NIHILISTICS in NEWSDAY

The height of our "fame"...

On Sunday, March 11, 1984 Newsday (our Long Island newspaper) ran an article in their “Part II” (the Entertainment section) written by Wayne Robins and entitled “Sound and fury of the Nihilistics”. We’d been interviewed in a few fanzines but this was a NEWSPAPER and one our parents read. Holy shit. We hit the big time. Wayne interviewed us backstage at a CBGB matinee and I have no doubt it was one of our last. Ironic, eh? I present it here as it appeared.

Sound and fury of the Nihilistics

by Wayne Robins

In the hearts of their fans, the Nihilistics rank right up there with Black Flag, the Misfits, the Bad Brains, Discharge and the Meat Puppets. In fact, some people – who wore the names and insignias of those bands on their invariably torn leather jackets at a recent show by the Nihilistics s at CBGB – think that this South Shore band is the best thing to happen to the fringe punk rock genre known as hardcore since Jello Biafra started the estimable Dead Kennedys.

The Nihilistics – who hail from Lindenhurst and Merrick – bristle when they're called a hardcore band. "I prefer to call it rock and roll, or elec­tric folk music," said Mike, the bass player and lyricist who, like most of his bandmates, prefers not to use his last name. ("I don't want people dump­ing garbage on my lawn," he said). Added vocalist Ron: "When we first started, there was no term 'hardcore.' There was punk. We didn't even align ourselves with that – we just felt we bad something to say."

"Hardcore" is a sliver of the punk rock subculture. It is a blend of music and life-style. During a typical hard­core performance, the music comes in loud, fast spurts – some Nihilistics songs seem no longer than 45 seconds. The buzz-saw guitar playing and drumming less subtle than the throb of a jackhammer are augmented by the shout of bleak lyrics, replete with images of brutality, alienation and suffering.

Audience participation is very much a part of a hardcore show. The most common form of expression is called slam dancing, in which participants hurl their bodies into one an­other's with often reckless abandon and seemingly little regard for the sometimes painful consequences. Of­ten slam dancers will take to the stage, shout lyrics along with the sing­er, and then jump off the stage, human missiles evoking World War III as a quasi-religious pageant.

During the recent Nihilistics perfor­mance at CBGB, one fan spit mouthfuls of beer on Mike's head, while oth­ers wrestled Ron to the ground. Gui­tarist Chris tried to stay good-humored about the onslaught: "Vinnie, quit jumping on Ron like that, we need him for a few more s.hows, all right?"

At another point, Chris lost his pa­tience. While Ron sang a song called "Death and Taxes" ("You're part of the system and it just don't work"), Chris shouted,  “Get out, get out," at the small throng that had gathered on­stage.

"If it's a genuine reaction to the lyri­cal content of the music, I don't mind," Ron said after the show, during which his lips were bloodied. He acknowl­edges that being the singer for the Ni­hilistics can be a little frightening: "It's like a football game in which there are four players on one team against five complete teams," he said. "That's the way it feels sometimes."

But it's a cornerstone of the Nihilis­tics' belief system that the danger is part of the job of being in a rock band: "It has to do with rebelling against that rock star image – that 'don't touch me, rm better than you' idea," Ron said. "We're not better than anybody else. We're just the same. We're not wit­nesses: I want to be a participant."

The band's members are divided on the merits of slam dancing. "I don't like it myself," guitarist Chris said. "I don't have the money to replace equip­ment if they break it. I know they're trying to have fun, but when they're jumping around, they're not listening to the music."

The drummer, Troy, liked the ener­gy rush provided by the human wave assaults. "I feel the high tell8ion; it gets me psyched, it gives me inspira­tion," he said. But Chris was firm: "It's macho aggression more than anything else... I don't endorse it."

The Nihilistics’ lyrics often provoke the visceral response that makes slam dancing seem a natural reaction. Rage, frustration, and morbidity are common themes. “I’m living in the land of the free and home of the brave/ My only reward will be an early grave," Ron writes in "I'm a Patriot."  In "Misanthrope," Mike stands pain­fully exposed: “Love is sornething/ Something I just can't feel." Ron's "No Friends” consists of, in its entirety, the lines: "There's a funeral dirge playing in my head/Thoughts of my future, I wish I was dead/I have no friends and rm looking for none." In "Low Life," Mike writes: ‘Low life, no life/Look at that ugly pig you wed/Low life, no life/ Dead dead dead dead dead dead dead."

Some of the morbid imagery might have been the spin-off of some of the more unusual entries in their resumes. Mike worked as an engraver on tomb­stones: "I recommend it, it's very sober­ing," be said matter-of-factly. He is now a machinist. Ron was a morgue attendant at Massapequa General Hospital and now works as a printer. Mike is a Hofstra University drop­ out. Ron went to Nassau Community College for awhile, but also left. "I re­member my high school guidance counselor saying, 'If you follow this program in college, you’ll have a won­derful life,'" Ron said. "I wanted to believe it, but I couldn't: It's a candy-coated lie. School is like a fac­tory. They just teach you what they want you to learn."

Mike believes that the Nihilistics' fans who have bought between 25,000 and 30,000 copies of their al­bum, "The Nihilistics," released on Is­land Park's Brain Eaters label –  are kindred spirits with the band. "They're people with hardship in their life, or who are depressed for one rea­son or another. They're outcasts, los­ers, who need to preserve some grasp on reality."

Reality is pretty bleak from the Ni­hilistics' point of view. But they con­sider themselves to be constructive pessimists. "We're a working-class band," Mike said. "We're just a bunch of average Joes trying to hit a chord in Joe Average’s heart." His lyrics, he says, are aimed at "the guy who's working for a living and God knows what he's doing it for."

The Nihilistics' message and their medium may be a little out of synch. A band trying to reach what Mike calls "Archie Bunker" might alienate those people with the uncompromising stridency of the band's sound. Mike acknowledges that certain songs, such as "Kill Yourself," might be misunderstood. "It's me talking to myself. I'm not saying, 'Go kill yourself.' I'm talking about people so alienated they have no grasp on their life."

The Nihilistics' attitude appeals to fans such as John Golden of Great Neck. "Some of the phi­losophy I can relate to," he said before the re­cent show at CBGB. "They look at reality and say, °This can't be.'"

“We just point out our own personal views, and how policies of the government have affect­ed us.” Ron said. "We tell it like it is, straight to the point. We do a song called Working Class,' about how the working class basically gets screwed around. It's not that we have any answers – t’s just a little bit of advice from personal experience,

"We feel pessimistic,” be said. But we're turning the pessimism into a positive force. If it weren't for the pessimism, we wouldn't be aware of what's wrong in the world. We have to establish what the problem is."

Chris, the guitar player, acknowledged that there was an element of gallows humor, or black humor in the Nihilistics' work. But he also seems committed to what might be this band’s creed: “I’d rather hear the worst, filthy truth," he saisd, "than the most beautiful lie.''