‘Train of Doomsday’: The first hardcore punk single, according to Jello Biafra
An enigmatic movement that’s hard to pin down to one particular origin story, punk represented so much more than its buzzsaw guitars and safety-pinned trousers. It was a complete cultural revolution, placing the means of music production in the hands of ordinary young people, who sought to defy the perceived attitudes of the rock music mainstream. Within the ever-expanding umbrella of punk, one of the most defiant, enduring, and adrenaline-fueled sounds is that of hardcore, but it’s similarly difficult to pinpoint its precise origins.
As far as hardcore’s golden age is concerned, the early 1980s was a particularly productive period for the scene. In New York City, the ground zero for American punk rock, anarchic new groups like Reagan Youth, Agnostic Front, and an early incarnation of Beastie Boys took over the famed CBGB club and made it a hardcore haven.
Meanwhile, Washington, DC boasted an incredible scene, driven by the likes of Minor Threat, Bad Brains, and the emergence of the Dischord label. Before too long, hardcore had spread far and wide, building a cult following for its unparalleled energy and aggression.
In terms of the groups who first established that iconic sound of the movement, the contributions of a band like Dead Kennedys are utterly undeniable. Emerging from San Francisco in 1978 and led by the endearingly bizarre frontman Jello Biafra, the band blended satirical political commentary and shock value with all the speed and raw power that would go on to outline the hardcore movement.
Biafra’s hardcore leanings became much more apparent with the release of 1981’s In God We Trust, Inc EP, but even the earliest Dead Kennedys releases bear some resemblance to the scene’s sounds and attitudes. Nevertheless, Biafra has always been quick to pin the origins of hardcore elsewhere. Many punk historians cite the California outfit Middle Class and their Out of Vogue EP as being the true beginnings, but Biafra claims the roots of the genre go back even further.
After all, there are quite a few overlooked, obscure, and forgotten hard rock records from throughout the 1960s and 1970s which share sonic similarities with hardcore. One prominent example of this is the Detroit outfit Death, whose defining track ‘Politicians in My Eyes’ was recorded back in 1975, years before hardcore ‘officially’ developed. On the more obscure end of the specturm, there is Belgium garage rock outfit Blast, and their woefully underrated 1972 single ‘Damned Flame’, which has undeniably hardcore leanings.
Biafra, however, maintains the genre has its starting line in an earlier decade. During a 2002 interview with Nardwuar, the songwriter highlighted Sound Of Imker’s ‘Train of Doomsday’ as “the only true ‘60s hardcore record I know”. Hailing from the Netherlands, Sound Of Imker aimed to reflect the growing psychedelic rock movement from the United States, but ended up creating a unique hard rock sound, blending together the sonics of The MC5 and The Stooges, but amping up the tempo tenfold.
‘Train of Doomsday’ was the band’s only release, and it hit the airwaves in 1969, a full decade before Middle Class unveiled Out of Vogue. With a driving drum beat and sharp blasts of distorted guitar, the track could easily have come out in the golden age of DC hardcore, were it not for the psychedelic-age vocals overlaying the track. Perhaps as a result of its pioneering sound, the song didn’t attract much attention upon initial release. Even today, it’s only well-known among punk obsessives and historians, of which Jello Biafra is both.
