Question: Dig, good day! I would like to ask your opinion on the current underground/punk and extreme metal UK scene. It seems you and Earache came out of that fertile ground that spawned punk bands like Discharge, Disorder, Chaos UK and so forth, entering into the more extreme scene you were a part of and imploding with the UK thrash stuff (Heresy/Concrete Sox/Napalm/Ripcord). Finally this was all decanted into extreme metal which Earache became the spearhead label of.
It seems that as far as the original punk scene Earache came from everything is dead in the UK. Would you say that\'s true? I haven\'t seen any really, really good bands coming from the UK since the early 90s. Living there and working with music since the 80s what do you credit that for? From:
Answer: Uk punk was piss poor around the turn of the 80's, the original 77 era punk bands were in the top 40 charts and on TV shows like Top Of The Pops so had became irrelevant to many punks by that point.Many bands went weird & being Alternative and angsty was all the rage, like Joy Division. The only punk scene that mattered was the DIY efforts coming out of the USA and I suppose Dead Kennedys were leading that charge.Then a small UK label based out of a record shop in Stoke on Trent helmed by a certain fellow by the name of Mike Stone changed all that. UK Hardcore punk was born when Mike released what would become the first two truly earth-shattering metallised- HC punk bands on his legendary Clay Records imprint.
If you want to hear where the big 4 Thrash bands got their idea for playing heavy metal at speed- just check out the 1981 releases from the Clay Records label - Discharge 'Why?' 12inch and Birmingham, Uk's GBH "Leather Bristles Studs & acne" 12inch. GBH is UK police term for a crime - Grevious Bodily Harm.Discharge quickly became the more famous of the two because political lyrics were in vogue while GBH were arguably more metallic and sang about general topics like girls. Kirk Hammett and James Hetfield can be seen wearing GBH shirts in many early Metallica shots.
GBH Race Against Time 1981
As for modern day UK HC/punk bands who play it the old way- its a tiny scene now, but such bands do still exist -try SICK ON THE BUS or CERTIFIED for a flavour of some old school UK hardcore punk. The bands are playing shows all over UK right now.:
plenty of bands still playing UK Hardcore in the old sense, not like The Ghost of a Thousand or Gallows which is more evolved from it.
ReplyDeleteBut there are still those thrash punk bands around. Especially in Brighton.