Sound and fury of the Nihilistics
by Wayne Robins, NY Newsday, Sunday, March 11, 1984
In the hearts of their fans, the Nihilistics rank right up there with Black Flag, the Misfits, the Bad Brains, Discharge and the Meat Puppets. In fact, some people - who wore the names and insignias of those bands on their invariable torn leather jackets at a recent show by the Nihilistics at CBGB - think that this South Shore band is the best thing to happen to the fringe punk rock genre known as hardcore since Jello Biafra started the estimable Dead Kennedys.
The Nihilistics - who hail from Lindenhurst and Merrick - bristle when they're called a hardcore band. "I prefer to call it rock and roll, or electric folk music," said Mike, the bass player who, like most of his bandmates, prefers not to use his last name. ("I don't want people dumping garbage on my lawn," he said). Added vocalist Ron: "When we first started, there was no term 'hardcore.' There was punk. We didn't even align ourselves with that. We just felt we had something to say."
 "Hardcore" is a sliver of the punk subculture. It is a blend of music and life-style. During a typical hard-core performance, the music comes in loud, fast spurts - some Nihilistics songs seem no longer than 45 seconds. The buzz-saw guitar playing and drumming less subtle than the throb of a jackhammer are augmented by the shout of bleak lyrics, replete with images of brutality, alienation and suffering.
Audience participation is very much a part of a hardcore show. The most common form of _expression is called slam dancing, in which participants hurl their bodies into one another's with often reckless abandon and seemingly little regard for the sometimes painful consequences. Often slam dancers will take to the stage, shout lyrics along with the singer, and then jump off the stage, human missiles evoking World War III as a quasi-religious pageant.
During the recent Nihilistics performance at CBGB, one fan spit mouthfuls of beer on Mike's head, while others wrestled Ron to the ground. Guitarist Chris tried to stay good-humored about the onslaught: "Vinnie, quit jumping on Ron like that, we need him for a few more shows all right?"
At another point Chris lost his patience. While Ron sang a song called "Death and Taxes" ("You're part of the system and it just don't work"), Chris shouted, "Get out, get out," at the small throng that had gathered onstage.
"If it's a genuine reaction to the lyrical content of the music, I don't mind," Ron said after the show, during which his lips were bloodied. He acknowledges that being the singer for the Nihilistics can be a little frightening: "It's like a football game in which there are four players on one team against five complete teams," he said. "That's the way it feels sometimes."
But it's a cornerstone of the Nihilistics' belief system that the danger is part of the job of being in a rock band: "It has to do with rebelling against that rock star image - that 'don't touch me, I'm better than you' idea," Ron said. "We're not better than anybody else. We're just the same. We're not witnesses; I want to be a participant."
The band's members are divided on the merits of slam dancing. "I don't like it myself, guitarist Chris said. "I don't have the money to replace equipment if they break it. I know they're only trying to have fun, but when they're jumping around, they're not listening to the music."
The drummer, Troy, like the energy rush provided by the human wave assaults. "I feel the high tension; it gets me psyched, it gives me inspiration," he said. But Chris was firm: "It's macho aggression more than anything else . . . I don't endorse it."
The Nihilistics' lyrics often provoke the visceral response that makes slam dancing seem a natural reaction. Rage, frustration, and morbidity are common themes. "I'm living in the land of the free and home of the brave/My only reward will be and early grave," Ron writes in "I'm a Patriot." In "Misanthrope," Mike stands painfully exposed: "Love is something/something I just can't feel." Ron's "No Friends" consists of, in its entirety, the lines: "There's a funeral dirge playing in my head/Thoughts of my future, I wish I was dead/I have no friends and I'm looking for none." In "Low Life," Mike writes: "Low life, no life/Look at that ugly pig you wed/Low life, no life/Dead dead dead dead dead dead dead."
Some of the morbid imagery might have been the spin-off of some of the more unusual entries in their resumes. Mike worked as an engraver on tombstones: "I recommend it, it's very sobering," he said matter-of-factly. He is now a machinist. Ron was a morgue attendant at Massapequa General Hospital and now works as a printer.
Mike is a Hofstra University drop-out. Ron went to Nassau Community College for awhile, but also left. "I remember my high school guidance counselor saying, 'If you follow this program in college, you'll have a wonderful life,'" Ron said. "I wanted to believe it, but I couldn't: It's just a candy-coated lie. School is like a factory. They just teach you what they want you to learn."
Mike believes that the Nihilistics' fans - who have bought between 25,000 and 30,000 copies of their album, "The Nihilistics," released on Island Park's Brain Eaters label - are kindred spirits with the band. "They're people with hardship in their life, or who are depressed for one reason or another. They're outcasts, losers, who need to preserve some grasp on reality."
Reality is pretty bleak from the Nihilistics' point of view. But they consider themselves to be constructive pessimists. "We're a working-class band," Mike said. "We're just a bunch of average Joes trying to hit a chord in Joe Average's heart." His lyrics, he says, are aimed at "the guy who's working for a living and God knows what he's doing it for."
The Nihilistic' message and their medium may be a little out of synch. A band trying to reach what Mike calls "Archie Bunker" might alienate those people with the uncompromising stridency of the band's sound. Mike acknowledges that certain songs, such as "Kill Yourself," might be misunderstood.
"I wrote that when my father died," he said. "It's me talking to myself. I'm not saying, 'Go kill yourself.' I'm talking about people so alienated they have no grasp on their life."
The Nihilistics' attitude appeals to fans such as John Golden of Great Neck. "Some of the philosophy I can relate to," he said before the recent show at CBGB. "They look at reality and say, 'This can't be.'"
"We just point out our own personal views, and how policies of the government have affected us," Ron said. "We tell it like it is, straight to the point. We do a song called 'Working Class,' about how the working class basically gets screwed around. It's not that we have any answers - it's just a little bit of advice from personal experience.
"We feel pessimistic," he said. "But we're turning the pessimism into a positive force. If it weren't for the pessimism, we wouldn't be aware of what's wrong in the world. We have to establish what the problem is."
Chris, the guitar player, acknowledged that there was an element of "gallows humor, or black humor." in the Nihilistics' work. But he also seems committed to what might be this band's creed: "I'd rather hear the worst, filthy truth," he said, "than the most beautiful lie."
REVIEWS:
The original version of this LP came out in 1983 on Brain Eater Records. The re-pressing is really nice, and includes everything from the original. The only differences are the label names and that the back cover of the booklet has been changed from a Brain Eater Records advert into an interview with the Nihilistics from a long running New York hardcore 'zine called Guillotine. The Nihilistics hail from the very beginning of the 80's with a hard and brutal sound that was accompanied by a very gritty street level political attitude and philosophy; sort of a strange combination of liberal political visions combined with an almost Oi influenced class warfare. The music is fast and hard, and uncompromising. Twenty years later these twenty songs still hold plenty of bite and power. A well done re-pressing. (Kent McClard, HeartAttack # 36)
This is how re-issues should be. Not only does it sound great, there's a full zine-like insert covering the band, re-running zine interviews and clippings, printing all the lyrics, and giving you a ton of pictures to look at. Originally released in '83, it's hard not to place NYC's Nihilistics in the same on-fire field as The Necros, Negative Approach, and Heart Attack: dark, aggressive, assaultive, no-compromise hardcore deep from the throats and from the hands of people who probably really don't like you. In a roundabout way, I can also see a line between these guys and OC's Bonecrusher: working class, hard-hitting anthems by people you really believe don't fit in and work hard, not just cop a style in hopes of getting rich. They're also extremely smart. In '83 they point out, in no uncertain terms, that war is welfare for the rich. Articulate in a very direct way. Definitely recommended. A pure document of a band that lived by its own rules. Excellent. (Todd, Razorcake #11)
Simply put, 20 killer tracks of raw, abrasive, 80's American hardcore, the Nihilistics, from New York, have shown up recently with tracks on the New York Thrash comp and the first Killed By Hardcore LP. They were known for their outspoken, tongue in cheek, and sometimes crude lyrics and stage performances. These guys are still playing, and haven't done anything more notable that shit their pants since the early 80's, but this official reissue of the 983 LP on Brain Eater Records is classic American hardcore. The original booklet is full of hilarious interviews with the bands. (Maximumrocknroll #235)
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