Void | |
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Background information | |
Origin | Columbia, Maryland |
Genres | |
Years active | 1979 | –1984
Labels | Dischord |
Past members |
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Void was an American hardcore punk band formed in Columbia, Maryland, in 1980. The group was a pioneering force in the thriving Washington, D.C., hardcore scene during the early 1980s, successfully combining elements of punk with heavy metal in a style that was accepted by the scene's otherwise exclusive community. Void's punk metal fusion sound was marked by guitarist Bubba Dupree's innovative guitar work and the "unhinged" vocals of John Weiffenbach, which resonated in the band's chaotic but popular live performances. Like many of their contemporaries, Void had a short-lived recording career, limited to the split album Faith/Void Split with the Faith on Dischord Records. However, they have enjoyed an enduring cult following among hardcore aficionados.
Inspired by punk rock bands the Teen Idles and Minor Threat, Void—a name which referred to Black Sabbath's song "Into the Void"—was formed in 1979, [2] and consisted of an interracial lineup unique to the era, featuring high school students Jon "Bubba" Dupree (lead guitar), John Weiffenbach (vocals), Chris Stover (bass), and Sean Finnegan (drums). [3] [4] The group soon began associating with scenesters Ian MacKaye, Henry Rollins, and Bert Queiroz, who introduced Void to artists of the flourishing underground music scene in Washington, D.C. By late 1980, Void was embraced by the generally exclusive D.C. punk community, even though the band was not native to the city, being in closer proximity to Baltimore's scene. Dupree, while reflecting on the band's acceptance, considered Void "the outcast rednecks" who did not initially reflect upon the hardcore style associated with contemporary groups. [5]
Void first performed in D.C. at a Wilson Center hardcore festival organized by Bad Brains, where the group was one of 15 bands present. [6] The band was notorious for its live act, which thrived off Weiffenbach's chaotic stage persona and his manic vocals. Additionally, Void's sound was marked by alternating blasts of power chords and shrieking feedback within brief but upbeat songs, creating a higher degree of intensity than most of their contemporaries. [7] [8] In 1981, Void entered the studio for the first time, cutting demos titled "Condensed Flesh" at record producer Don Zientara's Inner Ear Studios. Songs from the session and additional studio time later in the year later surfaced on the Condensed Flesh EP in 1992. [9] Shortly thereafter, Ian MacKaye signed Void to his co-owned label Dischord Records, and the group made their debut in January 1982 on the compilation album Flex Your Head , which featured the three songs "Dehumanized", "Authority", and "My Rules". [10]
In mid-1982, Void began touring across the Northeast, most notably at the CBGB music club, and introduced characteristics of heavy metal into their music, which became influential in originating punk metal fusion. Initially, this blend arose organically, and was further explored on the split album Faith/Void Split with fellow D.C. band the Faith in September 1982. [11] The split album is hailed as one of the earliest examples of hardcore-metal crossover, and Void's frantic musical approach is often considered particularly influential. [3] [12] [13] Music critic Doug Mosurock described Void's side of the album as "quintessential American hardcore", also noting that "Very few bands could match the aggression, intensity, and amateur/weirdo vibes on display within Void's dozen tracks from the split". [14] Dischord Records first reissued Faith/Void Split in 1985 and digitally remastered it in 2008. [6]
With Finnegan insisting the band needed multi-track facilities, Void choose not to resign with Dischord, and instead made a deal with Touch and Go Records in mid-1983. The group recorded an album's worth of material; however, the band members were drifting in different musical directions including glam rock, hip hop, and hard rock. [11] Void strayed further apart because of their gigs becoming increasingly manic, and by late 1983 the group disbanded after the members graduated from high school. Corey Rusk, the owner of Touch and Go, was uninterested in releasing the album of a dissolved band while in the midst of securing a big deal with the Butthole Surfers. [9] Although members of Void were adamant about leaving the botched album unreleased, hardcore aficionados heavily bootlegged it onto cassette tapes titled Potions for Bad Dreams. Bands such as White Zombie and the Melvins have claimed Potions for Bad Dreams shaped their own musical styles. [11] [15]
Dupree was the only member of Void to continue his music career after the band, guesting with Soundgarden, Moby, and Dave Grohl in the 1990s and 2000s. In 2021 he joined 3rd Secret. In 2011, Dischord Records released the compilation album Sessions 1981-83 , which featured studio outtakes, previously-unreleased tracks, and live recordings between 1981 and 1983. [16] Finnegan died of a heart attack in 2008. [17]
Minor Threat was an American hardcore punk band, formed in 1980 in Washington, D.C., by vocalist Ian MacKaye and drummer Jeff Nelson. MacKaye and Nelson had played in several other bands together, and recruited bassist Brian Baker and guitarist Lyle Preslar to form Minor Threat. They added a fifth member, Steve Hansgen, in 1982, playing bass, while Baker switched to second guitar.
Dischord Records is a Washington, D.C.-based independent record label specializing in punk rock. The label is co-owned by Ian MacKaye and Jeff Nelson, who founded Dischord in 1980 to release Minor Disturbance by their band The Teen Idles. With other independent American labels such as Twin/Tone, Touch and Go Records, and SST Records, Dischord helped to spearhead the nationwide network of underground bands that formed the 1980s indie rock scene. These labels presided over the shift from the hardcore punk that then dominated the American underground scene to the more diverse styles of alternative rock that were emerging.
Rites of Spring was an American punk rock band from Washington, D.C., formed in late 1983. Along with Embrace, and Beefeater, they were one of the mainstay acts of the 1985 Revolution Summer movement which took place within the Washington, D.C. hardcore punk scene.
Brian Baker is an American punk rock musician. He is best known as one of the founding members of the hardcore punk band Minor Threat, and as a guitarist in Bad Religion since 1994. In Minor Threat, he originally played bass guitar before switching to guitar in 1982 when Steve Hansgen joined the band, and then moved back to bass after Hansgen's departure. He also founded Dag Nasty in 1985, was part of the original line-up of Samhain, and has had stints in Doggy Style, The Meatmen, Government Issue, and Junkyard.
Dag Nasty is an American hardcore punk band from Washington D.C., formed in 1985 by guitarist Brian Baker of Minor Threat, drummer Colin Sears and bassist Roger Marbury, both of Bloody Mannequin Orchestra, and vocalist Shawn Brown. Their style of less aggressive, melodic hardcore was influential to post-hardcore; their sound was partly influenced by The Faith and their 1983 EP Subject to Change. Other influences include Descendents, Buzzcocks and The Clash.
Scream is an American hardcore punk band from Washington, D.C.; they originally formed in the suburb of Bailey's Crossroads, Virginia. Scream originally formed in 1981 within the vanguard of the Washington Hardcore explosion. In 2009, the band reunited, and as of January 2012 were on tour in Europe. As of 2017, the band was still touring in both America and the United Kingdom.
Post-hardcore is a punk rock music genre that maintains the aggression and intensity of hardcore punk but emphasizes a greater degree of creative expression. It was initially inspired by post-punk and noise rock. Like the term "post-punk", the term "post-hardcore" has been applied to a broad constellation of groups. Post-hardcore began in the 1980s with bands like Hüsker Dü and Minutemen. The genre expanded in the 1980s and 1990s with releases by bands from cities that had established hardcore scenes, such as Fugazi from Washington, D.C. as well as groups such as Big Black, Jawbox, Quicksand, and Shellac that stuck closer to post-hardcore's noise rock roots. Dischord Records became a major nexus of post-hardcore during this period. The genre also began to incorporate more dense, complex, and atmospheric instrumentals with bands like Slint and Unwound, and also experienced some crossover from indie rock with bands like The Dismemberment Plan. In the early- and mid-2000s, post-hardcore achieved mainstream success with the popularity of bands like At the Drive-In, My Chemical Romance, Dance Gavin Dance, AFI, Underoath, Hawthorne Heights, Silverstein, The Used, Saosin, Alexisonfire, and Senses Fail. In the 2010s, bands like Sleeping with Sirens and Pierce the Veil achieved mainstream success under the post-hardcore label. Meanwhile, bands like Title Fight and La Dispute experienced underground popularity playing music that bore a closer resemblance to the post-hardcore bands of the 1980s and 1990s.
Washington, D.C., hardcore, commonly referred to as D.C. hardcore, sometimes styled in writing as harDCore, is the hardcore punk scene of Washington, D.C. Emerging in late 1979, it is considered one of the first and most influential punk scenes in the United States.
Negative Approach is an American hardcore punk band, formed in Detroit, Michigan in 1981. The band is considered among the pioneers of hardcore punk, particularly in the Midwest region. Like most hardcore bands, Negative Approach was little known in its day outside of its hometown. It is now idolized in the Detroit rock underground and the punk subculture, considered to be one of the elite bands of the "old school" era, and continues to be influential. Negative Approach initially broke up in 1984 with singer John Brannon moving on to the Laughing Hyenas, and later Easy Action, but the band has reformed as of 2006 and continues to tour sporadically.
Melodic hardcore is a broadly defined subgenre of hardcore punk with a strong emphasis on melody in its guitar work. It generally incorporates fast rhythms, melodic and often distorted guitar riffs, and vocal styles tending towards shouting and screaming. Nevertheless, the genre has been very diverse, with different bands showcasing very different styles. Many pioneering melodic hardcore bands, have proven influential across the spectrum of punk rock, as well as rock music more generally. The term melodic punk is often used to describe both melodic hardcore and skate punk bands.
Peter Marc Stahl is an American musician best known for fronting the Virginia-based punk/hardcore band Scream with his brother Franz. Early on, Scream also featured Nirvana drummer and Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl on drums who credited Pete Stahl as the inspiration for the song "My Hero" for his tutelage.
"Into the Void" is a song by British heavy metal band Black Sabbath, released in 1971 on their album Master of Reality. An early version of "Into the Void" called "Spanish Sid" was released on the deluxe edition of Master of Reality. It is written in the key of C# minor.
A split album is a music album that includes tracks by two or more separate artists. There are also singles and EPs of the same variety, which are often called "split singles" and "split EPs" respectively. Split albums differ from "various artists" compilation albums in that they generally include several tracks of each artist, or few artists with one or two tracks each, instead of multiple artists with only one or two tracks each.
Flex Your Head is a sampler album featuring early hardcore punk bands from the Washington, D.C. area. It was originally released in January 1982 on Dischord Records, with a pressing of 4,000 copies on vinyl record that sold out within one week; an additional 3,000 copies were released shortly after. In 1982, a third pressing of 2,000 copies was released under license in the United Kingdom by Alternative Tentacles. Each of the first three pressings featured a different front cover.
The Faith/Void Split LP is a split album by Washington D.C. hardcore groups Void and the Faith, released on Dischord Records in 1982. Void was one of the earliest examples of hardcore/metal crossover with their chaotic musical approach cited as particularly influential. Kurt Cobain listed the album in his top fifty albums of all time.
The Faith was an early American hardcore punk band, from Washington D.C., with strong connections to the scene centered on the Dischord label. Along with Minor Threat, The Faith were key players in the early development of hardcore, with a (later) melodic approach that would influence not just associated acts like Rites of Spring, Embrace and Fugazi, but also a subsequent generation of bands such as Nirvana, whose Kurt Cobain was a vocal fan.
Dischord Records is an independent record label specializing in the punk rock music of the Washington, D.C., hardcore scene. The company is co-owned by Ian MacKaye and Jeff Nelson, who founded the label in December 1980. Before founding Dischord, both MacKaye and Nelson were members of the Teen Idles, and the label was initially meant to only foster a single release from the defunct band, the Minor Disturbance EP. By the time Dischord #1 was finished, many new bands had emerged from the same music scene, and like the Teen Idles, also began releasing their records through Dischord.
Chaotic Dischord are a punk rock band from Bristol, England, allegedly formed by members of Vice Squad and their road crew in 1981. The band also recorded a one-off EP under the name Sex Aids.
Subject to Change is the first and only EP by American hardcore band The Faith. It was released in December 1983 through Dischord Records. Like other influential D.C. records, it was released after the band had broken up. For the band's only other release after their split LP with Void, Edward Janney added some second guitar.
Sessions 1981-83 is an album by hardcore punk band Void. It was released in 2011. The album compiles three sessions as well as a live performance. 29 of the 34 songs on the album had not been previously released, officially.