2006 Retrospect of the Greek punk/hardcore scene

doesitmatter — Thu, 15 May 2008 02:28:27 +0000

The past year was fairly good, regarding the punk/hardcore scene in Greece. This is a small retrospect of 2006.Gig-wise I must say that it was a great year. More than 120 punk/underground/diy gigs took place, the mass majority of which in Athens, Salonica, Kavala and fewer in Patras. These are the cities with the most active gig promotion collectives. Great part of the gigs in Athens are due to the new formed KS94 team that sets up gigs in the Underground at Kalidromiou Street 94 infoshop. Many gigs took also place Villa Amalias squat which has been organizing and hosting shows since 1990. In Salonica, Steki at Viologiko and Street Attack hosted most of the gigs, in the small city of Kavala, Accion Mutante was very active and hosted most of the foreign bands that visited Greece and finally in Patras, Porto Patrasso was responsible for most of the shows in the city. Apart from the collectives mentioned above that organize their gigs in squats and social centers, there were other promoters that organized gigs in free spaces or small clubs.

Some of the foreign bands that played this year in Greece were: Fractura, Ghost Mice, Leadershit, I Object, The Now-Denial, Jmenfous, SickTerror, Ballast, Ictus and many more.

The only bands from Greece that did some gigs abroad were the streetpunks Omihli (Fog) that did a couple of shows in Austria, the Oi! band Bootstroke that played in Bologna and Hamburg (I think) and the crusties Dyspnea which did four shows in the Balkans (Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia and Macedonia).

During the year there were also many good releases. Straitjacket Fit released their amazing post-hc debut “#0″ and one man band TUG released a double cd titled “Pehnidia Dolofonon” (Assasinators’ Games). Both releases came from the city of Patras. Valpurgia Nihta (Walpurgis Night) from Athens released their second cd “Where the rage blooms” mixing beautiful melodies and raging bursts. Censored Sound (also from Athens) released a cdep called “Feel the Pressure” (Canonball Recs) of old school hardcore. The same label also released XLOS – “From the Bottom of our Bottle” and “Walk the Plank”, a 4-way split cd featuring Vodka Juniors, For What is Worth, XLOS and 925. Antidrasi (Reaction) came back from nowhere after 10 years of inactivity, featuring only a couple of the original members and released the cd “Pantu ke Puthena” (Everywhere and Nowhere). Nuclear Disaster released their debut “Nuclear War” on Punk.gr Recs. playing a mix of crust, hardcore and metal. A long waited release was the split LP of Poria sto Perithorio (Journey into Margin), from Korinthos w/ Epithanatios Roghos (Death Rattle, ex-Erimos) from Kastoria. This is the first diy vinyl release in Greece after many years and the result on both sides of the split is amazing. Good played hardcore from both bands. Another great hardcore release was Timetrap’s (ex-Timetrap Surfers) “Waiting for the Unexpected” and of course the long waited compilation that was released as a result of the collaboration of various music collectives in Greece “Diataraksi Kinis Sinidisis”. Some more releases this year were Enzimo – s/t (Enzyme, kinda indie, unique sound not easy to be labeled, from Patras), Toxica Apovlita – Katevase to (Toxic Waste – Download It, punk, ska, hardcore), Dihasmenes Alithies – Potise me Ipervoles (Divided Truths: rap-metal, hardcore from Salonica), Ysteria – Roz (Hysteria – Pink, punk from Alexandroupoli), Apanthropi Fili’s first demo and Psiharmonika – Mahnatan (nu-metal like-hardcore from Alexandroupoli as well). There were also three releases of experimental/noise/eletropunk/trance or something like that: “KGB – Mavro Provato” (Black Sheep), “Dadayfh Pornostroika – I polis tis kokinis nihtas” (The city of the red night) and “Ai Giannis – 1+1 2006″.

The Punk zine history in Greece

doesitmatter — Sat, 13 Jan 2007 02:21:09 +0000

Greece does not have a long history on zines, let alone zines on punk music. Although you can find thousands of political and anarchist pamphlets and newspapers, some of them published for more than a decade or two, only a few zines managed to publish more than 3 or 4 issues through their lifetime.During the 80’s when the punk movement first appeared in Greece many fanzines were released. They were mostly created by young punks who needed to express themselves and their severalty over other music fans. Here are some of best known zines of the 80’s:

“Στις σκιές του B-23″ [In the shadows of B-23], first issue was released in 1988 after the merge of the two zines “Σκιές” [Shadows] (a new-wave zine, first issue in 1985) and “B-23″ (a punk/hardcore zine, first issue in 1986). 18 issues were released and also 3 7″ and 2 LP’s which accompanied some of the issues. “Bρωμιά” [Dirtiness] from the small city of Ptolemaida was also a long lived zine, although not an exclusively-punk zine, it had many articles and interviews on bands of that time. The first issue was released in 1985. Likewise, although not an exclusively-punk zine, “Rolling Under” from Thessalonica was another long- lived zine. Other zines of this era are “Πανικός” [Panic], “Decapitated”, first issue in 1988 and it was mostly about hardcore, thrash, noise and experimental music, “Κίτρινος Τύπος” [Yellow Press] which was created by the band Panx Romana and was included on their second LP (released in 1989). A new issue was published along with every release of the band. Also “Παπάρι” [Dick] with at least 8 issues which was later renamed to “Discordia” and finally “Stress” from Livadia with a single issue in 1989.

During the late 80’s and for the first half of the 90’s the Greek punk and hardcore scene became larger than in any other time of its history. The bands were organized, new squats were made, bands from abroad were coming for gigs and greek bands toured in Europe. Along with the acme of the scene came a lot of activity on the zine releases. Many new zines appeared and although most of them didn’t manage to release more than a couple of issues, it made the zine- scene very active. Some memorable zines of this era were:

“Screaming for a Change” which was written in English and released at least 3 issues, “Χωρίς Κανόνα” [Without a Rule] (1994), “Πάνκικη Φωνή” [Voice of the Punk] (first issue 1992) and “Damned”, released from the same guys in Mani, “Anti System Front”, “Chaos” and “Κατάσταση Κινδύνου” [State of Peril] (from Ksanthi) which in 1993 were merged under the name “Audiatur Et Altera Pars” and released a couple more issues. To name a few more zines of the era: “Rotting Society” from Ksanthi, “Not”, “Guillotine” and “Underground Peace” from Thessalonica, “FHO” from Trikala, “Alternative Choice” (1991), “Untitled” (1992), “Ante Portas”, and “Απαγορευμένος Τύπος” [Censored Press].

Here we should mention two more zines that started at this time: “Τερηδόνα” [Caries] with the first issue published in 1994. It is still active today with more than 15 issues which makes it one of the most long-lived zines in Greece. “Νέα Πορεία” [New Course] (circa 1990) which was the first straight edge zine in Greece at a time that almost noone knew what sXe was.

On the second half of the 90’s along with the decay of the hardcore scene came the decay of the zine scene. Some new zines appeared but many had average quality. Of course there were some very good ones as well. Some of the zines that appeared in this era were: “Μ’ακούει κανείς διάολε;!” [Does anybody listen, damn it], “Γενοκτονία” [Genocide] which was accompanied by a compilation tape containing tracks of the bands that each issue featured, “Οι Punkηδες” [The Punks], “Αλαλούμ” [Alalum], “Υπόγεια Αντεπίθεση” [Underground Counterattack], “Mensi”, “Kalashnikov” (1998), “Πλήγμα” [Grueller] of which several issues were released featuring articles and reports from secluded parts of Greece and far away countries and “Ηχητική Τρομοκρατία” [Sound Terrorism]. Also “Κραυγαλέος Τυφώνας” [Screaming Typhoon] and “Χειμερία Νάρκη” [Hibernation] which was created by by the band of the same name with 3 issues released. Finally “Δεν” [Not] was a punk rock comic-strip that was first released in 1998 and managed to release 10 issues more or less and a split issue with the “S.H.A.R.P” zine.

During the past years not many punk zines have appeared but those who have, have been released frequently. “Keep it Real!” is a hardcore zine first released as a newsletter in 2004. The latest issue (#6) is written in english exclusively and was released in January 2007. “Immigrant” is another music zine that also features social and political articles written both in greek and english. The first testing issue (#0) was released in 2003 (#3 in December 2005). “Take Your Shot” is another active hardcore zine with 3 issues released so far written in english. “A HC-Punk community among an imperialistic empire of multinational companies” with 7 issues released in both greek and english. “Zero Hour” was another zine that appeared as well as “Κάποιοι Ουρλιάζουν Ακόμα” [Some are still screaming] (2001) both of which have stopped now. There are also three comic zines that have some punk aesthetics and in some issues illustrate punk songs, those are “Sapilla” [Rot], first issue November 2004 and latest (#6) September 2006, “Σκύλα” [Bitch], first issue in the spring of 2005 (it came with a compilation cd) and latest issue (#3) August 2006 and “Negro”, first issue December 2005 and latest (#3) Autumn 2006. There are also some zines that have no punk content but articles related to punk or with punk aesthetics such as “Αντιβίωση” [Antibiosis].

The pleasant surprise during the 80’s and the first half of the 90’s was that zines were coming out from various cities in Greece. A zine would go out even from small cities with only a few tens of punks which proves how active the scene was at the time. Unfortunately as years went by zines were started only in the 3 or 4 larger cities of the country and nowdays it is very rare to find something that is not released from people in Athens or Thessalonica.

I was asked to do this report by my friend Smurfpunk for the first issue of a Russian zine. Many thanks to Yorgos (skila_zine) for the additions.

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2006 Retrospect of the Greek punk/hardcore scene

The Punk zine history in Greece