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

by Brian Peterson

Although some define hardcore as a specific sound, most believe it's more than that; a set of varying ideas, ethics, principles, attitudes and, yes, music, that converge to form a community. Burning The Nineties Hardcore Revolution In Ethics, Politics, Spirit, And Sound by Brian Peterson provides some answers, but also brings up a whole new set of questions for those who've been drawn to the scene's political, social, ethical and spiritual ideas amidst the screamed vocals and abrasive chords. Burning Fight features commentary from approximately 150 people involved in the nineties hardcore scene as well as oral history articles about straight edge, politics, vegetarianism and interviews with a variety of influential bands such as Avail, Burn, Earth Crisis, Inside Out, Integrity, Los Crudos, Spitboy, Strife, Texas Is The Reason, Unbroken and more.

Features interviews
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

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, Punk, History

499 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2009

Reviews

[Drew · Rating 4 out of 5]

I feel compelled to give this book four out of five stars simply by virtue of its existence. As someone who grew up in the 90s hardcore scene, who found the whole era to be vital and fascinating, to be filled with musical experimentation and growth on personal and community levels, I've always hated the standard line about how hardcore died in 1986 (or whenever Steven Blush said), about how it just got easier to be a hardcore kid after that, and the music therefore got worse and the kids got wimpier. That's damn near the opposite of my personal experience of the 90s scene, and I've long wanted to write my own book debunking that personal myth. So I'm very glad that Brian Peterson got the ball rolling with his book. That said, I don't feel like "Burning Fight" obviates my own need to write a book about the subject, because the fact is that this one just isn't that good. Peterson, who ironically teaches high school English, is not what I'd consider a good writer, and I'd even feel like I was gilding the lily a bit to call him mediocre. Fact is, the guy is a barely capable wordsmith whose thankfully infrequent interjections of narrative read like the sort of high school senior thesis that might get you a B if your teacher grades on a curve. The passages Peterson wrote for the book are as free of insight as they possibly could be, and tend to explain band after band, movement after movement, in the same tired language. I swear Peterson mentions the Bad Brains and the Cro-Mags as sonic references for at least a dozen different bands, none of whom sound anything alike. It seemed at least somewhat legitimate when he first said it about 108, who are first in the alphabetically-ordered section of interviews with various bands; 108 were definitely influenced hugely by both of those bands. When he brought the same two bands up 300 pages later in a discussion of Unbroken, though, I damn near threw the book across the room. It's lazy writing, pure and simple. And to expand on that theme, 90% of the book is structured like an oral history, leaving the bands and kids who were there to fill in the gaps and provide insight into the subjects that Peterson doesn't explore in any depth himself. It's the luck of the draw as to how much insight the quotes provide, and for every intelligent, well-spoken person in the book, such as Jes Steineger of Coalesce, Vic DiCara of 108, or Norman Brannon of Texas Is The Reason, there are 20 more people whose quotes serve only to demonstrate how little thought they've given to the questions Peterson is asking. Sometimes two quotes on the same page about the same subject will have completely contradictory viewpoints, and while this is interesting in that it shows the multiplicity of opinions and perceptions in the scene at the time, it ruins the narrative framework of the section and makes it very hard to understand what sort of conclusion we're supposed to draw. I feel like a lot of the reason that I was able to get something out of this book was because I was there during those times myself, and could add what new information "Burning Fight" provided me to my own memories, knowledge, and insight. It helped me complete my picture of the scene during that era, but if I were coming into this book with no foreknowledge of the time, I don't know how accurate or fleshed-out the picture I'd get would be.

One thing's for sure: the 30 or so band interviews that make up the lion's share of this book, while doing even more to completely undermine any narrative framework established in the more universal opening chapters than was already done in those chapters themselves, were far more interesting, insightful, and entertaining than the opening sections. While the opening chapters were the sort of slog that I only endured because I was having trouble admitting how far short of my expectations this book had fallen, the band interviews were very interesting and kept my attention throughout. Really, though, they made this book far more like a big fat zine than any real history of an era, and if you want a book that really does a great job of encapsulating 90s hardcore on that level, you're better off with Norman Brannon's "The Anti-Matter Anthology." Or, perhaps, the book about all of this that I'm gonna write in another few years. [Famous last words:]

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I haven't read this cover to cover yet, as my interest in and knowledge of some of the bands is minimal. But, what I have read has been informative, insightful, and well selected pieces of information about some of the bands at the forefront of an interesting period in hardcore. The focus seems a bit slanted towards one type of band and there are plenty of bands I'd have liked to see interviewed more extensively, but it's obviously impossible to include everything in this sort of undertaking. I love the photos in this book as well.

[Dan Austin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a tough one because I read this book when it first came out and it had a huge impact on me. It came out at the perfect time, when I was getting more interested in the “roots” of the music I enjoyed. It did a lot for me on terms of discovering new bands like Damnation AD, Racetraitor etc and gaining more perspectives on the ethics and politics of the hardcore scene. Going back and reading it again all these years later definitely reveals some flaws though. The early chapters, while interesting, could have used some more diverse viewpoints. Compared to other contemporary oral histories there aren’t that many people who were interviewed, and the dialogue suffers a bit as a result. Reading a bunch of variations of “I’m still vegan/straight edge/Krishna but I don’t care if people aren’t” gets repetitive. Despite these shortcomings this is an important book with a lot of great bands featured, and it should be read by anyone interested in hardcore.

[David Agranoff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Burning Fight: The Nineties Hardcore Revolution in Ethics, Politics, Spirit, and Sound. by Brian Peterson


Punk and Hardcore music is impossible to explain to someone who has never been apart of it. I thought about it a couple years ago when I saw a Vegan straight edge band from Southern California playing in Portland. I had friends around me that grew up in California, New York, Oregon and Indiana counting myself. We all grew up in different states but we all got into this loud music with similar ethics.

Hardcore to the outsider is loud aggressive music that sounds like screaming. During the 90’s hardcore peaked with a vital age. Peterson has taken on the nearly impossible task on documenting 90’s hardcore music scene. This is harder to do than a music scene that is all over TV and covered in mainstream magazines.

Hardcore is small, personal and often regional. The fans and bands are interchangeable, the fans make the records, put out the zines and perform in their own bands. To say this is an important book is a massive understatement.

Broken in four chapters that address the major issues addressed by the bands in lyrics like Straight edge, Animal rights and Spirituality. Next Peterson interviewed many of the major hardcore bands of the 90’s. Highlights include several interviews with Rob Fish and his bands, Earth Crisis, Downcast, Trial and Vegan Reich. Several of the interviews like Undertow and threadbare highlight how local hardcore is.

I have little nitpicks why interview Texas is the reason (not hardcore) and Cave-in (Ok, they were good but what impact), while amazing bands like Day of Suffering, morning Again, Birthright and Undying didn’t get entire chapters devoted to them.

I first got into hardcore music and straight edge in 1989, I was the only kid in my town who was straight edge and there were less than a dozen who were fans of or ever heard of New York Hardcore bands like Agnostic Front and sick of it all. When I got involved hardcore was different.

We didn’t have an internet DJ Rose of Path of Resistance always said we were like Gypsy tribes. In the 90’s hardcore exploded and it did so in many ways. It is hardcore to think back to a scene that existed where no one had ever heard the song Firestorm or Shelter was some weird new band by Ray of Today.

Burning Fight might also serve as tool for us weird hardcore kids to explain to friends and family what we gave up our lives for in the 90’s. Why did we drive all over the country for shows, why we did bands, why we got into all these radical new ideas. This book only Sctraches the surface. You had to be there but you know this as close as you are going to get.

[Mark Robison · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved every bit of this book. It’s a deep look at activist underground punk bands in the 1990s, with a breakdown of the main issues in the scene (animal rights, religion, straight edge and social justice) plus interviews with the many of the most influential (if obscure) bands. What I liked most was how the band members looked back at their activism and dissected what worked, what failed, what values they still hold, and which values they discarded (and why). As someone who has held and still holds some very strong ethical beliefs, it was fun to see how other people struggled with the same ideas and how those ideas have evolved over time. For a scene that was mostly straight, white and male, the author goes out of his way to include a very diverse range of people among the 100 or so interviews. The book inspired me to acquire, no joke, probably 200 albums and at least five other books. I underlined dozens of passages. Excerpts: “Revolution needs to be creative to capture the imagination longer than the fuse lit by fury will burn.” — Greg Bennick of Trial. “I think sobriety has a lot to offer explicitly revolutionary groups. It’s much easier to fight when you don’t have any extra challenges, like addiction, inebriation (and the drama that comes with it), or raids from the authorities.” — Brian Dingledine of Catharsis. Grade: A.

[Ryan Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book on a small but influential subculture. Author did a great job of not injecting himself into the book to much, even though he was in 2 really good bands.

[Gabriel Ramos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book about the hardcore scene

[Tiny Red Dragons Radio · Rating 4 out of 5]

If this music and time period is at all important to you, you will certainly want to read this book. Some of the interviews become a little redundant here and there and I think it would have worked better as a consistent narrative rather than having each band presented separately. But having said that I still think it's a great read that brought back a lot of memories, both good and bad. There could have been, as the author acknowledges in the book, many more bands added to the book. Maybe Peterson will consider a follow up one day? Also, I don't want to seem petty but this book is full of typos. But it's great and it's inspiring. Read it! (This review originally appeared on my personal GoodReads page: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/9...)

-Jeff

[Jeffrey Bumiller · Rating 4 out of 5]

If this music and time period is at all important to you, you will certainly want to read this book. Some of the interviews become a little redundant here and there and I think it would have worked better as a consistent narrative rather than having each band presented separately. But having said that I still think it's a great read that brought back a lot of memories, both good and bad. There could have been, as the author acknowledges in the book, many more bands added to the book. Maybe Peterson will consider a follow up one day? Also, I don't want to seem petty but this book is full of typos. But it's great and it's inspiring. Read it!

[Brendan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had my reservations about this book; hardcore in the 90’s was a huge part of my life and I didn’t believe a book could do a good job at catching the spirit of the era. Peterson, however, did a fantastic job. From the insightful essays that open the book to the band portraits, this does a great job at capturing a pretty good portrait of what was going on back then. It made me nostalgic in all the right ways.

[Josh · Rating 3 out of 5]

One for archaeologies of subcultures and musical movements, Brian Peterson's sort of sequel to Steven Blush's "American Hardcore" does present itself as an interesting piece of cultural memorabilia. However, like the characters that appeared in Blush's book (and subsequent documentary based on the book), you really get to see how whiny these counter culture upstarts tended to be. Most of the time it is funny, but also annoying and sad, further muddling what was intended to be a fun and individualistic movement.
Shifting focus from Blush's 1980s setting, "Burning Fight" is concerned with the 1990s scene. The hopeful descendants of the ungrateful fathers of the previous generation. Blush's book begins on a strong note, describing the changing of the guard once Ronald Reagan's second presidential term ended, opening the 90s and the first Bush era, paving the way for the politically-correct decade that spawned multiple movements and shifts in style for various musical genres. Hardcore was no stranger to that.
The book's first part examines the main facets of 1990s hardcore, emphasizing the heavy hitters of social activism at the time: Spirituality, Straight Edge, Veganism, and the Hardcore Sound. All of these opinions and movements confluenced together which led to an even more outspoken movement than the 1980s hardcore scene but also further fragmented it into a meatheaded and ubermensch-like dominance of cliques and rock star personas. It gets a chuckle from the modern day reader to see how seriously these over-the-top characters discuss their renegade past experiences. Some look back and laugh, while some still spout the same weird crap (Points for staying true to themselves, but it still falls on the corny side for the most part).
Told in the same oral history style as "American Hardcore," "Burning Fight" has a very colorful cast of characters from some of the 1990s biggest hardcore outfits from around the U.S. (the author does emphasize that it is only American bands appearing in the book, noting that the international spectrum, as great as it was, is unknown territory to him). These groups discuss various elements and approaches toward their songwriting approaches to their outlooks on the scene itself and give either a bitter or a heartfelt account of the decade. It is fascinating to read some of these excerpts, however, a major chunk of the book (around 80% of it, actually) consists of individual sections pertaining to one specific band at the time, with oral histories only spoken by the bandmembers of that one band. This is the ultimate flaw of this book. While Blush's book chronicled the hardcore scene on a national level, featuring diverse opinions of many bands by the members of the subculture, Peterson's lengthy sections quickly become boring and, along with the book's tiny print, sometimes feels about as fun as reading the phone book. Lump it in with general rock star arrogance, it makes for a frustrating read at times.
As much as I am a fan of 90s hardcore, and the great beginning of this book, I tended to want to read another book about 90s hardcore, or at least look the bands up online and listen to their albums instead. Maybe that was the point, but the cost of this book alone is part of the general disappointment I had after finishing it. It is an expensive brick masquerading as an in-depth cultural study. I recommend purchase of this book only if it is found in the "used" section. And while many DIY hardcore fans might decry this review, more power to you. Read the book, get something out of it, pick up a microphone, and help change the world. Because one great thing about certain snippets of this tome is the inspirational values some (and only some) of the interviewees are able to conjure up. I also highly recommend listening to some of these bands before reading the book, it will add some flavor to the experience.

[Rob Pettinato · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can't read this book without reflecting on a few things: the road trip out to the Burning Fight release show in Chicago from NY and the bands and feelings and energy that introduced me to punk rock and hardcore in the late 90s. Both of these events were huge life-changing experiences. I don't hit up quite as many shows as I used to, but I constantly put on those old records or tapes and it gives such a unique feeling, but I have found that I also could, sort of, relive those moments while reading Burning Fight. There is no feeling quite like hearing your favorite bands for the first time or listening to a frontman speak with confidence about their beliefs, be it veganism, straight edge, Krishna consciousness, etc., but there is also a lot to be said for reading similar experiences from the people involved with hardcore at the time, whether it comes from the mouth of a band member or a fan. A good majority of the decisions I've made in life stems from things I've learned about or being involved with the punk rock and hardcore scenes and Burning Fight always seems to help give me the feeling of reassurance and community I've always felt from the music.

This review has a lot to do with my life, but I can't help it that when I read this book that it allows me to reflect on the major influences I've had in my life, both musically and personally, and I hope that anyone who reads this book can get the same feeling out of it.

Or maybe I just listen to too much Endpoint.

[Keith · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think this book was good but not great. Can 90's hardcore really be summed up in 500 pages? I think not. This books first section tries to explain what it was like to be part of the 90's hardcore scene and I think it only shows a slight glimpse of the time. I would say this is a good book for younger hardcore fans who weren't around in the 90's to experience it, but could be simplistic for the people who were around at the time. I think the band profile section is a good idea, but among those most were quite short. Most of the book are direct quotes from scenesters of the 90's era reflecting back on the time, yet didn't really pull me into and immerse me into what 90's hardcore was to a lot of people. Some of the band spotlights/interviews are quite articulate and well thought out, while most I felt were just bland and short. I'll give this book 3 stars for tying to tackle such a broad subject, and trying to present it in a unique way, but I feel it falls just a bit short. Also, the cover is quite flimsy. REV, please make the 2nd pressing more durable.

[Dave Hofer · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book needed some serious editing. It all read like these hardcore musicians were talking between songs at a show. If you're a fan of any of these bands, their respective sections will be at least somewhat interesting, but I couldn't be bothered to read about the bands I don't know or the sections on different aspects of the hardcore lifestyle.

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

In depth review coming when I have more energy.

[Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

EXCELLENT. REALLY well done here. Ambitious project that is done really well. If you were/are into this music, read this book.

[Andy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anyone who has connections to hardcore music would most likely find this book interesting. I especially liked the chapters dealing with spirituality and straightedge.

[Sami Koskinen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Best book about contemporary hardcore.

[Corey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love 90s hardcore. Listen to Burn, 108, and Quicksand. Life is good.

[Kurt Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yo!