Why Die?

Look, if you are anything like me you like your hardcore angry and primitive and NOT performed by malnourished pretty boys with sideways myspace haircuts. You probably want it to be about war and destruction and not about being blown off by some teenage mall skank that let you finger bang her after prom, hell, in my day punkers avoided prom like an AIDS-filled piñata. Well, lucky for you there was YDI (pronounced Why Die?), perhaps (along with Negative Approach and The Fix) one of the most brutally pissed off hardcore bands of all time. YDI hailed from Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love, and go figure...their singer, Jackal, was a brother brimming with hate and an insatiable appetite for choice blotter acid. Nowadays the punk scene is a haven for PC touchy-feely goodness, but in the '80s being Black and punk was tough and you had to be tough to get by, just ask The Bad Brains. YDI had two Black members and perhaps this is why, to this day, their rage and hostility is unequalled. YDI scared even punks. If you've seen Paul Rachman and Steven Blush's amazing doc American Hardcore then you'll remember YDI as being the very essence of raw primal animosity, with Jackal's arms flailing in a whirlwind of ebony fury. In 1983 YDI unleashed their very first recorded statement in the form of a seven inch ep titled A Place In The Sun and it is a classic. So forget what passes for hardcore these days, it's just rehashed At The Gates worship with about as much edge as a Paul Mitchell hair salon, forget romance, forget eyeliner, forget bands with names longer than three fucking letters, forget the prom queen, forget your facebook page and remember, always fucking remember YDI.

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