Radio Clash

It was the first and only public debate that hardcore has ever seen. Is there anything left to discover from the Born Against versus Sick of it All clash of 1990?

Born Against, live at ABC No Rio. New York, NY. 1990. Photo by Tim Singer.

I.

I’m not sure if there has ever been another formal public debate in the hardcore scene before or since, but the Born Against versus Sick of it All debate on WNYU’s Crucial Chaos in 1990 is still one of the most instructive historical documents from the era that we have. I say that not so much because either side “won” or “lost”—truth be told, both sides took turns at being cringeworthy—but because it showed how two groups of hardcore kids could inhabit such different worlds, and how easy it was to create division in a scene that, up until that point, never shut up about unity.

If you’ve never listened to it before, the premise for the debate was simple. Sick of it All had recently signed with In-Effect Records, a fledgling label started by former Agnostic Front guitarist Steve Martin and longtime scene staple Howie Abrams, who had been working for In-Effect’s distributor, Important. The band’s first album under the deal, Blood, Sweat, and No Tears, was released in 1989. These particular facts created grounds for dissent from “the Born Against side,” represented by Sam McPheeters and Adam Nathanson, alongside Rorschach’s Charles Maggio. First, they argued that because the back cover artwork for the album featured a modified version of the song title “Bullshit Justice”—even though the lyrics in the song and recording remained unchanged—that such a revision constituted censorship. (They also criticized this modification as kneeling to “major label” demands; CBS/Sony owned a minority stake in Important Distributors at the time.) Next, they argued against the very principle of being on a bigger label, like In-Effect, specifically citing Dischord and SST as examples of independent labels that were out there “making it” without compromise.

For their part, Steve Martin—along with Sick of it All’s Lou and Pete Koller—addressed these two arguments in ways that clearly made sense to them, but didn’t seem to connect with the other side. As far as the “censored” album cover went, Lou and Pete explained that, as a nationally-touring band, they had personally discovered how difficult it already was to find their records in stores. Most small towns in America didn’t have a Some Records or a Venus Records, like New York City did, and outside of mailorder—which, let’s face it, sucked in the ‘80s—these small chains provided the only access that many people in Middle America had to hardcore. Had Sick of it All not chosen to remove the word “bullshit” from their album jacket, they would have been locked out of these stores altogether, and in turn, they would have locked out the kids who might have otherwise discovered them. This option was untenable to the band, and they took full ownership of the decision to omit the word “shit” from their album art; the label, they insisted, had nothing to do with it. As far as In-Effect’s relationship with Important went, Steve Martin’s counterpoint was unassailable: Important was also a distributor for both Dischord and SST.

That’s when the debate took a bizarre turn. The Born Against side essentially started arguing that if Sick of it All really cared about getting their music out to the kids, they would encourage home-taping—and not better distribution—as the solution. In other words, to serve the argument that “big business” was bad, Born Against were arguing that Sick of it All shouldn’t get paid for their music at all. For the Kollers, who were working-class kids from Queens with no clear career paths, hearing this kind of advice from a group of ostensibly suburban and educated middle-class kids felt particularly rich.

“They actually gave us the whole reasoning behind their bullshit,” Lou explained in a recent autobiography of Sick of it All. Essentially, the Born Against side said, “‘You guys could have been the Minor Threat of New York hardcore. You could have started your own label. Just think about what you could have done.’ I replied to them, ‘Maybe we could have, but we work jobs to earn a living. We do this band, and then we come home after a weekend of shows early on a Monday morning, put our equipment away, and return the rental van at 4 a.m. Then we go home, most of the time not even going to sleep, and then at 6 a.m. we go right to fucking work!’ That’s what we did for years, and they’re gonna tell me I’m gonna run a record label in the middle of all that?!”

II.

I thought about this debate over the weekend when I took part in a panel at Generation Records in New York City, celebrating the 30-year anniversary of Quicksand’s Slip. At one point, I was asked to talk about the local hardcore scene’s response to Quicksand’s major-label leap.

I brought up an anecdote that appears in my first essay for Anti-Matter—about how “even though they celebrated the release of Slip with a fully sold-out New York City show,” that the show “also provided a platform for a small, but vocal group of punk protestors who stood outside distributing flyers that criticized the band for their so-called ‘polished sound’ and major-label affiliation.” But as I retold that story, I started wondering why I never cared as much about “the major label” issue as so many other people did—whether it was Quicksand to Polydor or Sick of it All to In-Effect.

Out loud, I gave the true, but somewhat uninspired explanation that Quicksand was being real, and that we loved them for it because that was always going to be better than playing “traditional” hardcore with fake intent. But in my mind, I went back to that radio debate, and thought about how the case Born Against made against Sick of it All signing to In-Effect was actually only partially rooted in punk idealism. There is certainly a valid argument to be made about the intersection of punk and “big business”—or punk and capitalism, for that matter—but I’m not sure we were really thinking these things through back then. Most of Born Against’s understanding of the “major label” system, for example, was pure speculation. It was compelling to us as young people, but it wasn’t factually sound.

It’s the other part of their argument, then—the idea that Sick of it All should have either started their own label or given their music away—that shows the real human error in how we argued about these things: Born Against’s complete inability to understand why a blue-collar band like Sick of it All might actually want to sell records or make a better life for themselves through hardcore is an issue of class. The assumption that Lou and Pete could not only afford to start a record label, but had the luxury of time to build the New York hardcore version of Dischord is an issue of class. The argument that giving away your music is better than signing with a label that might actually allow you to make a living, especially when you lack the qualifications to succeed in most mainstream careers, is also an issue of class.

It occurred to me that Lou and Pete grew up with a socioeconomic experience that hewed closer to mine, and that’s why I understood them. Because I was a high school dropout without any practical job experience or family funding, trying to survive as a young person, and any opportunity that came my way and could help better my life was never something I took lightly.

I remember when my parents filed for bankruptcy and our family car was repossessed. I remember swearing I would never let that happen to me. I remember sitting on that panel last weekend, with my mind reeling, when I realized I would have signed with In-Effect, too.

III.

I want to zoom out here for a second, because one of the things I believe we have failed to appreciate about the Born Against versus Sick of it All debate over the years is that we had a debate at all. Which is to say, we recognized the existence of two opposing viewpoints that seemed important to discuss for the future of our community, we found a neutral platform to host such a discussion, and we invited two parties who were willing to hash it out—in person, in public, and in (mostly) good faith! Did it end poorly? Absolutely! If you listen until the end, the conversation devolves into a hot mess of fist-clenched threats and fuck-you screaming. But for at least 15 to 20 minutes, there was an attempt to say, “I hear you, but this is why I think you’re wrong.”

Whether you sat on one side of the argument or another, I still cherish that certain hardcore audacity about the willingness to use your voice in such a way, and it’s something I believe hardcore kids take with us wherever we go. James Spooner is currently best known as a novelist, the filmmaker responsible for the movie Afro-Punk, and co-editor for the recent anthology Black Punk Now, but 30 years ago, we met as kids in the New York hardcore scene—and if anyone picked up on this idea of creating uncomfortable conversations and running with them, it was James. In our interview, to be published in full on Thursday, he spoke to me about the deterioration of his relationship with the Afropunk organization that he started, and how, before he left in 2008, he accepted a very public challenge of his own—in front of the entire Afropunk Festival.

“This band on stage starts doing a medley of dancehall songs, and one of them is [the 1992 anti-gay Buju Banton song] ‘Boom Bye Bye,’” James recalled. “I was just like, fuck man. This is not why I did this. This is the opposite of why I did this. So I don’t know what came over me, but I just walked up on stage. They were in the middle of a song, and as soon as the song was over, I grabbed the mic and I just dressed them down. I had to explain to the audience that if this is what you’re here for, then this is not for you. I really tried to nail home that this is not what punk rock is about. This is not what Afropunk is about. I remember looking out at the crowd and seeing [two of] my friends, who we call AP OGs—the original Afropunk community members—and they’re queer, and they’re wearing volunteer badges, and I’m just like, ‘This shit would not even be happening if it wasn’t for gay people.’ I embarrassed [the band] and I embarrassed Matthew, my partner, but it was definitely something that I’m proud of. It was my last moment in Afropunk.”

In a lot of ways, this kind of forced public discussion is a distant cousin to the WNYU debate. (And, in fact, James notes that the first time he grabbed a mic to “dress someone down” wasn’t even at Afropunk, but at a show at Gilman Street.) Both of these moments came from a deep conviction that there was something wrong in the community, they came from a place of love and idealism, and whether they came out clumsy or classy, they became unforgettable moments for the people who bore witness.

IV.

So many years later, just about everyone who took part in the debate is at least somewhat embarrassed by it. Lou Koller said in the Sick of it All book that he refuses to listen to it ever again, while Born Against’s Adam Nathanson offered one writer the following statement:

Let’s see, the war in Central America, the AIDS crisis, homelessness, increasing racial tensions, gentrification, all raged seemingly without end during that time. So what did Born Against decide to focus on? Whether In-Effect Records bands self-censored the word “shit” from their lyric sheets! Talk about a lack of perspective! Fortunately, I found a great therapist to help me with those kinds of misguided outbursts now.

If you look online, you’ll still find armchair commentators out there, ready to declare a winner. But DJ Spermicide, the legendary host of Crucial Chaos and moderator of the debate, took the side of history in an interview from 2018.

“Look how that all turned out,” she said. “Sick of It All is still touring like crazy and bringing the New York hardcore scene to the world. I just saw their 30th anniversary show. They somehow found a way to make the music their life’s work without having to tone down their sound or make it more generic. It seems like such an ancient problem.”

Coming on Thursday to Anti-Matter: A conversation with novelist, filmmaker, and Afropunk founder James Spooner.

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