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mahatmakanejeeves

(56,886 posts)
Sat May 23, 2020, 01:34 PM May 2020

In 1983, No Trend prophesied America's ruin to anyone who could bear to listen

Style • Review

In 1983, No Trend prophesied America’s ruin to anyone who could bear to listen

By Chris Richards
Pop music critic
May 21, 2020 at 9:37 a.m. EDT

“Hey, maybe punk will be good again.” ... That’s a joke that the nervous idiots of social media couldn’t stop cracking back in November of 2016 as they squinted at the approaching presidency of Donald Trump in search of a nonexistent silver lining, as if they didn’t fully understand who Trump was, as if they didn’t truly understand what punk was.

Their wishful ha-ha logic went something like this: If Ronald Reagan’s first four years in office had created the optimal conditions for the proliferation of hardcore — that incandescent gust of high-speed American punk made famous by Bad Brains, Black Flag, Minor Threat, Hüsker Dü, Die Kreuzen, the Dead Kennedys and an underground network of like-spirited bands that spanned the entire country — then maybe the Trump years would generate something equally fast and radical.

Instead, all of those old punk songs from the ’80s about corporate control, ecological ruin, government malfeasance and the stupid arrogance of American exceptionalism began to sound like prophecies come true. The youthful indignation at the heart of the music was still pumping as hot as ever, but now it sounded wise, too. Maybe hardcore wasn’t a reaction to the times. Maybe it was a warning.

Either way, we should have been paying closer attention to No Trend, a band of outsiders from the bucolic Maryland exurbs who wrote scathing songs about the poison clouds they saw gathering on the horizon. “Acid rain is falling, watch the humans crawling,” bandleader Jeff Mentges screamed into some microphone in 1983, expectorating his lyrics as if they’d gone rotten in transit from his brain to his mouth. No Trend’s music was petulant and punishing, anguished to the edge of incoherence, but the most alarming thing about listening to it today is how rational it sounds.

Here’s your chance for a deep-soak in the acid bath: “Too Many Humans/Teen Love,” a handsome new boxed set of No Trend’s earliest recordings, is about to drop on the esteemed indie label Drag City, all but promising to elevate the band’s low ranking in the American punk canon. In the liner notes, Mentges describes No Trend as “this little asterisk” in hardcore history. He isn’t faking modesty. ... But if you stare into the asterisk long enough, it starts to resemble a puncture in the fabric of reality. The sound that comes hissing out of that little hole will make you wonder which side you’re on.

{snip}

Chris Richards
Chris Richards has been The Washington Post's pop music critic since 2009. Before joining The Post, he freelanced for various music publications. Follow https://twitter.com/Chris__Richards
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In 1983, No Trend prophesied America's ruin to anyone who could bear to listen (Original Post) mahatmakanejeeves May 2020 OP
This article is as good as any well thought out and reacted to PUNK music. Tikki May 2020 #1
Now that was Thyla May 2020 #2
I know I can be pretty much local, regional and all that with my Punk. Tikki May 2020 #3

Tikki

(14,537 posts)
1. This article is as good as any well thought out and reacted to PUNK music.
Sat May 23, 2020, 02:09 PM
May 2020

Thanks for the post.

Punk is still vibrantly with us.
Bands from the 70's(80's) are still an influence on the generations
of Punk musicians and lyricists that have followed even as of right this moment.
No Trend deserves their due. You know the music; you know who else does.


Tikki

Tikki

(14,537 posts)
3. I know I can be pretty much local, regional and all that with my Punk.
Sat May 23, 2020, 04:11 PM
May 2020

I believe Mr. Richards was from that area of the East Coast during those days he
writes about.
Music travels and hopefully all the messages along with it.

There are videos out there with great glimpses of T.S.O.L.

Tikki

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