Customer Reviews

Going Underground: American Punk, 1979-1992

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One of the more notable things about this book, that I don't think many people realize, is that it is a 100% DIY product. I got to know the author, George Hurchalla a little bit after he contacted me, wanting to use some of my photos in the book. George spent six years of his life researching, interviewing, writing, re-writing, editing and designing this book. Then he put up his own money to have it published. He doesn't just talk the talk... He walks the walk.

George felt that too much history was being repeated by the same few "usual suspects." He felt that lesser known participants should have their say. He wanted to introduce his readers to the smaller, lessor known scenes of the U.S.. It didn't all happen in just L.A., N.Y., D.C. and Boston, ya know. As George says, "Since punk rock was meant to be an anti-hero movement, it's a tragedy to let the winners write the history of it, and to make counter-culture heroes of people who were never meant to be anything more than inspirational peers."

This book is an exhaustive history of the punk/hardcore scene from the period of 1979 - 1992. George chose the time-frame arbitrarily. He felt that there was already a tremendous amount of history recorded about the first wave of punk from 1976 - 1980 and his ending at 1992 marks when he dropped out of the scene. "Going Underground" chronicles the rise of the punk/hardcore movement from the perspective of George's discovery of the music via his older, college-aged, brother. George was in high school when his brother brought home a Sex Pistols record. Bored with the standard, classic rock fare that was common in 1980, this music lit a fire in him. There's a great quote by Karen Allman of the Tucson band, Conflict, regarding her own intro to the Pistols that kinda says it all, "That's horrible! Play it again!"

George's personal narrative, combined with quoted stories from band members and scenesters weaves a fascinating account of the era. There is a tremendous amount of detail dedicated to the accounts from lessor known areas, such as my own mid-western area. I finally feel like my own hometown scene in Chicago has been more accurately represented, exposing us as a city with much more going on than merely the infamous Effigies/AoF feud. As the book states, many of us locals felt that the "personality conflict" between the two bands got too much attention at the expense of everything else that went on in our scene. Finally, finally, the stories of the lessor known bands are told. Finally, the voices of the average participants are heard.

Especially poignant was an account by Austin photographer, Geoff Cordner, regarding the misfit status of which most of us felt we belonged to:

"We were gathered out back in the alley after some kind of punk/new wave performance art thing - this was back before anyone made a distinction between punk and new wave. Everyone was drinking beer and nobody was saying very much because we were all a profoundly uncomfortable bunch - that was our common ground, it seemed - punk as a gathering of angry losers and rejects who, without sufficient beer in our systems, remained too uncomfortable with ourselves to really be comfortable with each other. It was a powerful thing just knowing there were others as f*ck*d up as you."

We came together and built our fledgling punk scenes for many differing reasons, but the one thing we all had in common was our dissatisfaction with the status quo. If the mainstream society wouldn't accept us, no problem, we created our own underground society. We wanted to break away from the old tried and true norms of just about everything we encountered. Our motivation was powerful, as George says, "Knowing that no one would ever put out our records for us, no managers would set up tours for us, no clubs would open their doors to us, no radio stations would play our music, and that situation would only get worse, a generation of punks took the steps necessary to have our voices heard the best we could."

I highly recommend this book, it's truly a great read. If you were a punk back then-- every page turn will bring you back into some memory. If you are a current punk- this is an accurate account of the times, a highly informative piece on the genre. It's a chronicle of punk history written FOR THE PUNKS, BY A PUNK. A true DIY project, so be sure to support the effort and buy this wonderful book!

Music is inextricably linked with autobiography. There are albums you love, not for the songs per se, but for the fact that the minute that first note hits the speaker, you're for a moment 16 again.

In "Going Underground", Hurchalla doesn't shy away from placing his own life front and center. The book isn't a band history, ala "Our Band Could Be Your Life", though it's full of fantastic quotes, stories and interviews from dozens of incredibly bands. The Big Boys, Naked Raygun, Articles of Faith, the Dead Milkmen, Scrawl, Minus Man, and hundreds of others fill every page.
It's not a taste of the indie gossip-mill, ala "Hardcore: a Tribal History", either. In total, it's a history of scenes, often focusing on those scenes you never heard of, like Lawrence, Kansas or Des Moins, Iowa. It's a history of punk and hardcore based on the people who made these scenes possible: fans, zine writers, musicians, club owners.

Above all, though, it's about Hurchalla himself. His journey through the hardcore scene is so full of awe and wonder and joy that the whole book comes alive in his stories. He jumps from reportage and interviews to short personal stories, nervy and quick like a Wire tune, that never fail to electrify.

In the end, like Azzerand's book, "Going Underground" reveals that this scene which, from the outside often seemed just angry and violent, was built on and held together by the love that these people had.

Plus, there's no way to have a bad book with the Randy Biscuits on the cover.

This is the first book I have ever read by author George Hurchalla but if it is any indication of his writing skills and knowledge of the topics he covers then he has a bright future ahead of him in publishing.Going Underground is the rarely told (and often inaccurately I might add) story of the early US underground
hardcore punk music scene. Author Hurchalla not only talks
about his own experiences within this time period but also includes those of numerous other people who had been involved,and Hurchalla makes it a point to not just interview the same old people who have been quoted a million times before.The book is also filled with many never before seen photos of the era as well.What really made Hurchalla's writing special is the way he knows and understands his subject yet never comes off as another stuffy know it all "expert".This book is for anyone interested
in this music scene and will appeal to both the scene veterans
and the complete novices.I cannot recommend this book enough.

Staring at you with a middle finger salute from the cover of this book is Big Boys frontman "Biscuit." Letting you know immediately that this book isn't another myopic volume of punk/hc history, but the most thorough book yet published on this corner of music.

Inside you get detailed writing covering the rise of punk and hardcore in North America with deserved attention paid to the Midwest, Canada and less cosmopolitan scenes where punks had to struggle twice as hard as their big city peers to make it happen.

Of course you still get all the heavy hitters from the coasts but you also get great coverage of bands like Zero Boys, Die Kreuzen, Husker Du, etc. not to mention all of the crucial Texas bands like Big Boys, Dicks, Really Red, MDC, DRI, and on and on.

Hurchalla shows punk and hardcore as it really was in the US and Canada; a thriving underground network of kids and bands all across the country. This is by far the best starting point for anyone interested in punk and hardcore, no other book comes close. And like a true punk Hurchalla published this through a tiny independent without the help of corporate cash like Sony or MTV as some other books have done.

This is without a doubt one of the best works of non-fiction Ive ever read, and I read alot of non-fiction. Any fan of the American hardcore scene will find this book not only informative, but highly entertaining. Hurchalla does a great job covering the national scene as a whole. So many books about the subject only cover the larger scenes in LA, New York, DC etc...but in this one you finally get to read about the scenes in places like Philidelphia, Texas, Cincinatti and Vancouver. I was afraid the author would concentrate alot of info on the places he was familiar with (Florida and Pennsylvania) but he really did his research and covered the nation as a whole. I didnt expect to read anything about the areas Im most familiar with-Detroit and Columbus OH, so I was very pleased to see bands like the Necros and Scrawl covered extensively. If youre sitting on the fence about this book, by all means, buy it! You wont be dissapointed.