•
Rating: "To play hardcore you don't need verses and choruses, you don't need solos, you don't need a damn thing!" Mike Watt
Let's start with a necessary premise: Mike Watt is God, Hardcore is his word, and The Decline of Western Civilization is the tangible proof of God's existence and of a precise historical moment when everything was done just because there was nothing better to do. Many, watching this video, will start to formulate whys... well, throw those whys down the toilet. This is man stripped of all superstructures, this is life saved from formalities... this is hardcore.
The Decline of Western Civilization, by Penelope Spheeris, documents the Hardcore scene in the year of our Lord (Mike Watt) 1981 and the date is crucial: too early to evolve, too early for the pop-psych injections of Husker Du, too early for the paradoxical madness of the Minutemen, too early for Black Flag to create all the bands of Touch'n Go, but too late to not react and thus, a whirlwind of violence, an injection of life that transforms concerts into events rather than mere sound setups.
The pre-Rollins Black Flag appear before you... the Germs and the crazed eyes of Darby Crash intent on cooking himself an egg'n bacon... the X with one foot in tradition and the other in 1981 tattooing themselves... the Circle Jerks reminding us they're decent, calm, disciplined people (as evidenced by the titles of their songs: Wasted; I Just Want Some Skank) who love to play the game of kicking the heads off spectators in the front row... the Fear of that damned misogynist Nazi Lee Ving breaking the fourth wall (as if they were Brecht) by spitting on the audience only after properly insulting them and before beating them up.
Simple stuff, essential stuff, stuff that becomes life, stuff that is life. I'd like to conclude better, I'd like you to say this rockumentary is cool, but this isn't music. It's more a faithful reproduction of what man is in all its aspects. A somewhat grotesque sculpture, certainly not beautiful, but fundamental, important. This is The Decline of Western Civilization and so I remain silent for things greater than myself... I just observe and get drunk while humming Rise Above to the moon and let those who've understood man speak:
"Don’t speculate on great things! For an asshole, that's the best!..." Louis-Ferdinand Céline
Loading comments slowly
