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Saturday, June 11, 2005

Second Wave Straight Edge Follies

Leafing through my singles I ran across this and started laughing at the shaved head, X, raised fist, gaping maw and splotchy, eyeless zombie. All that's missing is a hooded sweatshirt. I'm so glad that error/era ended.

Youth Of Today took Minor Threat & 7 Seconds and amped it up to 11, leaving behind the intelligence and inclusiveness. Kevin Seconds produced and released this 7" in 1985, helping invalidate his own credo of "it's not just boy's fun".

Counteracting unintentional parody with hysterical satire I pulled out Crucial Youth, who got it right while Grudge didn't because they were trying to be Doggy Style and Gang Green.

2nd wave SXE was a mix of heavy metal mosh and thrash, with a moral and punishment code straight out of Judge Dredd comics. Not only did Youth Of Today sound like Italy's Raw Power, Ray Cappo made English sound Italian. Cappo famously became a Hare Krishna, which today may be quaint but back then they were a swarming annoyance competing with the Moonies for who could be more of a public nuisance.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Judge Dredd" was originally a ska song done by Prince Buster with Lee "Scratch" Perry producing, in the early 60's. In the song Judge Dredge, also known as "Judge One Thousand Years" for his long sentences, who is "from Hethihopia" tries three rude boys, one of whom, Emmanuel Zachariah Zachipam is actually Lee Perry.
It's was also the name of a pretty good skin ska revival band. The original song is pretty good, especially if you understand Jamaican patois. Just wanting to give credit where credit is due - "Emahson - you shoot black people, you boom up them houses, and you was the one down in Sutton Street who say "Rude boys don't keer " - well, I am Judge Dread and I don't keer - that's four hundred lashes and four hundred years - Tek Him Awey!!!!!!".

7:34 AM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Sorry, in the second sentence it should be "Judge Dredd".

7:37 AM

 

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