Hardcore Punk Greats the Adolescents, Saccharine Trust, White Flag, the Last, Dead Issue Will Play Sept. 8 for ‘WE GOT POWER!’ Hardcore Punk Photo Book Party; Likely Swan Song for Track 16 Gallery as Demolition Looms Party with me, punker! From Sept. 8 through Oct. 6, Track 16 Gallery Santa Monica will present WE GOT P0WER!: We Survived the Pit’ an exhibition of early hardcore punk photographs by David Markey and Jordan Schwartz selected from the historic upcoming Bazillion Points Books hardcover WE GOT POWER!: Hardcore Punk Scenes from 1980s Southern California by Markey and Schwartz.

The opening reception will be at Track 16 on Sept. 8 from 6PM to 11PM, and will feature live sets by the Adolescents, Saccharine Trust, the Last, White Flag, and Dead Issue. Note that ‘WE GOT P0WER!: We Survived the Pit’ threatens to be Track 16 Gallery’s last exhibition before it is demolished to make way for Metro’s light rail. All ages will be welcome to party or go home! http://www.track16.com/
Bazillion Points Books announces that BLACK FLAG veterans Henry Rollins, Chuck Dukowski, Keith Morris, and Dez Cadena have each contributed essays to the massive upcoming hardcover hardcore history bomb WE GOT POWER!: Hardcore Punk Scenes From 1980s Southern California, by David Markey and Jordan Schwartz. Presenting original essays [by David Markey, Jordan Schwartz, Jennifer Schwartz, Henry Rollins, Keith Morris, Chuck Dukowski, Dez Cadena, Louiche Mayorga, Cameron Jamie, Pat Fear, Steve Humann, Tony Adolescent, Jack Brewer, Jula Bell, Mike Watt, Sean Wheeler, Joe Carducci, Daniel “Shredder” Weizmann, and Janet Housden], capturing nearly 400 photos [of Black Flag, the Minutemen, Social Distortion, Red Cross/Redd Kross, Suicidal Tendencies, the Descendents, White Flag, the Last, the Gun Club, Saccharine Trust, Sin 34, Nip Drivers, Circle One, M.D.C., Big Boys, Youth Brigade, D.R.I., the Butthole Surfers, and many others] from the dawn of hardcore punk in Southern California, and reprinting every issue of the influential We Got Power zine from 1981 through 1983, the WE GOT POWER! book measures 304 large format landscape pages and is slated for Fall 2012 release. As teenagers in 1981, David Markey and his best friend Jordan Schwartz founded We Got Power, a fanzine dedicated to the first-generation hardcore punk music community in their native Los Angeles. In the process, the duo’s amazing photographs also captured the dilapidated suburbs, abandoned storefronts, and dereliction of the early Reagan era-a rubble-strewn social apocalypse that demanded a youth uprising! Never before seen except in crude fanzine form, these detailed and richly narrative photos are now collected to present an intimate portrayal of a uniquely fertile creative moment.

“Essential reading… the funniest of the local mags”-Matt Groening, 1983

WE GOT POWER! will be available worldwide wherever books are sold, and is available for preorder now in a bonus package from Bazillion Points Books, “The first and last words in heavy reading.”
http://www.wegotpowerbook.com