Well, it's called that or DISCORDS AND DESCENES : AN ANTHOLOGY depending on how you flip the book. But still, this totally who-woulda-thought-they'd-ever-do-it package contains each and every issue of this important Washington DC-area fanzine that I and maybe even you missed out on back when the thing was up and about in the late-seventies and early-eighties. Well, it wasn't like BLACK TO COMM was gettin' the much-needed distribution back when it was alive 'n kickin' either, but then again DESCENES/DISCORDS wasn't just a piddler in the world of fandom but a big up 'n comer, this nation's capitol's answer to THE NEW YORK ROCKER/SLASH and a mighty contender as well. It's a shame that this one wasn't as well-known with the cooler'n hip pretenders like myself who used to plunk down the pennies for the NYR back when the pennies just happened to be piling up. Which at the time wasn't often.
Not just any rockzine, DESCENES/DISCORDS was the brainbaby of none other'n Howard SM Wuelfing, a guy who I must admit is up there with my favorite Golden Age of Rock Fandom writers whom I've mentioned over and over again these past few decades unless I wrote something bad about the guy I totally forgot about. And given that the NYR was a template for this very creation you can see the comparisons, only with a DC focus that sure brought to light whatever it was going on in the burgh.
That means loads of Bad Brains back in their pre-dreadlock days when HR used to wear that old suit and do back flips as well as the Boys Slickee and White, and heck even the Urban Verbs get more'n just a few plugs which some might say area few more plugs than they deserved. Wouldn't know personally since I never did lend ear to these guys but eh, rumors do abound.
DESCENES/DISCORDS captured what is known as the zeitgeist of the days, and mags likes these were definitely thee thing for those of you who, like me,were looking for signs of life amidst the humdrum disco and ROR ("Retard Oriented Rock") that locally was being pushed by utter cubes like local radio "talents" Thomas John and Bob Popa who I both hope meet tragic endings soon (unfortunately the jerks that I knew ATE IT UP hook line and bong!). Back then it was sure grand just to merely see a brief namedrop of some currently obsessed with band past or present in the pages of even STEREO REVIEW f'rgoodnesssakes as if the local library would even think of stocking BACK DOOR MAN. If only DESCENES/DISCORDS had entered my life at the time boy would that trajectory called existence gone in an entirely different, and perhaps even more pleasant direction.
I often wondered what Mark Jenkins was up to fanzine-wise after his own HYPE(RION) deep-sixed back in early 1975 and now I know. The guy's all over these pages as a not only an editor but a contributor and art director and as I would have guessed his tastes for early-mid-seventies punkisms were still firmly in place judging from his knowledgeable coverage of the New Beat. Jenkin's galpal and former HYPE-ster Libby Hatch also makes a few appearances both as a contributor and as the subject of various live reviews in her role as a bass guitarist of local renown. I would assume that if HYPE(RION) had make it into the early-eighties it would have looked somewhat like DESCENES/DISCORDS and really, it's too bad that it didn't because we always could have used one more fanzine along the lines of this 'un on the market.
Not to say that there were signs of decay as the years rolled on what with the underground shift from the post-Velvets/Stooges mindset era of underground rockism into early-eighties hardcore (although DESCENES/DISCORDS thankfully called it quits before the HC era traipsed into pseudo-hippie radical snooze, the offal of which you can now whiff anywhere you go). Some of the people who ended up writing for the mag just weren't what I would call up to snuff and unfortunately began to typify the miasma that underground rock criticism found itself in by the time the nineties began to make me feel like why I bothered in the first place.
Still some surprises pop up in between the Ian Mackaye interviews and such, like Jim Testa's gab with Vivien Goldman which for me absolves all of the negative blah that Testa has been subjugated to throughout the years. Some people (like a certain Bostonian who was also a later-on DISCORDS-era contributor and bitter enemy of Testa come to think of it) just carry mad-ons to cover up for their own insignificant existences I guess.
The mag was a surprisingly grand effort, varied in its coverage of the hip 'n with it, that I sure wish I was rich enough to afford way back when if I only knew the dang thing existed! And an anthology like this does make up for at least a little bit of lost time even if for all intent purposes the music that was covered in these pages is unfortunately long dead and decayed. A mag that knew what the Big Beat was all about, and how can anyone not love a mag that devoted more than just enough ample space to Half Japanese! If there are people around today who write about rock or any sort of music good or bad, this book is a good lesson in how not to fudge it up!
wow. what is odd is that i never even saw a concurrent mag-fanzine mention it in a review section! as for the urban verbs i saw them live. imagine the most vanilla non synth new wave band and then add an additional scoop of vanilla. mission of burma opened and left scorched earth. most of the crowd left.
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