American Hardcore tracklist

[mayberry]

Tim and Jeff were as close as you can get.  Jeff spent that summer - like every summer - in San Francisco in his boardinghouse making trips over to MRR.  Jeff was there when Tim needed him.  There was an open search to fill Tim’s shoes with younger, new people at the time.  After, Jeff decided to start Hit List.  MRR was vital and strong – thanks to a lot of hard work since day one - and Jeff felt it could use a little friendly competitive nudge.  Eventually Hit List got swallowed up, or consumed itself, or whatever heavy handed blah blah you wanna say.  Jeff isn’t stupid.  It was fun while it lasted.  MRR is still vital and strong and better than ever.  What have we got?  One less Hit List out there with one less place for all those contributors to go.  What did that leave MRR?  Some other nifty shoes they could fill that maybe they weren’t thinking about or wouldn’t have otherwise if Hit List hadn’t goofed on us all.  Hopefully all that talk made them  – and the rest of us -  listen and pay attention to something at least a little different.  To contributors that were, maybe, mostly a bit of the older school.  Cuz people starting magazines, just as the magazines themselves, are eventually going to pass away.  Maybe Hit List was a guy’s way to personally grieve?  Helluva wake. 

Hardcore has such a strong footing because of the efforts of regular, reliable publications like MRR and lesser to do with a single book written about it.  Still, in most cases, both are equally noble and always self-defining…like the music they cover.  Rock ‘n’ roll, or whatever have you, other than what pap you might find in print in Rolling Stones et al, has got to fight a bit to get heard.  Maybe a healthy sense of competitive nature isn’t the right way to do it…but that has less to do with personal politics and more to do with the continuity of the kicking-against-the-pricks spirit of r-n-r.  More so, I think Hit List was trying to honestly, ironically, and self-consciously tap into the same spirit that started MRR in the first place: Having the guts to start something as impossibly doomed from the get-go as a print zine.  You gotta have that kind of mind frame and sense of humility to really make it work.  And that that statement and/or point in particular was meant to be a reminder and, frankly, an inspiration to new blood.  Some people fucking listened.  Eh.  Might as well rave on sixties records, powerpop, or what have you while you got the chance.  Next week it’s always going to be some douche bag raving about dog shit.