The Book

Burning Fight: The Nineties Hardcore Revolution in Ethics, Politics, Spirit, and Sound

by Brian Peterson

For the past six years I have been assembling a book about the nineties hardcore music scene called Burning Fight: The Nineties Hardcore Revolution in Ethics, Politics, Spirit, and Sound. While Steven Blush’s American Hardcore was an excellent examination of the pioneers of the hardcore punk movement, after reading his book one gets the impression that hardcore died in 1986. Although that particular era of hardcore may have ended in 1986, an influx of new bands took the genre to new places, the story of which shall be told in Burning Fight.

Picking up where eighties hardcore punk innovators left off, nineties hardcore sparked profound change and debate across musical, social, spiritual, and political landscapes. Many of the ideals that were ingrained in hardcore since its beginning were taken in new and often controversial directions. Inspired by the music and the community that developed around the scene, many immersed in hardcore’s ethical and social movements such as straight edge, animal rights, D.I.Y., spirituality, and a host of other issues debated these beliefs and implemented them into their own lives, eventually taking what they learned outside the hardcore scene and influencing the broader culture. At the same time, many of the ideologies that united people ended up dividing them in the long run, which eventually led to the splintering this era of hardcore by the decade’s end.

Burning Fight: The Nineties Hardcore Revolution in Ethics, Politics, Spirit, and Sound draws upon the memories of many who played influential roles in the scene and understand what made this era of hardcore so unique in its ability to synthesize music and ideology into what for many felt like was a powerful counter-cultural movement, where change was just around the corner.

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Bands featured in Burning Fight include: 108, Avail, Burn, Cave In, Coalesce, Damnation A.D., Deadguy, Disembodied, Downcast, Earth Crisis, Endpoint, Groundwork, Guilt, Inside Out, Integrity, Los Crudos, Mouthpiece, Racetraitor, Ressurection, Rorshcach, Shelter, Spitboy, Split Lip/Chamberlain, Strife, Swing Kids, Texas Is The Reason, Threadbare, Trial, Unbroken, Undertow, Vegan Reich

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Brian Peterson was born in Minot, North Dakota, and moved to the Quad-Cities (Illinois/Iowa border) in his mid-teens where he became active in the Midwest hardcore scene, which impacted his life in innumerable ways. He has written about music and film for a variety of publications such as Thrasher, Punk Planet, Skyscraper, Copper Press, and American Music Press since 2001. He is also a high school English teacher. Aside from his freelance writing he is also working on several short stories and novels. He and his wife, Lisa, currently live in the Chicago area.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS:

Burning Fight would not have been possible without insight, feedback, and all around assistance from all of the individuals interviewed in the book. These people took a lot of time to talk about their memories of this era. Without them, Burning Fight would not have happened.

Thank you to Jordan Cooper and everyone at Revelation Records for believing in Burning Fight.

Major thanks to Dave Stein for his advice and time spent helping me find the right publisher for the book. Without his help, these chapters would be nothing but Word Documents.

Vique Martin, Ghazal Sheei, and Greg Bennick also played important roles in helping me edit and proofread the book. Also, thank you to Ryan Hoffman, Rich Jacobs, Adam Tanner, Ian MacKaye, John Porcelly, Dave Agranoff, Sean Muttaqi, Anthony Pappalardo, and Rob Moran for giving me some added insight, feedback, and informational assistance with the Straight Edge and Animal Rights chapters.

Thank you to everyone who shared photos, flyers, and all around enthusiasm for the project. I wasn’t able to use all the amazing images that were sent, but a hearty thanks must be given for their time, dedication, and talent: Ole Christian Petterson, Dave Mandel, Sean Capone, Mark Beemer, Jean-Paul Frijns, Vique Martin, Greg Straightedge, Dusty Pilger, Mark Miller, Franklin Rhi, Sean Muttaqi, Adam Tanner, Jose Palafox, Eric Rumpshaker, Celeste Peterson, Troy Trujillo, Justin Corbett, Steve Lovett, Fred Hammer, Carl Gunhouse, Dave Gagne, John McKaig, Jason Hellman, Danielle Dombrowski, Andrew and Peter Bottomley, Ati Moran, Kim Nolan, Andrew Kline, Brandon Ebel, Patrick West, urtis Lehmkuhl, Justin Moulder, Grace Bartlett, Kyle Even the Score, Kelly Missell, Chase Corum, Carl Skildum, Luke Stemmerman, Mike King of the Monsters, Steve from Pennsylvania, Scott from Pennsylvania, Michelle Nolan, Greg D’Avis, Chrissy Piper, Angela Boatwright, David “Igby” Sattani, Micah Panzich, Malte Terbeck, Ben Roe, and many others. Apologies if I forgot anyone. Special thanks to Don Irwin (Punk Life Fanzine) for his archival help and his amazing array of flyers.

Not enough words can be said for the friendship, encouragement, advice, love, and support I’ve been fortunate enough to receive from the following people: my amazing wife Lisa (who helped immensely with editing and had to endure way too many hours of conversations about hardcore than should be humanly possible!), my parents, the entire Peterson, Larcombe, and Quintero families, Brett and Rose Noble and family, Aaron and Amy Veikley and family, Mickey Nolan, Dylan Lee and family, Jeremy and Brandy Welvaert, Jim Grimes, Vique Martin, Ghazal Sheei, Caitlin Lipinski, Neeraj Kane, Sean Muttaqi, Dan Binaei, Brent Decker, Duncan Barlow, Rob Pennington, Betul and Ihsan Cicek, Alex Ferguson, Mani Mostofi, David Lewis, Al Collins, Greg Thompson, Bianca Valentino, Danielle Ramirez, Greg Bennick, Jes Steineger, Rob Moran, David Claibourn, Justin Pearson, Lisa Root, Andrew and Peter Bottomley, Aaron Burgess, Anne Elizabeth Moore, Dan Sinker, Ray Cappo, Ian MacKaye, Steve and Kate Reddy, Norman Brannon, Eric Grubbs, Pat Stolley, Sean Leary, Jeremy Matherly, Jeremy and Candy Heider, Brendan DeSmet, Dusty Fecht, Mitch Fecht, “The Burg,” Livewire Board, the students and staff at Northtown Academy, Moline High School, and Bennett Community School, Vernon Stading and family, Grant and Annie Upson, Corey Fineran and family, Andy Round, and my beloved hometown: Minot, North Dakota.

Special thanks to Robert Fish for writing the Foreword and to Aisha Praught for her help in the transcription of some of the interviews.

I would not have attempted to write anything were it not for the following people:

• Norman Brannon and his amazing Anti-Matter Fanzine, which inspired me to write in the first place.
• Erskine Carter, who taught me how to write, read, and think in ways I never thought possible.
• Ryan Downey, who gave me some of my first writing opportunities and provided encouragement over the years.
• Paul Cervinski, who always provided an example of practicing what you preach.
• John Carpenter and Stephen King—Carpenter’s films and King’s stories were among the first to really capture my attention at an early age and injected that creative “spark” in me.