Radio Silence / A Selected Visual History of American Hardcore Music

We are going to be  in Toronto Canada, July 16th-19th for some great shows and parties. Thank you to Ewan at Embrace Presents for working out all the details and making this weekend happen.

 
Thursday July 16th / 7pm / all ages
Fucked Up, Vivian Girls, Women + guests
The Phoenix Concert Theater
410 Sherbourne Street
Toronto, ON, Canada
$16.00 advance at Ticketweb.ca or in Toronto record stores Rotate This, Soundscapes, Play De Record & Hits And Misses 

 
Friday July 17th / 8pm / 19 and over
Stuck In The City Presents:
Radio Silence Gallery
Hosted by Dave Smalley
featuring DJs Mark Ryan & Anthony Pappalardo
Gibson Showroom
1205 King Street West 
Toronto, ON, Canada
$10 at the door
Interested photo buyers contact ewan@embracepresents.com for details.

 
Saturday July 18th / 1pm
Negative Approach
Supertouch (The Earth Is Flat lineup)
Dave Smalley Solo
The Wrong Side, Hellmouth (ex Cold As Life/Suicide Machines),
Pulling Teeth, Pala, Bad Choice
The Annex Wreckroom
794 Bathurst Street
Toronto, ON, Canada
$24.50 Advance at Ticketweb.ca or in Toronto record stores
Rotate This, Soundscapes, Play De Record & Hits And Misses

 
Saturday July 18th / 11pm
Toronto Hardcore Midnight Madness Screening
The Last Pogo, Not Dead Yet,
No Warning Documentary “Still Bleeds”
Location to be announced day of show
$5 at the door

 
Sunday July 19th
“Chip on My Shoulder; The History of Slapshot”
Feature length documentary film by Ian McFarland & Anthony Moreschi
Special guests producer Ian McFarland and Mark MacKaye from Slapshot
The Royal 608 College St.
Toronto, ON, Canada
$10.00 Advance at Ticketweb.ca or in Toronto record stores
Rotate This, Soundscapes, Play De Record & Hits And Misses

 
Weekend passes available at Ticketweb.ca

Our friends Mike and Reid from Selector magazine are having a launch party for issue one this weekend in Japan. The show will feature artwork from a handful of the people featured in issue o1. Radio Silence has two photographs in the show; one from Rusty Moore and one from Philin Phlash.

Selector Tour: Tokyo, Japan
May, 9th, 2009
PLSMIS Gallery
Aoyama, Tokyo

If you can make it to the Amenity “Shine” video release party tonight in San Diego we promise you won’t be disappointed. If you can’t make it down they’ll be streaming the video on Myspace tonight as well. Not only is the footage completely incredible, Amenity were able to get some legendary skaterboarders to appear in the video including Sal Barbier and Kien “The Donger” Lieu.

“In 2008, San Diego/Chula Vista’s first straight edge/hardcore band reunited for the first time in 18 years. Amenity got together and played to celebrate the release of “Radio Silence“, a chronicle of the history of American hardcore. Founding member Tim Gonzalez explains, “Amenity got back together in October with the intent of playing one show, but since we ended up recording 4-songs, filming a video, getting more offers to do more things, and have enjoyed ourselves so much, we decided to stay together.” Amenity is releasing an EP of new material this spring, but will be releasing a a video for the first song, “Shine”, on April 26 at East Tavern Village & Bowl. The premiere is free and all ages and is going to be a really great event to launch what could be a whole new round of Amenity’s groundbreaking music that paved the way for so many bands that still exist today.”

- Taken from San Diego : Dialed In

Andy Capper over at Vice UK has some words about his old friend Kim Jones and his collection of vintage hardcore shirts. Sneaker Necks might recognize Kim as the creative director behind Umbro’s Y-3 line, and stylist-in-demand to celebs like Kanye and stuff. One of the first printed features about Radio Silence was the mens version of V magazine, VMan and conincidently included a story that Kim had styled with his personal collection of hardcore shirts.

Vice - Kim Jones: More Than Fashion

Link via: Drane (thanks dude!)

The hardest part of researching Radio Silence wasn’t flying across the country and digging through boxes of old photos belonging complete strangers. Often times it was the most difficult to coordinate with your friends down the street. They weren’t going anywhere, we weren’t going anywhere and it gets really easy to just put things off until it’s too late. Unfortunately due to conflicting schedules this was the case with Mark Ryan, we would have loved to have the Minor Threat set list he saved from Gildersleeve’s or countless other artifacts in Radio Silence along with his commentary but our signals kept getting crossed.

We might have missed out on some great visuals but this past weekend I got a text message from Mark mentioning that he found an mp3 from a project he recorded with Sammy Siegler and some friends in 1996. I remember Mark telling me about the track when I first started playing with him and Dean Baltulonis around 2003 in what would become their current band Foreign Islands. I was really curious as to what it sounded like because the line up sounded sick and there was a genuine enthusiasum that radiated when he detailed the circumstances that led to the recording of the track. Being a huge Supertouch fan I always felt like the band gave us all a cliff-hanger ending. The Earth Is Flat was a groundbreaking Lp that ushered in a new era for hardcore and for Supertouch, it sounded like a prequel to a new chapter that would continue to evolve and expand. Years passed and Supertouch continued to play new material live, several songs became familar to everyone who packed matinees but new recordings never surfaced. When Better appeared on the Anti-Matter Compilation it appeared that Supertouch was ready to climb back aboard but to make a long story short, shit happens. Luckily the band gave us an incredible catalog, plenty of epic shows and some memorable visuals which are still emulated and embraced today.

We might have gotten that second Supertouch LP but we do have a recently unearthed track with Mark singing. Just These Days boasts a great vocal line over an upbeat track with the perfect balance of crunch, melody and dissonance….and they belted it out in ONE fucking night!

Here’s the info in Mark’s words along with the long lost mp3 that most of us never knew existed:

Ravi Dhar and I were talking about starting a band around 1996. One of Ravi’s friends asked if he had a band because they were casting for a group for a film. Ravi said yes and I called Sammy, Antonio Ballatore (Who used to run Z-bar on ave A and later worked for photographer David LaChappelle ) and Shane Vetter (Samsara) and asked them if they could meet up in an hour and write and record a song.

..but we had Gavin Ogelsby, we were really lucky” - Pat Dubar, 2007.

The reviews of the big Orange County reunion show featuring Ice, Blackspot, A Chorus of Disapproval, Headfirst and No For An Answer have been popping up all over. Good times were had, friendships rekindled, sing-a-longs shouted and money was raised for a great cause…oh and Carry Nation ripped it up too..how great is that?

I received an email from Billy Rubin today with a sighting of another classic Gavin Ogeslby painted leather jacket. We can’t get enough of these fucking things. As Pat Dubar said, Orange County, CA was lucky to have Gavin and these coats are proof. The jacket belongs to John Bruce (Half Off and Haywire) he wore it to the reunion and it looks killer.

Thanks to Billy Rubin for the incredible pictures.

COMING UP THIS WEEK - Full Billy Rubin interview ( I did this months ago and slaccccccccccckkkked) and a full Pat Dubar interview.

Keep checking in!

If you frequent the Girl Skateboards Family Site (home to all things Girl, Chocolate, Royal, Lakai, etc) you’re familiar with their staff photographer Ben Colen aka Wizard Ben. Ben’s also famous for spiking his camera in the water while trying to save Rick Howard’s board in Fully Flared.

Last week Ben was the latest guest on a new segement on Crailtap called the Crail Couch. In this clip he talks about his hardcore past, straight edge, and ex-girlfriends. It’s a must see.

…I hope this is the last.

Forever 21 ripping off Minor Threat…I don’t even understand what they were going for with this one. 21 isn’t a minor, you can fight wars, buy porn, buy booze, cigs…nothing minor about it..weird.

I can’t lie though it would be rad to have this incredibily shitty shirt if you found one because it’s a ridiculous snapshot of how weird the world is now but paying money…nah. Go to the Dischord site and cop all the vinyl remaster/reissues they’re doing instead. One Last Wish on vinyl = SICK!

ATTN: BAD GRAPHIC DESIGNERS - Please leave Ian, Jeff, Brian, Lyle and Steve alone, there is other shit to rip off, these guys are really cool about bootlegging but this is getting out of control.

The Livewire Board put me onto this band Death right around the time Radio Silence was going to press last year. Whats crazy is 1) the songs are super fucking good, 2) the story of where and when they started is amazing (read Dan Bolles piece about it here), and 3) as we came to find out Anthony had met Bobby Hackney Jr. at some shows a long time ago and I had lived in Vermont and shared mutual friends with him but neither of us knew about Death.
Anyways, Bobby got in touch recently and told us that Death was finally getting a proper release on Drag City and that his band Rough Francis were playing Death songs at a few upcoming shows.

Buy “… For the Whole World to See” from Drag City

Photo: Death from Bobby Hackney Jr.’s archive.

We just received copies of Selector and Effort Fanzine in our mail box. Both publications have huge features on Radio Silence that we’re really amped about. Selector has a six page full color article complete with some outtakes from the book including the proposed gatefold for The Earth Is Flat Lp by Supertouch. Effort Fanzine is a perfect bound high quality fanzine out of Europe that continues the tradition of printed fanzines. Blogs are great but there’s something special about holding a fanzine in your hands and getting to really analyze every photo. Radio Silence contributor and all around great dude Dave Sine also contributed some classic photos to Effort making it a must have issue.

Thanks again to Selector and Effort for giving the book such incredible exposure and for keeping printed media alive.