[uhler]

Originally Posted by DJ Rick

Everyone's always making it seem like music is forever a competition between the US and UK. Hardcore was happening throughout the world at the same time even in its earliest stages. No one can say for sure whether the first HC record was from Washington, DC (Bad Brains), Los Angeles (the Middle Class), or Japan (the SS (sloppy for sure!)).

Discharge were kicking around about as early as any of these bands, and they had so much Englishness to them that they surely were not much influenced by US HC. And most US HC bands were not much influenced by Discharge until much later. So much of the ultrafast HC was homespun Americana, and later Canadiana when the Neos got into the game (followed by the Sons of Ishmael into the mid-80s). J Mascis would be quoted as saying Discharge were his favorite band, but Deep Wound really do sound like so much other Massachusetts HC, but just faster than anyone before them or their peers other than Siege. You can hear even a little bit of early Dischord in them.

Where Discharge's influence could really be seen was in Europe (and Scandinavia in particular) and Japan. Rattus and Terveet Kadet were active in Finland before 1980, but they didn't really become great or prolific until after Discharge toured through their towns and touced their music. After that tour, the "kang" style of hardcore and generally your "d-beat" predecessors practically became the most common style of DIY music in Finland. I've heard people who were young then say that every high school in Sweden had at least three bands of teenage boys who played this style of HC. That would be like the explosion of garage-rock in the USA circa 1964-1966...every high school in every town had bands then.

In the US, so much of punk identity was keeping distance from metal, but in the UK and especially Japan, fans of loud fast rock music didn't have these hangups. Hence bands like Discharge and G.I.S.M. In the US, it was novelty in 1985 for D.R.I. to embrace metal chops. By then, Discharge had descended into a total joke, so American punks were by and large never ready to embrace Discharge until the greatness of their early records was remembered and continually praised in zines.

i ment almost exactly what you said, just in less words. it seemed a lot of the younger american hardcore bands formed after 1982 were influenced by discharge as much as black flag or bad brains.