Hardcore fans, you’re gonna love this: a massive upcoming book about the hardcore punk scene in Southern California entitled, ‘WE GOT POWER!: Hardcore Punk Scenes From 1980s Southern California’ by David Markey and Jordan Schwartz, will feature original essays, and nearly 400 pictures of the beginning of the punk scene! And you can visit their facebook page to see some of these. The book will also include every single issue of 'We Got Power’ from 1981 to 1983, the famous zine ‘founded by the authors of the book, and dedicated to the LA hardcore scene.
Among the essayists, you will recognize Black Flag members like Henry Rollins who wrote this about LA: ‘I arrived in Los Angeles in the summer of 1981 as Black Flag’s new vocalist. I had been to the city before, but had never spent any significant amount of time there. It has, over the last thirty years, become somewhat of a home to me. It is not a place I miss. It is not a place I think about with any degree of fondness, but it is a place where I have seen and learned much…’
That’s so interesting Henry! This city has more tentacles than you can count, and you can never escape when you have found your little hole in Lost Angeles.
Chuck Dukowski, always the intellectual of the band, recalls: ‘The Black Flag bus rolled out to the San Fernando Valley to hear Minor Threat play. Jordan Schwartz was there, looking like a reporter straight out of some ’30s movie, wearing a trench coat and a fedora with press pass in the hatband, holding a camera with an old-style flash reflector. It was a pivotal conceptual moment…’
Also featured in the book: the Minutemen, Social Distortion, Red Cross/Redd Kross, Suicidal Tendencies, the Descendents, White Flag, the Last, the Gun Club, Saccharine Trust, Sin 34, Nip Drivers, Circle One, M.D.C., Big Boys, Youth Brigade, D.R.I., the Butthole Surfers, and many others.
You can preorder ‘WE GOT POWER’ here for $34.95, as it is set for an August release.