Strange image (only the Japanese) yet familiar feeling on this my 500th post. A shit load of posts, most of which have essential listening and of course my maybe not so essential babblings. I have enjoyed it almost every step of the way and I know that at least a few folks have gotten something out of it. Gone are the days of posts with 20+ comments, with honest to goodness dialog. I'm not sure if that's because this place is tired or, what I'm leaning towards, the day of the blog is past...replaced by the superficial Facebook experience. Still getting tons of hits though, which at least indicates people are coming to the page in some kind of voyeuristic way. I hope that my passion for music still shines bright.
On a side note, Wendy wanted you to know that today is my 45th birthday (she gave up on life at 48). Not sure what to think of this one, I don't feel that old. Well, I guess I should say that mentally and physically (a burnt out brain stuck in a worn out body) I feel much older than that, but emotionally and in terms of maturity, I still feel young. Too young, I've seen way too much shit not to have some wisdom under my belt. Maybe it's tucked away in there somewhere, waiting for that perfect opportunity to present itself. Was going to take the day off, but got reminded last night that I have some work related shit on my calendar...oh well.
Wanted to pick something special for this 500th post, but had a hard time nailing down exactly what special means. Stuck with that idea of "hard time" and decided to focus on Dave Insurgent, who, towards the end, was the epitome that idea. Not that this place has been difficult, it has actually been a ray of sunshine, but I too have been familiar with "hard times". Of Course Dave's experience was tragically worse, with an insatiable heroin addiction, homelessness, getting beaten nearly to death, mother accidentally killed by father, having his girlfriend killed by serial killer Joel Rifkin and finally, almost predictably, suicide by overdose in 1993. I was too busy with my own life to have known about these events until recently, but back in the mid-80s he was one of my favorite frontmen of one of the better hardcore bands of the time. My first exposure to Reagan Youth must have been in 1984, on the legendary P.E.A.C.E. compilation, with their anthem "Reagan Youth". There's not a dud on that whole comp, but Reagan Youth's input was top notch. Maybe a year or two later I saw the band on one of those Flipside Video things and Dave's stage presence was just incredible, he could ad lib, move around the stage and really belt out thought provoking words. Kick myself, to this day, as I know I had at least one opportunity to see them live (probably chose to get drunk instead). In looking for info for this post, it turns out that cooler than a culo Aesop had written up a nice tribute to Dave and a link to RY's only official release, which is now dead...found it for you though from the less cool Hardcore Punk Reviews and it actually includes the songs on this 7" (what do you know, you could skip my post altogether as some thing non-essential, dispensable or repetitive). The band is back together now, which is interesting, pretty sure it's just the original guitarist, I guess a guys gotta make a buck. Anyway, this is a nice quality boot, from 1984...
the show I missed at the Olympic in LA (I have the flyer somewhere)...
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dLCK_ssF14&w=560&h=315]
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