Burning Fight: The Nineties Hardcore Revolution in Ethics, Politics, Spirit and Sound
by Brian Peterson
Revelation Records Publishing / $18.00 US (list)
[Amazon] [Revelation Records]

The terms “punk rock” and “hardcore punk” bring to mind a variety of images and stereotypes for “insiders” and “outsiders” alike. Cliches abound when the question of “what punk rock is” or “was” is raised, even in accounts written by those who have been key actors in punk rock. This is problematic because the movement has included countless offshoots and submovements, many of which were and continue to be contradictory and in conflict with one another.

An especially troubling viewpoint parroted in histories of punk and hardcore is the pinpointing of an early, and often arbitrary, “demise” for the genre, usually the early- or mid-1980s. The documentary American Hardcore, is a good example of this tendency. Most of the hardcore “heroes” interviewed in the film place the supposed “death” of punk in the mid-1980s, only to be followed by “pop” punk bands like Green Day and flavor-of-the-month emo bands.

These features of the dominant “punk narrative” obscure the fact that hardcore punk never stopped and in fact became arguably much more interesting, diverse, and contested, especially throughout the 1990s. Brian Peterson’s mammoth book Burning Fight: The Nineties Hardcore Revolution in Ethics, Politics, Spirit, and Sound is the first account of this decade in hardcore punk, a decade overlooked or deliberately ignored in most previous accounts.

Two features will immediately strike readers about this book. First, the thing is 500 pages long written in a tiny font. The second is the book’s unique format: the book’s account of ’90s hardcore punk is made up primarily of words from band members, promoters, and journalists themselves, looking back on the period and offering their recollections in a series of interviews conducted by Peterson. Upon receiving my review copy and flipping through its contents, I knew this was going to be a special read.

The book’s subtitle suggests the foci through which Peterson organizes the era’s narratives. After an introduction setting the musical, political and cultural context for the various expressions of ’90s hardcore, Peterson presents four chapters probing unique dimensions of this era of punk, again mostly in the words of scene participants themselves. Chapter one discusses the socio-political dimension, including punk’s “D.I.Y.” (do-it-yourself) approach to politics, and the various scenes’ wrestling with issues of race, gender and sexuality. Chapters two and three focus specifically to the issues of “straight edge” (a controversial punk movement in favor of abstaining from drugs and alcohol) and animal rights respectively, issues that truly permeated hardcore punk in this period.

Chapter four, a chapter likely to be of special interest to Rock and Theology readers, is devoted to religion and spirituality. This is the foci that would perhaps come as a surprise to most observers of punk rock. Although some of the interviewees maintain punk’s traditional stance of “f–k religion,” the vast majority of them describe the period as one in which countless bands and fans found in hardcore a context for experimentation with different approaches to religion and spirituality. Although the intersection of religion and punk was not new, as bands like Bad Brains and Cro-Mags had sung and spoken openly about religion in earlier waves of punk, the nineties was a period in which interest in so-called “alternative” religions truly exploded in hardcore. Many in this period were drawn to the “Eastern” religions: for example, a vibrant but controversial “Krishna-core” community emerged in the early- to mid-’90s centering around bands such as Shelter and 108 and labels such as Equal Vision Records. Christian (conservative Evangelical as well as liberation theology-inspired movements) and Muslim hardcore communities developed too, and showgoers could not escape the feeling that concerts were becoming fora for interfaith discussion, sharing, and even worship!

Shelter - Freewill

Of course many punks found all of this to be profoundly alienating and infuriating. But for others, it provided an alternative community for the exploration of new ideas, philosophies, and spiritualities, especially those that were able to intersect with the equally important dimensions of politics, ethics, and independent cultural production. But Peterson’s interviewees, in looking back on the period, are careful not to romanticize. While some have positive recollections of these religious irruptions within punk and found the experience of experimentation and dialogue life-changing, others raise up for examination divisive, fundamentalistic, and even cultish tendencies in ’90s hardcore.

There is clearly much material here for reflection on punk rock and religion, material that, again, is much neglected in the literature on punk. But what is perhaps more striking about this project is not its exploration of punk rock and religion but of punk rock as religion. In reading these oral histories, one picks up on the recurring view that hardcore punk not only “interacted with” religious and political movements, but was itself seen by its participants as a kind of religiosity itself. As Peterson writes in his intro to the chapter on spirituality:

Every form of music comes from within, but the passion displayed at a hardcore show can be similar to what is seen at a religious ritual. At nearly every hardcore show, bands play their songs with the utmost intensity, singers testify to an issue that is close to their hearts, and fans struggle to reach the stage in an effort to be a part of the experience. To many, hardcore is a religion — it can have its own values and belief systems (e.g. straight edge, vegetarianism/veganism, D.I.Y.), classic texts (e.g. records, zines) and leaders (e.g. band members, zine writers, show promoters) who speak their minds and sometimes find themselves wrapped in controversy. (p. 109)

Likewise, Kent McClard, founder of Ebullition Records, says

There is no doubt that spirituality belongs in hardcore. Hardcore is spiritual. I’m an atheist, but I can understand what draws people to the scene and to religion as well. When I started going to shows in the eighties there was this communal energy of these people who were all having fun and were angry and we were defining ourselves by being different. It was almost a religious feeling. The best shows I went to were when there was this sense that everyone in the room had some commonality and it was important. And that’s a religious experience. (p. 135)

Inside Out - No Spiritual Surrender

The fifth “chapter,” more of a “section” really, is the bulk of the book, and it is made up of interviews with about thirty bands from this period, exploring the dimensions of politics, ethics, spirituality, and sound as expressed in the particularities of each band and in various scenes. The featured bands span diverse scenes both stylistically and geographically, including well-known acts such as 108, Avail, Earth Crisis, Endpoint, Inside Out (Zach De La Rocha’s band pre-Rage Against the Machine), Shelter, Split Lip/Chamberlain, and Texas is the Reason, as well as lesser known bands (at least to me) such as Spitboy and Racetraitor. Especially fascinating are the interviews with controversial bands like the “hardline” band Vegan Reich. While the preceding four chapters are helpful entrees into the issues and dimensions of ’90s hardcore punk, it is in these oral histories that the diversity and creativity of the period comes to life. And it is here that Peterson’s work really shines as he highlights a remarkable representative sample of bands, drawing out their unique character and insights from their careers. Each interview contributes considerable detail to the overall picture of this decade in punk rock.

My complaints about the book are few. First, while a book like this will surely dissatisfy most everyone for the favorite bands that have been left out, I was struck by the limited presence of D.C. band Fugazi in its accounts. Ian MacKaye is usually featured in books and documentaries on punk rock for his role in the band Minor Threat (1980-83). But his voice in narratives such as American Hardcore is somewhat obscured by the figures, bands and movements that Minor Threat and MacKaye were reacting against, and he frequently appears as a marginal figure with unusual views, particularly on musical ethics. On the other hand, his later band Fugazi who were active throughout the ’90s, were a band who were profoundly influential on most of the bands featured in the book, and rather than being a marginal figure with views outside of the punk “mainstream,” MacKaye was truly something of a patron saint to ’90s hardcore even while making music alongside the bands of this period. While MacKaye was interviewed for the book, and is featured briefly in early chapters, I would have liked to have heard much more from him here, especially in the context of a book on hardcore in the nineties.

Fugazi - Turnover

My second criticism is in regard to the choice to include mostly the voices of band members in the account of ’90s hardcore and to exclude of the voice of fans. As interesting and crucial as the interviews are, the voice of fans would have contributed another important dimension, especially for the narration of a genre that has self-consciously attempted to break down the barrier between the bands and the fans. The voice of fans could also have opened up more space for reflection on how hardcore punk has influenced countless people to “stay punk” in their daily lives, in their career choices, lifestyles, etc.

Third, and finally, although the interviewee-looking-back approach makes for fascinating reading, I had hoped to see more material drawing from resources of the times, such as zines. The reflections generated from band members’ memories are interesting in that time has provided space for them to reflect from a distance on their experiences. But throughout the interviews, I wondered to what degree I was reading a bit of revisionism, especially in the cases of more controversial acts such as Earth Crisis and Vegan Reich. Band perspectives from the period under review, coupled with the bands’ current perspectives, would have provided a richer account.

Split Lip - Anthem Boy

But these complaints are truly minor ones, as overall I was truly impressed with and thankful for the work Peterson has done in giving this decade of hardcore punk its due. The presence of all of these voices and perspectives makes for reading that truly captures the diversity, energy, debates, and controversies of the times, complicating the dominant “punk rock” narrative and challenging stereotypes in which apathy, drug-induced self-destruction, and atheism have been prominent features. Most importantly, the book puts to rest the myth that punk “died” in the early 1980s. Punk continued, evolved and fragmented into countless related communities and movements. And it continues in still more varieties today. As Roger Sabin rightly observed in a recent collection on punk, “At a time when every new account of punk styles itself as ‘the last word,’ there has never been more to say.” Burning Fight is a significant and exciting contribution to the story, and an important resource for those interested in probing the complex relationship of (punk) rock and religion.

Michael Iafrate
Morgantown, West Virginia

No Comments »

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Leave a comment

Name (required)

Mail (will not be published) (required)

Website