The 1980’s, A Decade of Music Lost

Saving the Music of the 1980's

Way back when in the 1980’s, or at least it seems like forever ago, the music scene was totally different than it is today. Bands didn’t have web pages, music downloads weren’t around. Facebook, Twitter, Google had not even been dreamt of yet. Bands didn’t have cell phones, smart phones, laptop computers, email lists. There were no concert listings online, no discussion groups, and certainly no blogs. Music was in the control of the major record labels, major studios and distributors, and the radio stations.

If you were in a band you were stuck behind a door that was locked shut from the inside and the major record labels had the only key. To get a good sounding demo or album it would cost hundreds to thousands of dollars with an engineer in a studio. Bands had to pay for tape that cost $10 a foot to record on and the bills piled up from there.

On top of all that the labels were stuck in a rut. The only music they were interested in was a proven formula of rock from the seventies and sugary pop music that could be market tested and extruded into a nice Madsion Avenue commercial package pile of shit. Independent bands and labels were left out of the party in the rain.

In spite of all that, a new and exciting music scene was born out of grass roots movements. Kids all over the US and the world said, “fuck it,” and started their own bands, clubs, and music scenes based on the hard, raw emotions that main stream music had lost and had become clueless about. We were pissed and had something to say. We didn’t care if you wanted to listen, we were going to do our thing and FTW!

Just about every town and city in the U.S. had some sort of scene and out of these scenes many bands were formed. Now I’ll be honest, many of these bands sucked but some were great. The beauty of these new music scenes were there were no rules. If you wanted to be in a band but you didn’t know how to play an instrument, so what, you formed a band played anyways. It was all about emotion, community, music and fun.

Now let me get to the point of this blog post. There were many great bands that came out in the 1980’s that never got the chance to be recorded, or if they were recorded it was probably done with a ghetto blaster and the sound quality was inaudible, especially by today’s standards. Now there are home studios in thousands of bedrooms across the world capable of creating if not great recordings at least audible ones. Today, every musical thought that is pooped out is documented and uploaded onto the internet.

In the 1980’s only a few bands had the opportunity to have a decent recording done. Most of these bands were in major cities that had big scenes with the money and resources to record. If you were a band in a place like Tucson, Arizona chances are that you would never go into a studio to record. If you did have that opportunity, only a few fans would get the chance to hear or purchase your recordings. This played out over the whole music scene so many of the great bands of the 1980’s have not been heard of today.

I feel that the history of the great music scenes of the 1980’s has been greatly distorted, excuse my pun. Bands like Black Flag, Minor Threat, Bad Brains, etc. were and are great bands but they are only a small part of the story. There were many more great bands that kids today have no clue about. Just read the comments on any 1980’s punk rock band’s YouTube video page.

My goal at Disillusion Music Label is to document as much music and culture from the scenes of the 1980’s as I can find. I have started with my own collection of stored music and have been busy digitizing and am now in the process of releasing all of the old tapes of bands from the Tucson Music scene of the 1980’s that I have on hand. So please check out my website and support this decade of lost music and together we will make history clear. I want to turn people on to all those bands time has forgotten.

Let me tell you about an offer I have for this holiday season. Now until January 1st, 2013 I’m offering a 5 CD set of the newly re-mastered, reconditioned, and recently released set of the Useless Pieces of Shit’s music catalog.

Check it out at this link below:

Useless Pieces of Shit Holiday Special

Useless Pieces of Shit are one of those bands from the 1980’s that really never got much notice back in their day, outside of Southern Arizona except for the few who got the chance to see a show on one of UPS’s two U.S. Tours, but that is a story for the next blog.

Slug Useless
Disillusion Music Label

Please leave me a comment or send me an email at: Disllusion.Music@gmail.com.