Hardcore Fanzines

(These aren’t from fanzines, they’re posters for shows. But I think they illustrate pretty well the aesthetic of the fanzine. There was a lot of cut and paste, photocopying and ‘silly’, sometimes offensive drawings. I got both of these posters from the Flipside memorial website -http://flipsidefanzine.com/Framespage.html)

Okay, one last post before time is up. In the early 80s, fan activity such as organizing shows and creating fanzines and artwork to accompany the bands and their music was an integral part of the Hardcore scene. This do-it-yourself ethic was another way to rage against the fabric of commercial and conservative society.

Jack Rabid, editor of The Big Takeover has this to say about the philosophy that informed the fanzine culture in Hardcore:

“I was expected to get involved… everybody I met was doing something. Not all of it was music, a point that is often missed. Even those who were somewhat talentless were inspired to develop one. I hadn’t written a scrap… It wasn’t like I was a pioneer, I just had the same idea everybody else had – to find a Xerox machine in my town, write up things, and give it away at gigs” (in Blush 275)

Fanzines were so important to the subculture in the 80s that it’s only natural that the phenomenon has now gone online. I think that this is an important development in Hardcore because the DIY ethic and reliance on fans to spread the word meant that often scenes remained localized. Local unity and loyalty were important aspects of Hardcore punk. Now that fanzines can easily be global via the internet, issues of authenticity are raised and the unity of the global scene always seems to be up for debate on the sites I’ve visited.

Speaking of a global scene, I found a fanzine called Distort that is written by a guy living in Victoria. You can see that the photocopied, tough look of the art and layout remains a key component of modern Hardcore zines:

(Covers of issues #7 & #13 from http://culthardcore.org/distort/back-issues.php)

His foray into publishing began as “shitty one / two page fliers I'd put together with a print run of 20 to send with mixtapes to friends isolated in shitholes like Canberra”. Which is Hardcore values to a T. His website is set up with a news section, a forum and a contact page. To get an actual copy of the zine, you have to email him and get a subscription. This seems pretty typical content for stuff about Hardcore online.

There are some zines that exist solely online. There seems to be a lot of Hardcore fans dedicated enough to make net content in France and Germany. Straight edge communities seem to be particularly tight online. Most zines I’ve come across have a community forum you have to become a member of to comment on, and lots of links to photos of bands and feature articles and interviews.

Just as it was in the beginnings of Hardcore, it is important to the culture for everyone to get involved and demonstrate their dedication to the scene. You can write, take photos, draw shitty comic strips, whatever you can think of that contributes something to the music and mates you love, and transfers legitimacy through loyalty to your lifestyle choices.

Blush, Steven. American Hardcore: A Tribal History. Los Angeles: Feral House, 2001.

http://flipsidefanzine.com/Framespage.html accessed 28 May 2009.

http://culthardcore.org/distort/back-issues.php accessed 28 May 2009.

More stuff about women in Hardcore and a female orientated ‘straight edge’ website.

I was doing a Google search, trying to find some other blogs on Hardcore, when I stumbled across the book Pretty in Punk: Girls Gender Resistance in a Boys’ Subculture by Lauraine LeBlanc. Researching Hardcore I’ve been absolutely inundated with images of snarling, sweaty and very often bleeding young men. Being a woman, and knowing that women generally have interests beyond those that are stereotypically laid before them, I’m pretty curious about a book that’s going to shed some light on how girls get down with Hardcore, a subculture that seems monolithically masculine.

LeBlanc got involved in the punk scene in high school. Before she became a punk she describes being victimised for being a smart, dorky girl who wasn’t yet sexually active (LeBlanc 3). Of her decision to go punk, and the empowerment she felt accompanied the change, Leblanc says:


“I would have told you how I had gone from being a social outcast to being a core member of a marginal group, that it was no longer the case that the world was against me, but rather that I was against the world” (3).


My feeling is that this really sums up the inclusive appeal of punk music. The basic ideal of ‘us against them’ doesn’t (or shouldn’t) discriminate on the basis of gender. However, just as LeBlanc notes, just because the subculture maintains it is egalitarian as a whole, doesn’t mean that certain individuals aren’t happy to see women forced to the edge of the scene (6). I’ve talked on this blog before about how an oppositional front can reinforce the ideals of the dominant culture, and I think the seepage of mainstream stereotypes about sexuality into the Hardcore scene betrays this tendency.

LeBlanc also states that there was an unapproachable masculinity to the sound, sub-cultural activities and style of dress of Hardcore that was different to punk before it. The music was sped up, and lyrics were always aggressively shouted. Pogo dancing became slam dancing, a stylized expression of violence, and “girls were discouraged from entering the pit” (LeBlanc 51). LeBlanc also states that she thinks the “variety and play apparent in the early punk style of dress was lost” (52) during the ascendency of Hardcore because the style of participants was “decidedly harder-edged, masculine, creating a look that was basically “unisex” (male) as opposed to androgynous (a mix of male and female)” (52).

While I think that LeBlanc’s views are a result of her personal identification with earlier forms of punk culture than Hardcore, what she says about the look becoming masculine instead of androgynous is really interesting. Styles of dress are amongst the first indicators of gender in our social culture. That women in Hardcore had to conform to outwardly ‘masculine’ clothing and mannerisms to participate is a comment on the ‘with us, or against us’ mentality that, to me anyway, seems to pervade most aspects of the Hardcore scene.

After reading LeBlanc’s thoughts, I had to do some internet searching to find some perspectives from different women. I have to say that a lot of the stuff I found on the web was specifically related to a subculture within a subculture, straight edge. I guess that what straight edgers are all about is best summed up by Minor Threat, the band that first popularised the term and the philosophy:


(I)Don't smoke
Don't drink
Don't fuck
At least I can fucking think (“Out of Step” track 8)


Stay straight and use your head, basically. You can mark yourself as straight edge by wearing the mark ‘X’ on your person or clothing. I think it’s interesting that there seemed to be a lot of women involved in the straight edge scene online. Maybe taking the focus away from sex, and participant’s behaviour not being driven by drugs and alcohol, is appealing to women who loved the music and the oppositional nature of Hardcore but not the particular aggression that was focused towards differences between the sexes.

Anyway, I stumbled across xsisterhoodx.com – a straight edge and hardcore community. The site claims its mission is to create a balance and eliminate biases “which exist in today’s global scene”. The community also stands against “violence and elitism” and doesn’t “tolerate bigotry, racism, sexism, or discrimination in any form”. Which I reckon sounds like pretty good stuff. The site also admits in its mission statement that “too few hardcore/straight edge sites empower females let alone accept them as equals”. I found that a lot of the information and interviews on the site focused on men, which is unavoidable because more men are involved in making the music. But I think the featured musicians and scenesters have been chosen because their music and philosophies gel with the mission of the site, not because of their gender. The site had a lot of articles on it, under headings like straight edge, hardcore, feminism and politics.

I read Women in Hardcore…according to Miles Away, Sovereign Strength and Blood Stands Still on the site and some of the ideas about women expressed in the article were infuriatingly simplistic and judgemental. Apparently “no clit in the pit” is common to hear if you are female at a Hardcore show (Mendoza 1). One particular charmer is Danny Banura from the band “Blood Stands Still”, who is described as having “mixed feelings” (Mendoza 1) about girls in the scene:


“I think it’s good as long as they are not causing stupid drama. You come to a show for the music. Don’t come and start shit with your ex at the show. If you are standing close to the pit, don’t fucking cry when you get hit. And don’t go get your boyfriend to do something. That’s just drama. And the less of that at shows the better” (1)


He’s simply stated his problem (with bitches!) and he’s being direct, which reflects the musical and lyrical style of Hardcore. He’s maintaining the requisite tough attitude too… Or he could just be a bit simple. Girls cry and have boy-troubles, men have ‘real’ issues and no-one understands except other sweaty dudes in a pit. It’s too much like Fight Club (for dummies). After reading about women in the scene it’s hard for me to understand their persistence because I’m not absolutely enamoured with the music (although I definitely don’t mind some of it). I personally can’t imagine putting up with a scene where really bullshit attitudes are pervasive. Well, each to their own I guess.


Kelly. “About xsisterhoodx”. xsisterhoodx.com. 7 February 2007. 25 May 2009 http://www.xsisterhoodx.com/about/about-xsisterhoodx.html

LeBlanc, Lauraine. Pretty in Punk: Girls Gender Resistance in a Boys’ Subculture. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1999. 25 May 2009 http://books.google.com.au/books?id=m8Lz1S9v4d8C&pg=PA52&lpg=PA52&dq=hardcore+punk+lauraine+leblanc&source=bl&ots=kUohhHHPey&sig=YECDMUXFNHWaac-bkaq1zW7wPxc&hl=en&ei=qiEaSrLoO5iGkQWn7dj4DA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4

MacKaye, Ian. “Out of Step.” Minor Threat. CD. Dischord, B000000JNK, 1984.

Mendoza, Brittany. “Women in Hardcore…according to Miles Away, Sovereign Strength, and Blood Stands Still”. xsisterhoodx.com. 24 November 2008. 28 May 2009 <>

Things that are oppositional for the sake of being oppositional annoy me!

I’ve been reading some journal articles and whatnot for my major assignment – not just on hardcore, but other stuff too – and have reached the conclusion that things that are oppositional generally annoy the hell out of me. This isn’t to say that I think there’s no value in sub-cultural activity or the music people make ‘underground’, or that ‘mainstream’ stuff is particularly great (there’s a lot shoved in my face that inspires violent thoughts, if not actions). Dismissing something because it’s a part of the dominant culture and you’ve definitively rejected following the cultural pied piper to your squirmy, festering death, means you could be missing out on some good stuff (in my opinion).

Watching the film American Hardcore, my idea about being oppositional because it makes you feel different and special being really quite juvenile was crystallised. Keith Morris (vocalist for Black Flag pre-Henry Rollins, vocalist for the Circle Jerks) was describing what being involved in the Hardcore scene meant for him:

“I’m working Monday through Friday and here come Friday night and I’m just going to go off. I hate my boss, I hate the people that I work with, I hate my parents, I hate all these authorative figures. I hate politicians, the people in government. I hate the police. You know, everybody’s kinda pointing the finger at me, everybody’s poking at me. And now I have a chance to be with a bunch of my own type of people, and I have a chance to go off. And that’s basically what it was. (Makes bomb dropping noise and gesture)”

EVERYBODY pisses this guy off. But it seems to me that there’s no willingness to change anything about the social and political structures that are making him so angry. The point is to rage, rage against anything that is restricting you. I think it becomes so that you need things to disagree with to cement your sense of personal identity. By solidifying opposition, you necessarily end up solidifying the dominant culture and its ideologies. The cultural paradigm remains un-shifted.

Henry Rollins has said that Hardcore is as American as “fake wars, apple pie and baseball” (in the film Punk: Attitude). Maybe initially this quote seems a little strange, given that Hardcore (and punk in general) prides itself on its sub-cultural status. Some academics interested in Hardcore scenes agree with what Rollins is saying. For example:

“Still, the most evident source for punk’s definition of individualism is classical liberalism’s defense of the sovereign individual: no person or institution has the right to determine what you can say, feel, or do as long as you do not inhibit another person’s freedom. This idea is one of the most prevalent threads running through American literature and culture” (Treber 39).

Even people (the clever ones, anyway) who are involved in Hardcore scenes can recognise that Hardcore directly relates to the dominant culture, rather than exists parallel to it. Hardcore “repeats the ideological patterns of the dominant culture by privileging the importance of the self and self-interest” (Treber 40). Not only are liberal ideologies reinforced, but the punk glorification of poverty, drug use, violence and sex reaffirms negative stereotypes that the ‘mainstream’ culture holds as a means of differentiating from it (Treber 31).

I’m getting the feeling that I’m looking way too far into what amounts to simply a good way to get messy, noisy and loose for a lot of people. That’s the cultural studies bag, I guess. Personally, I find it really interesting that people can ‘find themselves’ within a culture that seems, from the outside, to be obnoxiously simplistic and aggressive (yeah, Fuck Authority!). What I’m trying to get at with all this ideological/oppositional/paradigm talk is that punk or Hardcore doesn’t exist without the rest of us squares and our normal little lives.

Therefore, attempts at subversion are futile! Wake up – you are nothing but a product of your dominant culture!

American Hardcore. Dir. Paul Rachman. 2006. YouTube. Web. 15 April 2009.

Punk: Attitude. Dir. Don Letts. 200. YouTube. Web. 15 April 2009.

Traber, Daniel S. “LA’s “White Minority”: Punk and the Contradictions of Self-Marginalization.” Cultural Critique 48 (2001): 30-64. JSTOR. Web. 30 April 2009.