1984: 7 Seconds - The Crew

I’ve been reading Ten Thousand Saints, a novel about kids in the 80s. It’s a sad book, but I’m completely hooked on it, and part of the reason why is because a central part of the plot is straight-edge/youth crew. I mentioned this to a friend, and he told me about lyrics from The Hold Steady’s song “Stay Positive”: “When the Youth of Today and early 7 Seconds/ Taught me some of life’s most valuable lessons.” Everybody rambles on about Youth of Today and Minor Threat, yet unfortunately you don’t hear enough about 7 Seconds.

7 Seconds’ early records are an inspiring collection of aggressive hardcore, regardless if you’re clean and straight or huffing turpentine. Listening to their first album, The Crew, one can’t help but pump fists and find an elevated surface from which to stage-dive. Their sound is distilled (sorry) to a steady grind of too-pah beats and blender-like three-chord sounds, but it’s the combination of this minimalism and Kevin Seconds’s voice — passionate, melodic, hopeful — that makes you believe everything he says.

The group believed in hardcore like devoted Christians believe in Jesus and his teachings, romanticizing the scene, the sound, and the people involved. These days, they might be trolled on Twitter, Tumblr, and wherever else for their unabashed, unironic positivity, but all they wanted to do was tell you how awesome all of it was and how you could be a part of it by staying clean, fighting for your crew, and watching out for assholes.

DeLorean

There’s a lot of good music out there, and it’s not all being released this year. With DeLorean, we aim to rediscover overlooked artists and genres, to listen to music historically and contextually, to underscore the fluidity of music. While we will cover reissues here, our focus will be on music that’s not being pushed by a PR firm.

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