People ask me about power violence all the time, because back in the 90s I knew a lot about it. That said, I never really respond because I don’t have anything to say about it that I didn’t already say a long time ago. If you are interested, check out this old post I did called “Power violence: A handful of diamonds in a sea of shit”. To make a long story short, I loved the first wave of PV bands, when it was all scumbag metal dudes who also liked Black Flag, but as soon as the fggt PC crust punx, No Fun Clubbers and other party poopers came in, I lost interest:
Imagine you are kneeling in front of a bathtub, and it is filled to the brim with human shit. You’re elbow-deep, fishing around in it because you heard there were half a dozen diamonds in this giant container of feces. This is what it would be like to sift through the glut of so-called power violence records that came out in the 90s: almost the entire genre is the worst kind of generic garbage, with a handful of releases rising to the top. Sounds like a waste of time, right? Not so fast: The good stuff is so, so good that it is better than almost anything ever recorded in any genre (if you have heard “Downsided” you know what I’m talking about). Fortunately for those of you who aren’t as familiar with the genre as I (regrettably) am, we’re here to help.
Wat u think??? Please leave any comments on this post, because if you post them on the other one I won’t see them since I don’t read that blog anymore.
“Mexican in a Suffocation T Shirt” is probably the best song title ever
That old MI post is one of your best. I feel like most kids tryin to play pv these days have never listened to Divided We Fall or raw dawged a chick who just smoked em out. You need to be a legit loser/scumbag. that pic of Excruciating Terror hangin with Rand Spears:)
I’ve read this post probably twelve times. Any time I want a new band to listen to, I check out this or one of your slam posts.
Downsided and the Despise You compilation are just absurdly good.
I like a lot of Spazz and MITB stuff too, but apart from that I don’t think I’ve heard any other powerviolence that really worked for me.
I like old pv I don’t like when bands call themselves pv. Especially new ones. And PC faggotry is the worst in any genre.
be prepared, this shit is coming back hard via dumb kids playing blastbeats over shortened hardcore songs and calling it pv
as a pv elitist I am grumpster diving over this
“Grumpster diving” is a great turn of phrase.
Anybody here listen to iron lung?
Hell yeah, every time I’ve seen them live they’ve killed it! IMO the best newer pv band, unless you count Wormrot. I am never exactly sure what counts as powerviolence or grindcore anymore.
Iron lung, apartment 213, mitb my favs. but i never did enough research to suss out the original and best. any outstanding awesomes?
Spazz and Charles Bronson are pretty good and pretty funny.
“are we strong? do we stand united? that means all you ƒucking metalheads, and all you hardcore assholes” :D
fuckin a, i read that in his exact voice. brb reliving my 9th grade wonder years
How is PV different from grindcore?
different hairstyles
haha i played in multiple crappy PV bands in the 90′s that went nowhere, the problem with allot of PV bands was that the drummers weren’t really good enough so they would do a blast beat for like 1 second then go into some awkward fill (listen to any spazz song) or the drummer would try to keep doing the blast beat and the snare drum would quickly fade out, and this was on record, PV bands were TERRIBLE live and you can’t dane to that shit, i loved that shit but it was totally boring.
This stuff must not have had much of an impact on the East Coast.
I’ve only ever heard of a handful of these bands and was thoroughly disappointed with the lone MITB record I bought.
Yeah, not so much on the east cost but Suppression is from Virginia and they put out a great split with Despise You.
I dont think east coasters really got the whole skateboarding/hip hop/graffiti/death metal crossover thing that defined the west coast bands…
Agree… but Suppression definitely got the wierdo fuck-up / what the hell is this noise? / cocaine thing right.
lofl @ the crossed out sprinkler drums
Never dug into this genre while it was current except for Infest and CB (yes I’m that guy) if that counts but I started this year. Have decided I really like Despise You and MITB. Spazz is hit or miss with me, kind of dislike self-referential Hardcore.
powerviolence happened to be going on when I really started digging into all the sub genres of punk and hardcore. in the pacific northwest it didn’t really seem to be around all that much, although you had certain bands that borrowed from the style. it seemed that in Portland there were a lot of bands that were kind of jokey that tried to rip off Spazz but none of them really went anywhere…and it was always some configuration of the nine people who were really into it. it was ALWAYS blasting in my house though. one of my old roommates (who was originally from Seattle) evidently put out a crossed out bootleg that pissed some people off…
I am from Seattle, and you’re right, there were literally like 3 people I knew of who were into power violence when I was in high school (92-96). And that is including me haha.
you and I are the same age… did you know John Batchelor? guitarist for scathed? One of the only guys I knew into power violence AND unholy blkmtl. back in the 90s that was rare…
yep, I knew him! nice guy, i’m pretty sure he thinks I’m a douche though haha. I remember him being super bummed once that I was wearing a Madball shirt– but he’s a good dude, I like him even if he was in the No Fun Club!
evidently he lives in the hawaiian rainforest… last time i saw him he was doing a video project with The Roots…
that article is ESSENTIAL PWV READ. no joke.
Does Voorhees register? Cause I fucking came to their 7″ just a few minutes ago and will feel bad if not backed.
The metal inquisition piece on pv is still one of the coolest things I’ve read on the internet so far. Plus, the clue on the downsided 7″ and on Despise You came to me at a point in my life where I really needed something like that.
Got into powerviolence with Spazz, Charles Bronson, Dropdead and local imitators. Never heard Apartment 213 until now and holyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit :O
Not gonna lie. I love Mind Eraser.
i liked a lot of the bands that were affiliated with the pv bands. a lot of the tagger metal/grind bands were great…
PV drummers can’t drum? Whaa? Bob from Lack of Interest is one of the most precise drummers in fast aggressive music period. And according to an interview with Eric Wood from a few years ago the only “trve” powerviolence bands were, at that time, Bastard Noise, the Endless Blockade, and Apt. 213. His reasoning for this is that true pv bands also incorporate noise/electronics. This, however, does not mean bands without these elements cannot play some form of pv. My big problem with “kids these days” is they have the nerve (I know I’m getting too worked over something that doesn’t matter) to call Trash Talk and Ceremony power violence. Also the key difference between grind and pv is that pv is most of the time stripped of all elements of metal-influence.
get a load of these fggts
gross troll and his trophy bitch playing songs about eating food
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpTrrpsNqnM