BOTTLED UP FOR YEARS

Nirvana’s Live and Loud broadcast on MTV in 1993 was crucial to hardcore punks of a certain age. It was the television debut of guitarist Pat Smear, the legendary member of L.A.’s the Germs, and maybe less important to some but hugely important to me, bassist Krist Novoselic wore a black T-shirt with a big “SSD” across the chest. As a young suburban “punk” with no older siblings, it was hard to find music unless I did all the digging myself, but it usually happened one of a few ways: trial and error of buying records with hard-saved lunch money, word of mouth, watching who toured with who, or seeing what band wore what other band’s merch. I hadn’t heard of SSD at the time, but the giant block-lettering font gave a bit of a nod to high school athletics, which in itself was also a nod to youth-crew-style hardcore, so I felt determined to find the record.