“Essential reading…the funniest of the local mags”—Matt Groening
“The book is a wonderful document of something that has continuity and lasts, the stuff that matters. It’s the finding of a voice of a generation.”—Chuck Dukowski
-
We Got Power! printer proofs
Sample b/w and color pages from pre-production of We Got Power!
-
We Got Power: Mood of Defiance
"Mood of Defiance at a venue called the Barn. They were very atypical for Southern California hardcore—almost psychedelic, but still really aggressive."
-
We Got Power: Redd Kross
"The City of Santa Monica had this genius idea to get kids to come down and clean up the beach by having Redd Kross play. It didn’t really work—people just came to watch the show, then left all their food wrappers and beer bottles all over the place."
-
We Got Power: Jordan Schwartz
"This is Jordan Schwartz in front of an abandoned real estate office in our neighbourhood that we took over and called the Punk Shack. We still lived with our parents at the time, so it was just a hangout spot where we would listen to tapes we made of Rodney Bingenheimer’s Rodney on the ROQ show and add to the graffiti on the wall."
-
We Got Power: The Masque
Word got out in the early '90s that the basement of the original Masque club was totally intact and untouched after all these years. So Dez Cadena and David Markey broke in and took a bunch of photos. "We felt like we were raiding King Tut’s tomb—it was like an archaeological dig into LA punk history."
-
We Got Power: D. Boon
"D. Boon from the Minutemen at a house party they played in early 1982 along with Redd Kross, Saccharine Trust, and a bunch of forgotten hardcore bands. The Sunset Strip clubs had a ban on punk bands starting around ’81, so there were a lot of house party shows. This one ended the way they all did—with the LAPD busting in and marching everyone out."
-
We Got Power: Mike Watt
"Another shot from the same party. The guy in the glasses to the left of Mike Watt is Spot, who produced all the early SST records. Behind him with the blonde hair is Janet Housden from Redd Kross, the guy in the checkerboard jacket is David Markey, and right behind Watt, the guy with the Aunt Jemima beanie and his fist raised is Henry Rollins."
-
We Got Power: The Go Gos
This one was taken by David Markey in early 1980 at a Go Gos show at the Whiskey A Go Go. "That was one of my first times going out as a 16-year-old kid. I remember they didn’t let cameras into the Whiskey and I had to sneak my 35mm in."
-
We Got Power: Suicidal Tendencies
This was a very early Suicidal Tendencies show in Culver City. They had yet to record their first record and were only known on the West Side because all these kids cut their hair the same and formed a gang around the band. This was a really early lineup—the only member of the band who survived to the later incarnations was Louiche Mayorga. David Markey: "I’d known Louiche since junior high school. Mike Muir went there too, but he was expelled pretty early on for wearing a swastika T-shirt."
-
We Got Power: Social Distortion
Social Distortion playing a friend’s kitchen in Silver Lake in 82. "That show was remarkable as despite the fact it was in an apartment, somehow the police didn’t bust it up. I guess the neighbors were just extremely tolerant. Mike Ness seems to be nodding out in this shot. He had stitches in his mouth from some sort of fight or accident."
-
We Got Power: Raymond Pettibon
Ray Pettibon sitting at a restaurant called the Apple Pan in West LA. David Markey: "This was in '86 or '87, a year or two before we did our video project together. I’d met him briefly in the early '80s, but he was pretty elusive at the time. He’d come up to Hollywood for all the shows at the Masque and once hardcore kicked in, he sort of ran in different circles. I was really interested in him from the comic books he was self-publishing through SST, particularly Captive Chains and the Tripping Corpse series."
-
We Got Power: 40-oz Punks
"Joe Biaza from Saccharine Trust at the far right. Everyone’s looking in different directions, and the photo shows that hardcore kids were the original 40-oz malt liquor drinkers, years before NWA and all of them."
-
We Got Power: Grrrl Power in Watts
"This was at a venue in Watts that had two or three shows before shutting down. You were really risking your life going there. The last show ended with some of the locals breaking in while the band was playing and mugging people in the crowd. A girl possibly got raped. So that was it for there."
-
We Got Power: Generic Hardcore Band
This is an unknown hardcore band from a same house party. There were an easy 50 other bands who looked exactly the same. David Markey: "I have no idea what their name was—they were one of many groups who played a couple shows then evaporated without ever being documented. Maybe when the book comes out we’ll find out who they are."
ISBN 978-1-935950-07-3
Deluxe 304pp large-format landscape hardcover
Dimensions: 12″ x 9″ (305mm x 230mm); 4 lbs. (2.5 kg)
Featuring essays by David Markey, Jordan Schwartz, Jennifer Schwartz, Henry Rollins, Keith Morris, Chuck Dukowski, Dez Cadena, Louiche Mayorga, Eugene Tatu, Cameron Jamie, Pat Fear, Steve Humann, Tony Adolescent, Jack Brewer, Jula Bell, Mike Watt, Sean Wheeler, Joe Carducci, Daniel “Shredder” Weizmann, and Janet Housden.
Presenting nearly 400 first-generation L.A. hardcore punk photographs. Including complete color reprints of We Got Power fanzine 1981–1983 and beyond.
“One of the most thorough and lush compendiums of any punk movement”—Dangerous Minds
“The stark, often beautiful imagery presents an intimate portrayal of West Coast punk in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s. With the accompanying personal reminiscences of turmoil and tenacity, which add depth and evocative context, it is a fantastic document of the scene’s emergence.”—PopMatters
In 1979, punk was over… but by 1981, hardcore was born.
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. Their text and cameras captured the early punk spirit 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, Firehose, and many others at the height of their precocious punk powers.
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.
“The Black Flag bus rolled out to the San Fernando Valley to hear Minor Threat play. Jordan Schwartz was there, looking like a reporter straight out of some ’30s movie, wearing a trench coat and a fedora with press pass in the hatband, holding a camera with an old-style flash reflector. It was a pivotal conceptual moment…”—Chuck Dukowski
David Markey was born December 3, 1963, in Burbank, CA. He made his first film at the age of 11 and published a neighborhood newspaper at 12. In 1980, he became involved in the local underground music scene. He helped form Sin 34 in 1981, and captured the punk scene in the Super 8 film The Slog Movie. Markey was a part of We Got Power magazine from 1981 to 1983, then kept the name alive through his We Got Power Films. He cowrote and directed Desperate Teenage Lovedolls in 1984. He photographed, edited, cowrote, and directed Lovedolls Superstar in 1986. Also that year, his band Painted Willie toured with Black Flag for six months, a period depicted in his film Reality 86’d. Markey has directed music videos for Meat Puppets, fIREHOSE, Shonen Knife, Mudhoney, and Pat Smear, and collaborated with visual artists Cameron Jamie, Raymond Pettibon, and Kim Gordon.
Jordan Schwartz met David Markey while skateboarding in a flooded Santa Monica parking garage in 1979. As they discovered the growing Los Angeles hardcore punk rock scene, Jordan teamed up with David, his sister, Jennifer, and Alan Gilbert to found We Got Power magazine. Jordan contributed in many roles, including that of staff photographer. Jordan had producing and acting roles in Desperate Teenage Lovedolls and the sequel, Lovedolls Superstar, notably appearing as the rock star Brews Springstein. Jordan facilitated the release of three Black Flag skateboards featuring original artwork by Raymond Pettibon. In 1984, Jordan began working and living at SST Records’ Global Network Agency booking gigs and tours for various high-profile bands on and off of the label during the pioneering years of the U.S. independent scene.