![\"wgp-bookspread\"](\"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/wgp-bookspread.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been more than 30 years since hardcore punk became the teenage underbelly of Los Angeles\u2019 working-class beach cities and a little less than that since the SoCal music subculture spread like a virus throughout most of urban America.<\/p>\n
From around 1979 to 1983, bands such as Black Flag, The Minutemen, TSOL, The Descendents and The Adolescents emerged from the suburban tumult of broken homes and backyard parties to create not eyeliner-wearing Hollywood punk or Mohawk-laden British wannabes\u2014but a sound, energy and attitude that was uniquely Southern California.<\/p>\n
But it is only in the last decade that dissections of the far-reaching influences of this aggressive here-then-gone local music scene\u2014some of which found home in Long Beach\u2014have been available through mainstream outlets. Books highlighting the influence of local photographers, artists, bands and record labels are all over Amazon, providing various perspectives on what was happening here musically during those short few years when hardcore lived.<\/p>\n
We Got Power!<\/em>\u2014the latest coffee-table worthy retrospective of Southern California hardcore\u2014takes yet another look at the sound, energy and attitude that swept through the L.A. basin at the time with previously unseen images and specially written essays from players like Keith Morris, Dez Cadena, Chuck Dukowski and Janet Housden, all of whom lived on its frontlines.<\/p>\n Mike Roth at <\/em>We Got Power! headquarters\u2014Dave Markey\u2019s bedroom\u20141982. Photo by David Markey.<\/em><\/p>\n Compiled by on-the-scene fans David Markey and Jordan Schwartz, the book features more than 400 of their personal photos taken before, during and after the days when the pair ran We Got Power!<\/em>, a local fanzine that served as the definitive bible for L.A.’s wasted youth.<\/p>\n Zines were cheap and portable mini-magazines that acted as a much-needed forum for underground communities in an era where the socially connective power of the web was still decades away. There were only five issues of We Got Power!<\/em> released between 1981 and 1983, but each was filled to the brim with typed-up show reviews, vulgar band interviews and photocopied reports from other city\u2019s music communities\u2014coveted information in this do-it-yourself scene.<\/p>\n Instead of rote facts about how SST Records formed or an academic analysis of “what it all means,” the resulting We Got Power!<\/em> hardback is an easy-to-digest scrapbook of candid photos and unbelievable tales from an indelibly interconnected group of friends reminiscing about the crazy, spastic, possibly drug-addled moments when hardcore peaked.<\/p>\n![\"A-wegotpower\"](\"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/A-wegotpower.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"M-wegotpower\"](\"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/M-wegotpower.jpg\")
With their We Got Power!<\/em> book, Markey and Schwartz return to their days as print-media compilers (Markey is now a filmmaker), reprinting all five issues of their short-lived zine (plus a sixth that never made it to the photocopier) and also assembling words written by some of hardcore’s biggest names alongside never-before-seen photos of said big names doing everything from playing house shows to hanging out in front of abandoned buildings.<\/p>\n![\"O-wegotpower\"](\"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/O-wegotpower.jpg\")
Though most of the major bands during this time were from adjacent South Bay and Orange County, the book reveals many untold ways in which Long Beach played an important role in the formation of this important community. Turns out that Long Beach\u2014through Millikan High School-bred Rhino 39, one of the earliest bands to play in the style\u2014has a hearty, though not harped-on connection to both early Black Flag and The Descendents, two of the biggest bands to come out of L.A., hardcore or otherwise. And Long Beach\u2019s much-loved Zed Records was the first place on We Got Power!<\/em>‘s short distribution route, forcing people from all over to come to town to pick up their copy.<\/p>\n
![\"A-wegotpower\"](\"http:\/\/lbpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/A-wegotpower.jpg\")
<\/p>\n