We're bouncing off the walls at Earth Island HQ today as we have now shipped over 1000 copies of Alex Anesiadis encyclopaedia of 1980-1989 pop-punk ‘We Can Be The New Wind’!
This massive book features over 900 bands, with interviews, flyers and insights, a foreword by Mike Gitter of XXX zine and beautiful cover artwork by Brian Walsby.
‘We Can Be The New Wind’ captures the era when bands throughout the world were blending more melodic and experimental styles whilst heading in an alternative rock direction for hardcore punk. It is the early encyclopaedia of powerful pop-punk. Including in-depth profiles of both the bigger names and more underground players that helped push this new sound forward and interviews with over 150 bands, such as 7 Seconds, Husker Du, Dream Syndicate, Hard-Ons, Camper Van Beethoven, The Plimsouls and To Damascus. More than 900 bands from all over the world, active from 1980 to 1989, get an interesting and insightful mention.
The hardcore punk scene had two major crossovers, one with heavy metal and one with pop influenced independent rock. A significant number of early hardcore punk bands incorporated more melodic, challenging and experimental elements in their music while retaining their punk backbone and by doing so, they went on to create something new.
This book focuses on the crossover of Punk, Hardcore Punk, Garage Revival and Power Pop with the Alternative Rock scene and reports on many of the main bands in the genre.
This book’s structure is organised according to country, and then regionally. The USA obviously has the lion’s share, since it was source of this new sounds melting pot, but the UK is also present as is the rest of the world. More than 160 bands were interviewed and even more reviewed, resulting in a total of more than 1000 bands. Flyers and pictures were obtained with permission from the bands, and many of them that have never seen the light of day. Until now.
The first band interviewed was 7 Seconds, so put New Wind on and turn it up, because it’s time to begin the journey…
Bands covered include 7 Seconds, Uniform Choice, Agent Orange, All, Down By Law, Big Drill Car, The Dickies, Chemical People, Government Issue, Rites of Spring, Dinosaur Jr, Embrace, Gray Matter, Dag Nasty, Moving Targets, Supertouch, Goo Goo Dolls, Shudder to Think, Husker Du, Jones Very, Pegboy, Superchunk, The Doughboys, HDQ, Sink, Mega City Four, The Hard Ons, Life… But How To Live It? and many more.
“Anesiadis writes from a place of love and respect and has interviewed many of the band members for this book. There are some great facts that even the most seasoned of journalists will discover they didn’t know.” -John Deaux, All About The Rock
Format Paperback | 842 pages Dimensions 155.96 x 233.93 x 42.42mm | 1,200 grms Publication date 04 Feb 2022 Publisher Earth Island Books Language English
Alexandros Anesiadis is a massive fan of hardcore punk and metal, but his interests aren’t solely limited within those musical styles. Having already written ‘Crossover the Edge: Where Hardcore, Punk And Metal Collide’, Anesiadis has set the bar pretty high in terms of musical research, managing to explore even the most unknown bands alongside all the big names of the genre. Born in 1981 in Thessaloniki, Greece he describes himself as a ‘manic record collector’, always trying to get his hands onto releases by bands that no-one has a clue about. Anesiadis is selling his soul to acquire all the Wipers, Discharge, D.R.I. and Naked Raygun records, and loves going to small-club gigs, travelling the world and attempting to make his daughter and wife happy!
You can grab a copy direct from us, or from most good book and record stores, even from Scarecrow Records in Alex's hometown. Now we're waiting for him to get on and write the sequel...
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