NEW YORK (Billboard) - What is considered punk rock and hardcore nowadays has evolved considerably since the early '80s, a point proven by the new documentary, "American Hardcore: The History of American Punk Rock 1980-1986."

The 90-minute feature, which premieres at the
Sundance Film Festival later this month, boasts footage from numerous bands, including Minor Threat, Black Flag and Suicidal Tendencies.

The movie was put together by Paul Rachman (best known for directing videos for Alice In Chains, Temple Of The Dog and Pantera) and writer Steven Blush (who wrote the 2001 book "American Hardcore").

"There's this 'History of Rock'n'Roll' series -- one of them by the PBS, the other by the BBC," Blush tells Billboard.com. "I saw both, and they get to this point in history. They talk about the Sex Pistols and the Clash, they talk to Exene (Cervenka) and X ... and they go straight to Nirvana. It just kind of sent me on this journey to figure this out, and manifested itself five years later in the 'American Hardcore' book."

Blush and Rachman have known each other since the '80s, when they crossed paths as fans of the east coast punk/hardcore scene. "Steve was in D.C., I was in Boston," explains Rachman. "I knew who he was, and in New York we became more aware of each other. I moved back in 2000, ran into him on the street and he says, 'I'm finishing up this book, "American Hardcore."' It instantly clicked in my head -- this is a great film, and we're the guys to do this. In December 2001, shortly after his book was published, we went to Boston, and did a first set of interviews. We ended up doing 115 interviews and finding about 100 hours of rare stock footage and hundreds of photographs."

Rachman admits it was difficult to unearth this footage. "This is before even the VHS video revolution -- '80, '81, '82," he says. "It was really hard to find documentation -- particularly video documentation. If a kid was lucky enough to borrow his dad's VHS camcorder, he would go to a show, shoot a full day of shows and shoot everything on 'six-hour-mode.' And that's the master -- those are the tapes we found."

Highlights include rare live clips of Bad Brains (their first-ever Philadelphia performance, circa 1981), MDC and Negative Approach, as well as countless interviews. "I think the most interesting thing to me was to see what has happened to people," Blush points out. "When we go see Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, it's this mansion up in the hills in Malibu, and then on the other hand, you see how poor some of these people are, and how bitter some of these people are -- people who did not get their due."

Asked what he'd like viewers to get out of the film, Blush explains, "You see all these bands today and they act all hard and intense. (But) these guys were intense. These guys walked the walk and didn't brag about it. We screened this to very few people, but (in one audience) was an 18-year-old kid. At the end of it, he was like, 'Wow, kids my age are really going to be bummed out, because they're going to see they're not real compared to this stuff

I can't wait to see this. Its a shame that 80's hardcore it such an overlooked genre; it produced some of the best music of the past 25 years. While not for everyone's taste, its an important bridge between punk and heavy metal. Bands like Poison Ivy, The Misfits and Minor Threat are as important as The Clash, The Ramones and The Sex Pistols IMO. Its a shame they get so overlooked by the casual music fan.

Sounds kickass, although isn't this the same territory as was covered on The Decline of Western Civilization?

That's what I was thinking. Decline has like 6-7 bands and the majority of the film is the band performances. Hopefully this one will be good too.

I think there are many musical movements that are overlooked: the grunge movement of the early 90's (Nirvana, PJ, Soundgarden), the pop explosion of the late 90's (NSYNC, Britney Spears, Backstreet Boys), and the new wave of american heavy metal in recent years (Unearth, Killswitch Engage, Lamb of God).

-Sunny

I disagree. There was Heavy Metal before there was ever hardcore punk.

I guess you could maybe stretch your argument to read "important bridge between punk and metalcore," but metalcore pretty much flat out sucks balls.

Yes, but heavy metal after hardcore is very obviously directly influenced by it. Thrash, Death Metal, Grindcore, etc all owe much of their sound to hc.

I don't think a common element of aggression means that there is any correllation, necessarily.

It's not the common element of aggression, it's the fact that the more extreme styles of metal in the eighties got many elements of their sound from hardcore.

alright if you say so

Let's all listen to Snapcase