OFF: what was it with the 80s...?

[Stephan Forstner]

Well, all this talk of the 80s has got me thinking back - wow that was a
long time ago. I'm sure my memory is defective in many places, so if you
catch errors in what follows, well, I wouldn't be surprised. At the risk of
losing credibility - what's that you say, that's not a problem? - oh good,
thanks - I'll admit to having been a follower of punk and metal during much
of the early 80's, though partially by default - as everyone has already
pointed out, for complex interesting music and especially for
space/psych/kraut-rock you pretty much had to go back to your 70s artists,
not much new coming out really scratched that itch. There were however most
definitely alternatives to the popular drivel polluting the airwaves, its
just that maybe those alternatives were equally unpalatable to listmembers,
just in a different way. Both punk and metal (real metal, not false metal!),
and later the much less interesting fusion of the two, were always around
and usually explicitly positioned themselves in opposition to so-called
popular music. Ah, looking back - liking both 70s prog and 80s metal - and
having friends who did too - could lead to culture clash, such as 5 of us
going to see Yes on tour while wearing identical Motorhead shirts or wearing
a tie-dye Jethro Tull T-shirt to see Carnivore at L'Amours, the latter not
recommended unless going with a large group of friends (or a group of large
friends).

Living in NYC I had access to some interesting-for-the-time radio shows,
most memorably Deathrider and Corpsegrinder doing their Hellhole show
broadcast on NYU's radio station. There were also some NJ stations (WSOU,
WDHA) that had decent metal shows as well as something called Midnight Metal
from the Rochester area that I occasionally picked up and WFMU could usually
be counted on to occasionally play some interesting underground stuff. All
these were eventually yanked or degenerated into pap (except FMU), but for a
time they were an antidote to crap radio and MTV.

Several people have mentioned Husker Du, and they might be (along with
Metallica) the 'underground' band with the most important and lasting legacy
vis a vis music that is actually known to the masses - I thought they were
great throughout their SST years - I didn't much go for their later stuff,
probably as a result of my perception of their moving in a more 'commercial'
direction (but then a few years later I saw Bob Mould doing what must have
been a post-Huskers pre-Sugar solo tour, just him on stage with an
acoustic(?) guitar and I remember that as being a tremendously impressive
performance). And speaking of SST, that label had some great bands on it -
looming large in my memory are Saint Vitus and Overkill (later Overkill
L.A., not the NYC band of the same name) - I still dig out that vinyl once
in a while. A guilty pleasure maybe - nah, no guilt, it's still great stuff!
Both those bands were more metal (in Black Sabbath / Motorhead veins
respectively) than the rest of that label's output, but they were also
clearly influenced by the punk/hardcore/underground sounds of their labelmates.

And while punk may have started to degenerate, a lot of new punk/hardcore
bands put out some interesting stuff before turning into rote hardcore
(Agnostic Front), playing the punk/metal crossover game (GBH, FUs -> Straw
Dogs, even the Misfits), or going off on weird tangents (Discharge). And two
of the best punk bands EVER (IMHO), Minor Threat and the Bad Brains,
officially released all their best material in the early 80s.

Then there was the NWOBHM - Iron Maiden, Saxon, Tank, Demon, to name a few
of the more famous, all of whom had at least a few albums that aren't
embarassing today, and some that still hold up as great music in any
company, as well as some lesser exponents, Tygres of Pan Tang, Tysondog,
Witchfynde, and Witchfinder General, to name a few I remember fondly.

And of course pop/hair metal may have been what was on the airwaves, but
thrash, death, black, and doom metal all came into focus during the 80s as
well. Despite their current iffy status, Metallica were quite exciting when
they first showed up. And again, a whole lot of bands put out some
interesting material before turning into parodies of themselves (Mercyful
Fate/King Diamond, Venom), or eventually merging into indistinguishability
(Slayer, Sodom, Kreator, Death Angel, Destruction, Bathory, etc.) A few of
these bands even managed to continue moving in interesting directions after
good to excellent starts, whether successfully (Voivod) or not (Anthrax,
Hellhammer/Celtic Frost). All IMHO of course.

I will readily admit that a lot of this stuff was pretty much of its time,
and really doesn't hold up well after all these years, but my point is that
there was definitley an anti-MTV underground scene, you just had to look for
it, and maybe you didn't like it when you found it.

By the last third of the 80s, stagnation had pretty much settled in, but
then the industrial genre reached critical mass and began spewing forth a
great many interesting new bands, as well as all sorts of
experimental/ambient/noise offshoots, which to this day continue to feed
interesting music and concepts into the space genre - thats a more
interesting and relevant topic to explore, but I think its about time to end
this nostalgia trip.

Now I've got a hankering for some Blessed Death ... Kill or be Killed!

Stephan