MP3 Monday: D.O.A.
By Morgan Short, Dec 15th, 2008 | In Nightlife
MP3 Monday is a weekly SmartShanghai column, serving up mp3s from bands living and making music in China (or coming to China, or thinking about coming to China, or whatever). Right click on the links and choose "Save Link As..." to download 'em. Click play to rock 'em.
Today's MP3 Monday will probably be the last for a little while, as I'm going on vacation to my parents' basement in Canada for a few weeks, to catch up on whatever they're showing on TLC these days.
Speaking of Canada though, did you hear Canadian hardcore punk legends D.O.A. are coming to Shanghai (and some other Chinese cities) in January? Crazy.
Along with Black Flag, Bad Brains, the Circle Jerks, and Minor Threat, D.O.A. are often cited as one of the central bands of the second wave of punk rock in the 1980s, and their album Hardcore '81 is the first time the word "hardcore" was ever associated with the word "punk." That album also saw D.O.A. progressing from a melodic and accessible late '70s punk sound (think: The Clash) into the archetypal hardcore punk sound that exploded like a tear gas grenade during the Reagan years -- fast as possible, angry as hell, aggressive, vicious, and defiantly un-commercial.
The hardcore movement in the early 1980s is also when punk rock got heavily politicized, and the message moved from the cities to the suburbs. D.O.A., along with the aforementioned bands, were at the center of all that, and their influence is still heard today in bands of the neo hardcore / "street punk" movement (for lack of a better term), like the Beijing-based band Demerit, who will be playing with D.O.A. when they come to Shanghai on January 9. For more on the history of the first wave of hardcore punk, scour your local DVD shops for a recent documentary that got released called American Hardcore (check in the documentary sections).
The first two MP3s are off D.O.A.'s live album, Talk Minus Action Equals Zero, recorded at Club Soda in Vancouver in 1988. These tracks are emblematic of the uncompromising, political stance that D.O.A. has maintained since their beginnings.
That third one is D.O.A. covering Bachman-Turner Overdrive's "Taking Care of Business," which is a song about the importance of taking care of business.
D.O.A. ¨C Fuck You
D.O.A. ¨C Race Riot
D.O.A. ¨C Taking Care of Business
D.O.A. are the most no-bullshit band in the world and hopefully their tour of China will be influential at a time when Chinese rock seems poised for commercial success, and many young bands are facing the option of broadening their sound in the interests of mass appeal.
Images from this article jacked from D.O.A.'s MySpace page. Anarchy!
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