HARDCORE ‘81

Radio Script(Draft)

narrator: This is an alternative heritage moment

[bar sounds, background tunes]

YOUNG PERSON 1: Stoner rock sucks. Crap there’s nowhere to hang out in this craphole city.

YOUNG PERSON 2: awe crap, whatever. i was kicked outta school. My parents are pissed. They just don’t understand.

[LOUD TUNES - DOA]

YOUNG PERSON 1: you hear that.

YOUNG PERSON 2: Ya, they’re playing at Hardcore 81.

YOUNG PERSON 1: So are Black Flag.

YOUNG PERSON 3: And Seven Seconds!

YOUNG PERSON 1: Ya, it’ll be huge. Punks are coming from all over. They’re talking about Canadian punk in LA. The scene here is ready to blow. Things are gonna change.

[TUNES]

narrator: On April 22nd, 1981, the Vancouver-based punk band DOA released their Album Hardcore 81. Named after a reference in a US magazine, the term was meant to depict an emerging sound that was much faster and more aggressive than music coming from London or New York. “Hardcore” came to represent not only a musical, but a social movement that embodied the DIY principles of: think for yourself, don’t back down, change your world, and be free. The album was combined with the Hardcore 81 outdoor Festival in Vancouver and a North American Tour that helped ignite the North American Hardcore scene. The music and political principles emerging from Hardcore 81 have inspired a broad range of community-based, anti-authoritarian projects. To this day, the principles of self-reliance and mutual aid are powerful elements of a punk scene that is committed to self-organising, challenging existing power structures, and playing loud music.