Rating: 
Summary: Kick (backside) Book
Review: I just recently began to get into hardcore, my first show being the legendary Agnostic Front 6 months ago. This book is a great step by step story of the beginnings of hardcore, and it has helped me to appreciate this music even more. I recommend this book to anyone interested in learning about hardcore. The book is objective and tells things that way it was. One of the best books about music I've ever read.
Rating: 
Summary: great book!!!!!!
Review: I loved this book alot it was a great source of information. It was great to read about how the scene started and read the stories of bands who created this great music scene and i read about some things i never woulda thought happened. My only complaint is the jumping around of years, it's very hard to follow and the lack of focusing on the female participation within the scene.
Rating:
Summary: Overall View
Review: I loved this book because it gives you all the basics. Not just about one scene, but all of them. If you have any questions about one scene, and want to learn about another you dont have to look through a bunch of other books, you just have to look inside of this one. You learn different views on stories and opinions from the artists themselves so that you do not just get one side of the story and you learn what they did to contribute to americas underground.
Rating: 
Summary: Stephen Blush is lame...
Review: I must say I was very dissapointed with this book. It was full of bias and opinions, focused more on violence then the positive aspects of hardcore, trashed punkers and made them look like idiots, completely trashed New York hardcore, and on top of that there were many spelling and grammatical errors. He also made it seem like the band he was a rodie for, "No Trend" were hardcore ledgends. Past the bias, the interviews were pretty interesting, and the book has some really intense pictures, but if you wanna know the history of hardcore, skip this. Read "Dance of Days" instead.
Rating:
Summary: Had I been 16 again, this would be under my pillow.
Review: I must start this review off by giving BIG props to the author. He definately did his research on this one and it is obvious that Hardcore is very special to him. He has produced a high quality history book, although not flawless, and a must read for it's mild cover price. This book is PACKED with rare, obscure, overlooked and crucial information about this often-misrepresented genre. There are tid-bits of juice here that fans will seriously salivate over. He was wise (and fortunate) to include interviews with VERY key musicians, many of whom probably were not easy to approach. The fact that Glenn Danzig cooperated with this project should be proof enough that this author meant business. It was a joy to read the opinions and views of such diverse personalities ranging from Dave Smalley to Duff McKagen.I took away 1 rating star though because I did feel the author spikes his own opinion in at awkward and unnecessary times. It was the close minded snobbery which led me to lose interest in this genre over time. Though mostly open minded in his writing, I did sense there are certain bands, sounds, and people that this author just does not like. Sometimes I had to reread a few paragraphs to seperate the historical documentation from just flat out opinion. Everyone into this music surely has rabid favorites and opinions and I understand that that is what makes the world go round. I personally would have liked more interviews and details on the "less typical" sounding Hardcore bands. It seemed like much of the spotlight was on the "meat head" sounding bands, a la CroMags & SSD. Yeah, they are definately hardcore but the genre also includes some less carnal, more artistic rarities like SNFU and the Minutemen. I guess much of the style which I found to grow dull sounding was a vital part of the genre's growth (and demise?). It may also explain why I have simmered down into a less angry adulthood. This is an excelent book though and had I been 16 again it would be under my pillow.
Rating: 
Summary: Fascinating at times but flawed
Review: I won't go in detail on this as other people have covered the same ground. It's a fascinating book at times with detailed looks at Black Flag, Misfits, the Texas scene etc. However, it's main problem is that it's an oral history and this many years down the line, everyone has their own agenda and their own axe to grind so it's hard to know how many of the stories are actually true! It also has several glaring inaccuracies and omissions. As for Blush himself, at several points in the book he comes across as a homophobe and, in his introduction to the book, as someone with a huge ego ("if you weren't there then, you don't have a clue" is the gist of it). It's still worth a read but it's not the hardcore bible or anything close to that.
Rating:
Summary: Steven Blush is a Barn
Review: I'm not sure that I can add anything more eloquent than some of the reviews on this page, however; this is a really important book. Whether you're into Hardcore, you want to be or if you're a researcher (Cultural, Ethnomusical, Anthropological, etc.), this is really the only text availble with a comprehensive set of interview exerpts, original photographs and 'from the scene' writing. Steven Blush's writing IS a bit irritating, and his various biases and blindesses are glaring. BUt so what? Aficionados and academics should be smart enough to see through that, to realize that women DO (and did!) have a role in Hardcore, to see that Straight Edge deserves more than 3 pages of lip service... Folks reading this that don't get it, don't need too. Besides, we all look to a variety of sources to find the 'truth', don't we? Beth Lahicky's "All Ages" is the better book -but it's not as comprehensive (she focusses on Straight Edge). Books on scenes and communities should be written from the perspective of those people who were there, who were and still work to be a part of strong communities outside of the mainstream. This is a great book, for all its imperfections, and should be (along with Lahicky's book) on the reading lists of musicology classes across the globe. Cheers.
Rating:
Summary: Oh No! It's Not Sugar Coated!
Review: If you're looking for a book on the underground music of the `80's that takes a simple story and turns into a grandiose tale of good vs. evil, right vs. wrong, heroes and martyrs, then you should read Our Band Could Be Your Life. But, if you want a story about how things really were from the mouths of the people that were there, then you should read American Hardcore.
The author, Steven Blush, was actually a part of the `80's hardcore scene unlike the author of Our Band Could Be Your Life, Michael Azerrad, who is a professional music journalist for Spin Magazine. While Blush's writing style may not be great, he gives it all he has. The fact that he isn't a professional music journalist adds to the sincerity of his writing and he is not able to hide his bias' as well writers like Azerrad. If you want to read a book that is completely unbiased then read... Oh wait, there has never been an unbiased book written, ever!
Blush begins the book with what you could call a "mission statement" and disclaimer, which gets everything out in the open. Then, he goes on to give you the who, what, where, when, how, and why of hardcore before covering the bands.
A whole chapter dedicated to Black Flag begins the section on the bands. It was appropriate to begin with their story since they kick started the whole thing. It was impressive to see him site the downfall of Black Flag as Greg Ginn instead of Henry Rollins. Indie rock enthusiasts like to blame Rollins' because of his ego and machismo. No, it was Ginn's band from the beginning to the end, and Rollins was just a temporary part of it. However, if you want to hear a typical and false view of how Rollins ruined Black Flag, then read Our Band Could Be Your Life.
Blush also doesn't give the Minutemen special treatment and puts them in as a footnote to the Black Flag story. Even Mike Watt admits that the Minutemen were not popular in the hardcore scene. The way Azerrad treated the Minutemen in his book made them sound as if they were a band put together by God himself and more important than Jesus.
The Southern and Northern California scenes covered very well since they did produce some of the greatest hardcore bands. It was especially funny to see him shed some light on Bad Religion's second album "Into the Unknown," which was a cheesy attempt at progressive rock and has since been buried out of embarrassment.
The whole chapter dedicated to Bad Brains was actually very good. Blush showed that they were respected musically, but disliked as individuals. The section on Minor Threat was good because you got to hear how Ian McKaye was young, angry man who made mistakes, instead of the Gandhi like character that Azerrad would have you believe.
The NYHC and Misfits chapters are a couple of the highlights of the book. The mystique around the Misfits finally had some light shed on it after twenty years. Most people thought Danzig would never talk about the Misfits again.
Blush did his best to cover the rest of America and the dozen of hardcore scenes, but he probably missed a few details which will upset a few people. Many may be disappointed that he didn't dedicate a whole chapter to Husker Du, but his interviews with people that were there (not including Azerrad) establish the fact that they weren't that big back then. People may also be angry that he brings up Husker Du's sexual preferences.
The chapters on the record labels and other art work that were spawned from the hardcore scene are good, but short.
Some may want to think of hardcore as a unified, left-wing movement full of dedicated, moral people when in fact it just seemed to be suburban kids blowing off some stream. There were lots of different view points in hardcore, which was what made it so great. However, if you ask Azerrad, it was the second coming of the 1960's.
Rating:
Summary: An inside look at the punk scene.
Review: If you're looking for a complete, step-by-step history of hardcore punk, "American Hardcore" might not be the place to look. But what I most enjoyed about this is how everything has a first hand account from the people who would know hardcore better than anyone else--the musicians who made it. And they're not only talking about their own band, but other bands too. Black Flag, Dead Kennedys, Minor Threat, Minutemen, Misfits, Sham 69, Circle Jerks, Bad Brains, D.O.A., Fear, and plenty more bands are all in "American Hardcore," and 95% of the book is commentary and opinions regarding american hardcore bands, their legacies, and the scene itself. From Minor Threat's controversial straight-edge movement to Gang Green's amusing worship of cocaine, this book is a must-read for anyone who's sick of watching Good Charlotte on MTV and wants to re-live (or live for the first time) the reckless, rebellious experience of true hardcore punk music.
Rating:
Summary: Not to shabby - worth the read.
Review: Its not that bad - but at the same time its not that good either. I'll get to the point with this one, it has a slew of information, interviews, pictures, flyers, ... (the works) from just about every band from the first wave of punk/hardcore up to the mid 80's. The chapter on the Misfits with a very rare interview of Glenn Danzig giving his take on the band, which is well worth the read alone. For the most part its somewhat poorly written. The author throws in their opion a bit to much, where the book is almost a really long editorial on the music. Not that it would be a bad thing, but I was just expecting more.
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