Friends in Low Places

I found Woods' post about Boston interesting not only because he and I have been arguing his point (I'm a huge fan of west coast hardcore) for years, but because Boston, LA, and New York seem to be the only places (despite a few midwestern cities sprinkled in for flavor) that get mentioned. Recently, I watched Martin from Crudos' documentary about the Latino punk movement and he mentioned how in the 90s he found it interesting how many of these "hardcore punk" bands from the states sang about issues they read about, but didn't particularly experience directly. This got me thinking about the role environment plays in music. When Crudos toured Mexico and Brazil, they encountered punks and hardcore kids who were inspired by music that revolted against poverty because they lived in poverty. They loved the dissident voice of punk rock because they were actually politically oppressed. Although I love Boston hardcore, LA Hardcore, Japanese Hardcore, Livingroom hardcore, or whatever other environmental title you have, I wanted to find some hardcore bands (or at least one) from an unlikely place, a place like Myanmar. Myanmar (formerly Burma) gained independence from Britain in 1948 and has since then been the posterchild for military states the world over. The Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma ruled as a one party, dictatorial state until 1988 and in 1990 the country had its first elections. This long road to freedom in the wake of oppression created, go figure, a buzzing arts and music underground that (surprise, surprise) the government isn't too fond of. Myanmar's punks are speaking out, playing shows, and rocking hard. Personally, I don't give a fuck if they aren't doing it "harder" than Boston or any other kid in any other place in the States and I doubt the kids in Myanmar do either. The fact of the matter is we will never understand what this music means to them or their experience, and we should all consider ourselves lucky.