
Is this the one for me?
I play a rule breaker’s game. This game is called life.
Its not as easy as a cut of the cards or a twist of the
knife.Day to day, hand to mouth
Is that what my life’s story is all about?
Lifestyles of the poor and homeless
I’m drunk and obnoxious and I hate the rich
The seed we planted is starting to show
But we screamed “no future” a thousand years ago
My belief is true, what about you?
I take the good with the bad and the bad with the bad
But I wish the bad would stop
What you practice now is what you preached then
Young and poor. Was told what it was to be
I wasn’t taught how to pronounce “free”
Agnostic Front (NY), Stillborn (NY), Absence of Malice (VA); P.B. Kelly’s, Richmond, VA; 4/1/85
The time I spent as a lad loitering around the Krewe House in Richmond, VA –home base of Absence of Malice– brought me into contact with all manner of luminaries of the punk rock world. AoM being the ‘house band’ of Richmond, VA hardcore, it was logical visiting bands be directed to E. Main St. upon arriving in town. In addition to a den of unspeakable iniquity it was easy to find and centrally-located to all the likely venues, in this case the tiny, sauna-like brick room at P. B. Kelly’s in flood-beleaguered Shockoe Bottom.
Agnostic Front was a huge band for so small a room, but big venues willing to book hardcore acts in a medium-sized Southern city were hard to come by before the opening of The Flood Zone. They were still touring on the success of the previous year’s Victim in Pain, a release that instantly became a staple of hardcore record collections nationwide.
All of these songs were inevitably played that night, April Fool’s Day 1985:
Link to Stillborn NYHC – “Dying for Progress” (1986) at SoundCloud.
Another flyer for this show is pictured here.
Rites of Spring – Persistent Vision
This was the biggest thing in punk rock the year I graduated from high school. Rites of Spring were ’emo’ back when ’emo’ meant ‘Emo.’
I was the champion of forgive, forget / But I haven’t found a way to forgive you yet. / And though I know, you and I are through / All my thoughts are lines converging in on you.
A Biscuit In The Sun 