Meet Jack Grisham from T.S.O.L.

This is Jack Grisham from TSOL (True Sounds of Liberty), an American Hardcore band. If I seemed a little bit patronizing in the last blog post I wrote, it’s only because I had just viewed the 2006 documentary American Hardcore and had just watched this guy recall this conversation between himself and the bouncer at a hardcore gig in the early 80s:

Bouncer: Why should I let you in?

Jack Grisham: Well, cos I have a bomb. I’ve got two. You can have one if you let me in.

Bouncer: How do I even know it’s gonna work?

Jack Grisham: Okay, well, watch.

At which point Jack Grisham describes (with glee) the following:

“And I go down the street and took one them and put it against this garage door, and lit it, and just blew this fucking garage door off”.

Jack Grisham also wanted to add one more point to wrap up this story:

“And me being a violent, robbing, gravedigging rapist was part of my world. And that was like, ‘well, this is what we do, man. Yeah that chick passed out and I pissed in her face. What? So what?’”

Thinking that Jack Grisham might well be the biggest tool in the US, I looked him up on Wikipedia. It said this:

“Known for his matinee idol looks, intelligent lyrics and wild comic antics onstage, Grisham transcended the genre of punk, becoming the unlikely musical progeny of Jim Morrison, Sid Vicious and Frank Sinatra.”

Which really made me hope that his wild comic antics extended to Wikipedia entries.

But what Jack Grisham really got me thinking about was the role of women in Hardcore. If raping and pissing on chicks makes you tough and cool, then what chance did women stand to make a dent on the scene? I’ve been reading a book called American Hardcore: A Tribal History by Steven Blush, in which he interviews a lot of ground zero participants in the scene. The book has a very interesting chapter on the presence (or lack thereof) of women in Hardcore:

“Most Hardcore chicks rejected femininity. Their ideal was the tomboy – in contrast to the big-haired bitches you’d find sucking dick backstage at Metal concerts. The truth is, few gorgeous women participated in Hardcore – most of them were nasty ugly trolls.” (page 35)

Jeez Louise. Way to talk about women, Mr Blush. The few women that Blush did interview generally agreed that Hardcore was a boys club. Most recognized serious homo-eroticism in the scene, especially with all the sweaty, half-naked slam dancing that went on. The violence of the mosh-pit was especially exclusionary to women. A few of the women that Blush interviewed recognized that sex played a huge part of how to get accepted if you were female:

“Women weren’t welcome in the mosh pit… The only thing you could really offer was sex. It pissed me off that I had to do it, but I was also grateful for it ‘cause I got in there in a good way” (Laura Albert NYHC scene page 34)

It’s all kind of a bit disappointing to me on a personal level, I guess. The skank/tomboy dichotomy is far too common, always restrictive and way too simplistic . But I guess simplicicity and directness was something that was valued by the confused, very often drug-addled kids involved in the scene. I want to be politically correct and say that women were involved in this or that aspect of the scene. But it wouldn’t be true. I guess their marked absence says even more about the macho nature of Hardcore.


American Hardcore is a documentary released in 2006 directed by Paul Rachman and written by Steven Blush. It details the history of American punk rock from 1980 – 1986.

American Hardcore: A Tribal History is a book written by Steven Blush and edited and designed by George Petros. It was published in 2001 by Feral House, LA.

I did some very serious research on Wikipedia.org where I got some quotes for this post and the photo of Jack Grisham.