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WE GOT POWER! Hardcore Punk Scenes From 1980s Southern California

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  • WE GOT POWER! Hardcore Punk Scenes From 1980s Southern California

    Just got this press release, figured I'd pass it along because it looks fucking awesome.

    WE GOT POWER!

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    Hardcore Punk Scenes From 1980s Southern California, by David Markey and Jordan Schwartz

    Available for Pre-order Now HERE for October 5, 2012 shipping.

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    Social Distortion playing a friend's kitchen in Silver Lake in 82. That show was remarkable as despite the fact it was in an apartment, somehow the police didn't bust it up. I guess the neighbors were just extremely tolerant. Mike Ness seems to be nodding out in this shot. He had stitches in his mouth from some sort of fight or accident.
    In 1979, punk was over... but by 1981, hardcore was born.

    As teenagers in 1981, David Markey and his best friend Jordan Schwartz founded We Got Power, a fanzine dedicated to the first-generation hardcore punk music community in their native Los Angeles. Their text and cameras captured the early punk spirit of Black Flag, 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, Firehose, and many others at the height of their precocious punk powers.

    In the process, the duo's amazing photographs also captured the dilapidated suburbs, abandoned storefronts, and dereliction of the early Reagan era-a rubble-strewn social apocalypse that demanded a youth uprising! Never before seen except in crude fanzine form, these detailed and richly narrative photos are now collected to present an intimate portrayal of a uniquely fertile creative moment.

    DETAILS:

    -SBN 978-1-935950-07-3
    -Deluxe 304pp large-format hardcover featuring essays by David Markey, Jordan Schwartz, Jennifer Schwartz, Henry Rollins, Keith Morris, Chuck Dukowski, Dez Cadena, Louiche Mayorga, Cameron Jamie, Pat Fear, Steve Humann, Tony Adolescent, Jack Brewer, Jula Bell, Mike Watt, Sean Wheeler, Joe Carducci, Daniel "Shredder" Weizmann, and Janet Housden.
    -Presenting nearly 400 first-generation L.A. hardcore punk photographs
    -Including complete color reprints of We Got Power fanzine 1981-1983 and beyond.
    -Dimensions: 12" x 9" (30.5 cm x 23 cm); 4 lbs. (2.5kg)

    PRESS QUOTES:

    "Essential reading... the funniest of the local mags"-Matt Groening, 1983

    "Celebrating the hardcore punk scene of 1980s Southern California... a new book by zine gods David Markey and Jordan Schwartz"-LA Weekly

    "Stunning and beautiful"-AP

    "A yearbook for SoCal dropouts who changed the world."-Inked

    "The essays are sometimes anecdotal, sometimes reflective, but never maudlin. And photographs-nearly 400 of them, hard-boiled and loving simultaneously-capture the decrepit L.A. landscape and its wasted youth"-LA Record

    "A nostalgic trip through the past for those who lived it, but an anthropological case study of a lesser-known subculture, and quite simply, a work of art"-The Los Angeles Beat

    "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..."-Chuck Dukowski

    ABOUT THE AUTHORS:

    David Markey was born December 3, 1963, in Burbank, CA. He made his first film at the age of 11 and published a neighborhood newspaper at 12. In 1980, he became involved in the local underground music scene. He helped form Sin 34 in 1981, and captured the punk scene in the Super 8 film The Slog Movie. Markey was a part of We Got Power magazine from 1981 to 1983, then kept the name alive through his We Got Power Films. He cowrote and directed Desperate Teenage Lovedolls in 1984. He photographed, edited, cowrote, and directed Lovedolls Superstar in 1986. Also that year, his band Painted Willie toured with Black Flag for six months, a period depicted in his film Reality 86'd. Markey has directed music videos for Meat Puppets, fIREHOSE, Shonen Knife, Mudhoney, and Pat Smear, and collaborated with visual artists Cameron Jamie, Raymond Pettibon, and Kim Gordon.

    Jordan Schwartz met David Markey while skateboarding in a flooded Santa Monica parking garage in 1979. As they discovered the growing Los Angeles hardcore punk rock scene, Jordan teamed up with David, his sister, Jennifer, and Alan Gilbert to found We Got Power magazine. Jordan contributed in many roles, including that of staff photographer. Jordan had producing and acting roles in Desperate Teenage Lovedolls and the sequel, Lovedolls Superstar, notably appearing as the rock star Brews Springstein. Jordan facilitated the release of three Black Flag skateboards featuring original artwork by Raymond Pettibon. In 1984, Jordan began working and living at SST Records' Global Network Agency booking gigs and tours for various high-profile bands on and off of the label during the pioneering years of the U.S. independent scene.

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    Word got out in the early 90s that the basement of the original Masque club was totally intact and untouched after all these years. So Dez Cadena and David Markey broke in and took a bunch of photos. "We felt like we were raiding King Tut's tomb-it was like an archaeological dig into LA punk history."
    Rock! Shock! Pop!

  • #2
    I've been following Dave and Jordan's progress on this one, and i'm stoked about it...need to get. That Masque Club film is awesome. Can you believe they closed it and did NOTHING with it??? What a waste.

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    • #3
      Got my copy last night. Bazillion Points have done their usual bang up job on the lay out and the quality of the book. Lots of awesome pictures here. I've only read Rollins' essay so far (it comes first, so yeah, that's how it works) but this book makes me happy. It'll look really nice on my shelf next to American Hardcore, Dirty Drunk & Punk and the Touch N Go tomes.
      Rock! Shock! Pop!

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      • #4
        I missed this thread when it was first posted. Now I need this. Thanks for the heads up!

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        • #5

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          • #6
            is the book more like American Hardcore, or more like a coffee table book? i hate to say it...I don't really need more picture books.

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            • #7
              It's a collection of essays running 5-10 pages each with a few pages of accompanying pictures for each essay, and then a complete reprint collection of the We Got Power zines from the 80s in full color. So it's not really a coffee table book, but it does have a lot of very cool pictures - just with plenty of words to go with them.
              Rock! Shock! Pop!

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              • #8
                I used to have a near-complete run of WGP mags (there were only four issues, maybe? I guess we'll find out!) before I sold 'em off, but the zine stands alone as kind of a teeny-bopper (in the coolest possible sense) take on the emerging L.A. HC scene, filtered through the Schwartz/Markey humor lens. I think I need this!

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                • #9
                  I think there were 5 and the 6th was started but never published. I'll check the book when I get home. Some of the interviews in the zine reprints are hilarious.
                  Rock! Shock! Pop!

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                  • #10
                    Absolutely, the Redd Kross one where they have to cut it short to run from the cops is great, some of the show reviews are hilarious too. Also, there was the WGP compilation on Mystic Records, all from cassette submissions, which was definitely a cornerstone of my '83-'84 playlist!

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                    • #11
                      FWIW, Markey's band Sin 34 is an all-time favorite of mine.

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                      • #12
                        Originally posted by Ian Miller View Post
                        Absolutely, the Redd Kross one where they have to cut it short to run from the cops is great, some of the show reviews are hilarious too. Also, there was the WGP compilation on Mystic Records, all from cassette submissions, which was definitely a cornerstone of my '83-'84 playlist!
                        Miller, you will never NOT impress me with your HC awesomeness.

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                        • #13
                          Thanks, Mark, right place, right time (though I always lamented that I didn't dig in just a couple of years sooner, but that's life), fun memories.

                          Speaking of right place, right time, I'll bet Marshall has some stories!

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                          • #14
                            Well, fire it up, Marshall!

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                            • #15
                              Originally posted by Ian Miller View Post
                              Speaking of right place, right time, I'll bet Marshall has some stories!
                              I could do some boring name-dropping. Went to see a Henry Rollins spoken word gig one time with Jordan Schwartz and his girlfriend. I guess that makes me pretty awesome. Also, that pick of the cops lined up at the Palladium on the cover of Rollins' book GET IN THE VAN was a show that I attended. The Minutemen and the Ramones also played. You guys have all heard the Rollin's ballsac story, right?

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