xXx Fanzine Book Pre-Zine

BONUS:

7” FLEXI

COVERING CRUCIFIX / AGNOSTIC FRONT

LIMITED EDITION COMPILATION LP This 19 band compilation is included as a digital download with each copy of the 288 page book ‘‘xXx Fanzine (1983-88) Hardcore & Punk in the ‘80s’’. Featuring current bands covering classics from the original pages of xXx, there will be a limited quantity available on LP vinyl.

ILLUSTRATION: STRIFE cover VOID, H2O cover DAG NASTY, FU MANCHU cover CIRCLE JERKS + 16 more!

BRIAN WALSBY

THE MISFITS

LIVE AT FIRST CAMBRIDGE CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH

PHOTO: CLAIRE SUTHERLAND

(1982)

@xXxFanzine

Just keep it raw. That’s been the credo from the start. Don’t phone it in. Take those 80’s aviator shades off and don’t embellish or homogenize how great or how shitty those days were. Just tell the tale of a bunch of kids all over America.. shit, all over the world...that were reaching out and having their say. That was the mission of the great American hardcore punk fanzine. And it was in those inksmudged pages of great back-in-the-day zines like Flipside, Suburban Voice or Forced Exposure that I was struck by the lightning-bolt of inspiration that got me off my tuchus to start this thing called xXx Fanzine.

Boston: 1983. Talk about a moment in musical history. Catching the end of hardcore’s first generation, seeing the likes of Minor Threat, The Misfits or Void bid fond adieu to the crew was nothing short of inspirational. It was also the era when likes of Black Flag, Scream or SS Decontrol slowed down to show the world how they rocked, inspiring the likes of the Melvins, Neurosis and bands who would go on to leave a bruise on the mainstream.

Let’s face it, harcore punk was the creative and cultural gottendammerung that rivals any movement in the history of all things left of the dial. You still couldn’t have asked for a more perfect storm of

attitude, ambition and inspiration to come of age in. Punk was becoming a lot more than a three-chords-or-nuthin’ affair and xXx was there to document it.

Luckily, we had some pretty great lenswork via the likes of Bruce Rhodes, JJ Gonson and Paul Johnson (to name a few) that separated us from the countless zines where pictures were little more than black blobs, The writing was passable and the layouts were slightly sharper than most - all laid out in cut-and-paste, shrunken typeface glory. Now the fact that xXx’s 20 issue legacy has endured enough to warrant an upcoming 288 page book via the good folks at Bridge Nine is kinda a head-fuck, but hey, I’m stoked to see it take shape as we lean into the late 2017 release of a beast of a book, xXx Fanzine: Punk and Hardcore in the Eighties.

So with my partner-in-crime, editor, layout dude and general heavy-lifter on this project, Bridge Nine Records chief, Chris Wrenn, we figured we’d give y’all a little sneak preview of the book in the form of this 24 page zine. So, in addition to reprinting a few original pages that appear in the book (and actually, a few things we couldn’t cram in!), we included a flexi-disc of SoCal power-violence obsessed hardcore heavies, Nomads covering both Crucifix’s “How, When, Where” and

WRITTEN BY

MIKE GITTER EDITED BY

CHRIS WRENN Agnostic Front’s “The Eliminator” (remember that classic CBGB’s “Punx N’ Skins” flyer?).

That 2:08 of ungainly earslaughter comes from the book’s accompanying compilation of 19 current bands covering 80’s era punk and HC nuggets, Still Having Their Say. Get ready to hear the likes of Strife take on Void, letlive roar through Black Flag’s “Fix Me”, even the great Voivod paying homage to Die Kreuzen. What’s even cooler is you get it free with every book via download (and also available on a limited vinyl 12”).

So enjoy this quick blast through xXx. It’s literally just a taste of the gig flyers, artwork, eyewitness action photos all tied together with both vintage and more recent, “then-and-now” interviews that make up the forthcoming book. It might be raw.

It might be naive. But, at least, it’s honest.

- Mike Gitter

COVER PHOTO: BRUCE RHODES

ORIGINALLY IN

ISSUE 14

1986

PAGE 4

PAGE 5

ORIGINALLY IN

ISSUE 13

CINDY MENDES

1985

PAGE 6

PAGE 7 CINDY MENDES

CINDY MENDES

LEGACY OF POWER:

Why did SSD break up?

Jamie Sciarappa: We were changing musically and it seemed like our audience was not really there anymore and weren’t into what we were doing. It seemed like it was time to end it. I don’t remember it being this conscious conversation where we said, “This is the end”. It just fizzled out. Quite honestly, the hardcore thing, for a lot of us, was over. A lot of other bands called it quits around the same point and a lot of people did look at that period in time as the end of hardcore in general. If we were considered a hardcore band, we went down with the best of them.

In the interview Al did for xXx, he said he wasn’t satisfied with where things were going.

Al wanted to bring it to the next level. Musically. Vocally. As far as Springa being a vocalist, he was a growler, which probably wasn’t what Al had in mind anymore.

Throughout the history of the band, we tried to push ourselves constantly and sometimes that didn’t always go over as well as we would have liked with our audience, Even when we added Francois as a lead guitarist, there were people who weren’t into that. Plus, a lot of us weren’t getting along at this point and had to call it quits.

It’s pretty well known that Al and Springa never really got along.

Al’s got a short fuse and doesn’t put up with a lot of bullshit, and Springa does nothing but create bullshit. I can remember back in ’83 when we were spending weeks upon weeks together in the van, I remember Al grabbing Springa by the neck at one time.

I would say in the four years we were together, it just about came to blows between them a few times. A couple times, l had to pull Al off of him. They got along, at best.

Still, that tension was probably a factor that made SSD a great live band.

A lot of people will say that was the fire that was in the belly of that band. I’d definitely say some of that anger came out in our performances. I never really thought the vinyl did us justice. You really had to see us live to really appreciate SSD. I can remember when we had shows coming up, just the constant practices. Being so focused on that show being great. And, for the most part, they were all pretty incredible shows.

Why? A lot of factors. Al and Springa’s relationship, for sure. It was also the tension

AN INTERVIEW WITH BASSIST

that was in room all of the time. You never knew what was going to happen. There were always problems with bouncers.

When we put on shows at American Legion halls, it always seemed like you never knew what was going to happen when 500 kids would show up and mayhem ensues. Are they going to pull the plug on us?

Let’s talk about SSD’s records. Get It Away is the hands-down classic. Do you agree?

That was the peak for the band. Everything was clicking. Musically, the whole scene was just so powerful. It was probably one of the best times of my life, being involved with something that was that important.

Get It Away is the best of all of them. Much more powerful than The Kids Will Have Their Say. Then again, that’s what we were always about. Making it more powerful. We slowed it down a little and it hit you in the chest that much harder.

On How We Rock, the music was a bit different for sure. It was slower, had more leads. I don’t think we were that thought out in terms of what we were doing or what we wanted to do. I think it was a matter of whatever would make us happy at the time.

Was your final album, the much maligned Break It Up, intended to be released while the band was still active? It ended up coming out after your final show in June 1985.

Yeah, it was. It was a bunch of stuff that we had written and recorded and we had every intention of putting it out. I think when we recorded it we were on the verge of breaking up and it came out after we had split up. Even when we recorded it, it wasn’t fun anymore and that comes through on the record.

What was the key to the SSD “sound”?

I gotta credit Al with that. He wrote most of the music. We arranged it all together, but he generally came in with chords and ideas that he had already worked out in his head. Maybe not musically sound or “correct” from a musical theory standpoint, but nonetheless, they were these super powerful riffs he’d come in with. They were all off-time and definitely not traditional, but that was probably the beauty of it. Al certainly had never taken any lessons or anything like that. None of us had. Chris Foley [SSD drummer] would eventually go to Berklee, but the rest of us were just a bunch of hacks! But that was the charm of it. Everyone and anyone could be in a band.

PAGE 8

JAMIE SCIARAPPA

What were your influences?

If you were to point to one band that was a huge influence on us, it would probably be AC/DC. Who’s more powerful than AC/ DC? Al was never into the British metal like Priest or Maiden. It was more AC/DC and Van Halen. Then, Discharge, U.K. Subs, the whole Black Flag thing, too.

We were excited about anything we could get our hands on. We were in Newbury Comics every Saturday morning listening to everything that was coming out. That Discharge single [“Decontrol”] was a huge influence on us. In fact, I remember when we first heard Springa, Al kinda dug his voice because he sounded like [Discharge singer] Cal.

How much touring did SSD do?

Very little. In 1983 we did a California tour.

We drove straight across the country.

Instead of like most bands playing shows all the way across, we bee-lined it straight for California where we played about eight or nine shows. I think we were there for two weeks total and then the van drove straight back. I ended up not going back with the van. I ended up staying in California with [D.Y.S. guitarist] Andy Strachan. We actually had a show in Reno we were supposed to play, but we ended up canceling it. As far touring goes, it was nothing major. It was usually one or two shows at a time.

We used to just shoot down to New York or down to D.C. It was usually just weekends.

We went up to Montreal once. Lansing Michigan. All of them were basically oneoffs.

Who were some of your favorite bands to play with?

Minor Threat. Those guys were always fun to hang around with. The Boston bands, of course. The guys in Negative Approach were really cool. Same with the Misfits, the Black Flag guys. Bad Brains. I loved playing with Minor Threat. I was such a huge fan of that band. We definitely had a connection with them.

What was SSD’s relationship with New York?

There was always that Boston rivalry thing for sure. We played New York a lot and people loved us there. There just weren’t a whole lot of bands from New York that we were really into. There were a few, here and there. The Bad Brains were our biggest draw to New York. The guys in Reagan Youth were real cool guys. I liked The Mob a lot. We played with Kraut once or twice.

Still, every time we went there, there was tension, but I think it had a lot to do with us wanting to make our presence known, that whole Boston Crew thing. We went there a

SPRINGA

What did being a straight edge band mean to SSD? It was part of our identity somehow.

Certainly Al and I and people we hung out with like Choke were hardcore straight edge. We liked having that identity. It’s how we were recognized. We wrote about it. It was a big part of our lives. It’s how I identified myself. For the first time, you could connect with other people that didn’t drink or smoke and not have to feel like you were the outsider or the nerd. That was the immediate connection.

JAMIE

And, of course, you had Springa as your non-straight edge mouthpiece.

It think it’s a well known fact that Springa did partake here and there. Certainly, not in our presence. He never did it when we were around, but I did hear plenty of rumors (laughs).

If you could change anything about SSD’s four years as a band or wish you could have done before the band broke up, what would that be?

I wish we could have done a full U.S. tour so people could have seen what we were like. For that one tour, all we did was go to California, but I wish we were able to hit every city from the East to West Coast and back again. All of us were working at the time and couldn’t afford to take the time off to do that.

Would SSD ever get back together to do a reunion tour?

It’s never gonna happen. Plenty of people have offered a lot of money for us to get back together but it won’t happen. Why? Al and Springa will never play together again. I’m not so sure that I need to be onstage again. That music, to me, was all about youth and angst and the anger that you have. Sometimes I have a little bit of a problem with guys in their forties and fifties up onstage playing music. To me, that was all about the feeling you had at that time in your life. What made that music so great was that we were all a bunch of kids that were pissed off, for whatever reason, and it all came out in the music. 30 years later, I don’t feel that same energy. I don’t want to tarnish our legacy.

PAGE 9

PHOTOS: CLAIRE SUTHERLAND

couple times and ruffled some feathers and it seemed like every time we’d go there, there would be some sort of problem. But we did that everywhere we went. I can remember going down to see Black Flag in Connecticut and going crazy and having the bouncers chase us back to the van. We just liked to go anywhere we were not from and let people know we were there. It was that whole thing about being proud of your scene. Boston has always been looked at as a proud town.

ORIGINALLY IN

ISSUE 4

1983

PAGE 10

PAGE 11

MINOR THREAT ANNEL IAN / LIVE AT THE CH (BOSTON/1983)

PHOTO: PAUL JOHNSON

BLACK FLAG SPRINGA (ROLLIN’S WITH SSD’s E CHANNEL SINGING ALONG) AT TH (BOSTON/1983)

PHOTO: CLAIRE SUTHERLAND

ORIGINALLY IN ISSUE 6 / 1984

PAGE 14

ORIGINALLY IN ISSUE 3 / 1983

PAGE 15

ORIGINALLY IN

ISSUE 17

JJ GONSON

1987

PAGE 16

PAGE 17

JJ GONSON

JJ GONSON

ORIGINALLY IN

ISSUE 19

1987

PAGE 18

PAGE 19

ORIGINALLY IN

ISSUE 6

1984

PAGE 20

THIS AD ORIGINALLY APPEARED IN ISSUE 9 (1985)

PAGE 21

NECROS (BOSTON/1985 ) LIVE AT THE RA T PHOTO: BRUCE RH ODES

xXx: What made you want to cover Crucifix’s “How, When, Where” and Agnostic Front’s “The Eliminator” as a medley?

Mike: Because of a flyer I first saw in Agnostic Front’s Raw and Unleashed collection of early recordings and demos that Lost & Found put out. I got that CD as a kid and that flyer was in the liner notes, which was actually how I first heard of Crucifix. I was like, “What’s Crucifix? I need to know what that is!” It was such a legendary image from a legendary show that I was entirely too young to be at. I feel like with Agnostic Front and Crucifix, aside from some of their ideologies, they were both musically pretty similar.

xXx: It also sums up a lot of what Nomads is about as a band.

Mike: Definitely. I’m 35, so I’m a little too young to experience that time period firsthand. But compared to today, it felt like a time period where if you fucked with hardcore or punk, you were part of this one, kind of unified thing. Your ideologies might not line up, but everybody was kind of on the same page as opposed to now where things seem a lot more divided. It seems to me, just by looking at old flyers and looking at who was playing with who, that time period felt like it had more urgency to it. It was a scarier thing.

It wasn’t so user friendly. I can relate to that because I remember being a punk rocker in high school. That shit didn’t make you cool in the 90’s either! Nowadays, the internet made it an accessible thing, and everyone was suddenly like, “You look cool.” Back then, I certainly wasn’t winning any popularity contests!

in general. The idea of the band started when I was playing in a band called Donnybrook in 2010. It basically came out of a drunk conversation between me, Edgar from Piece By Piece and Brian Wilcox from Alpha Omega, who’s currently in Cruel Hand. The idea was to write music that was more like what I grew up on. Since then, we’ve had one million lineup changes, but that’s really how it started. xXx: And true to the name Nomads, you really didn’t fit in.

Mike: Hell no! It seems like we’re too much of goons for the punks and then we’re too fast for the hardcore kids. They kind of look at us like they really don’t know what to do. They watch. They buy the records. They buy a shirt. They fuck with it, but while we’re playing, they look a little confused. We’ve toured with all ends of the spectrum. We’ve toured with Terror, Take Offense, Rotting Out, but we’ve also toured with Extreme Noise Terror and Phobia and Negative Approach. I don’t know if we can fit in everywhere or we don’t fit in anywhere. Either way, we’ll play wherever and for whoever gives a shit.

xXx: When Nomads formed in 2012, what were you trying to accomplish as a band?

You guys definitely stood out in L.A. Mike: We drew influence from all of it. We all love Motörhead and Discharge and Driller Killer and all that harder Swedish shit alongside New York hardcore and 80’s hardcore

PAGE 22

Gabe Becerra

Hate-filled, hoarse and charged with equal amounts of D-beat thrash, punk, power-violence and old school hardcore, L.A.’s “Outlaw Punx”, Nomads want to fuck up your scene.

Since 2012, Seattle transplant and brief Donnybrook bassist, Mike Torres has been been assaulting audiences like the bastard stepchild of GG Allin and Discharge’s Cal Morris.

As you can hear on Nomads’ singular slab, Love It Or Leave It, they attack hardcore’s past and present with equal amounts of fury, which makes it no surprise that their Crucifix/ Agnostic Front cover on the xXx comp, Still Having Their Say isn’t merely a shotgun blast of a track, it’s also one of the biggest surprises on the 19-band affair.

That doesn’t get noticed enough. Musically, vocally, the riffs - they both had a lot more in common than most people probably realize.

Plus, they’re both two of my favorite bands so why not mash them together?

PRESENTING: THE xXx BOOK EXCLUSIVELY FROM

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& LIMITED EDITION 19 BAND LP COMPILATION & *TWO* POSTERS! ONE HUGE 24’’X36’’ LIVE PHOTO POSTER & ONE 12’’X18’’ POSTER FEATURING THE BRIAN WALSBY ILLUSTRATION

HOMAGE TO ‘‘THE KIDS WILL HAVE THEIR SAY’’

PHOTO: CLAIRE SUTHERLAND SS DECONTROL

(AL ‘‘LETHAL’’ BARILE)

ONLY AT B9STORE.COM/xXx

PAUL JOHNSON

288 PAGES. 11’’X 11’’. HARDCOVER. IN STORES NOVEMBER 10th, 2017

xXx Fanzine (1983-1988), Hardcore & Punk in the Eighties isn’t merely a collection of articles, reviews and photographs from one of Hardcore America’s best-known fanzines. It’s a chronicle of punk’s evolution in the 80’s: a story of music and ideologies in motion. xXx’s story picks up while the first wave of hardcore was in full swing. Major players including Minor Threat had already released landmark records and bands were loading up station wagons to play now infamous venues like The Channel, A7 or D.C. Space. While based in Boston, xXx’s main writer and edtor, Mike Gitter, not only concentrated on his own city’s burgeoning scene, spearheaded by bands like SS Decontrol and D.Y.S., but looked to other states and countries for xXx’s reportage. This 288 page book documents a time when hardcore and punk were not mutually exclusive and bands and cities had a chance to develop their own diverse and strident sounds.

Now, in addition to reproducing (and restoring) countless interviews and pages from the ‘zine itself, xXx Fanzine re-interviews countless bands and musical prime-movers including Ian MacKaye, Keith Morris and members of Agnostic Front, Bad Brains and Cro-Mags to give the book a rare “Then-And-Now” perspective. xXx Fanzine (1983-1988), Hardcore & Punk in the Eighties isn’t just a look back at hardcore’s salad days, but a unique look at how punk’s music and message shook the mainstream itself.

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