NEGATIVE APPROACH

In the early to mid-1980s, Detroit's Negative Approach and Necros from Maumee, Ohio, stood as the clear leaders of Midwestern hardcore. According to longstanding accounts, vocalist John Brannon formed the group in 1981 by enlisting drummer OP Moore along with Rob and Graham McCulloch on guitar and bass during a chance meeting at a skate park. Fronted by the bald-headed Brannon's raspy, piercing vocals, the outfit delivered a no-frills sonic assault that veered sharply between brutal force and outright hostility. Their earliest full statement appeared on the self-titled 7" issued by Touch and Go in 1982. A year later the label put out the more metallic-sounding Tied Down 12", yet the band had run its course by 1985 while Brannon began shaping the Birthday Party-inspired blues direction of Laughing Hyenas. Although Brannon never attained the broader post-hardcore visibility of peers Ian McKaye and Henry Rollins, Negative Approach failed to receive the same retrospective recognition routinely granted Minor Threat and Black Flag. The group proved every bit as pivotal, leaving its mark on acts from Poison Idea to Sonic Youth to Los Crudos and on successive waves of hardcore listeners in Boston and New York. Few early-1980s punk bands matched its originality or extremity, with the crushing rhythms supplied by Moore and the McCulloch brothers still registering as a relentless steel-toe impact. Touch and Go assembled the complete recordings on the 1992 anthology Total Recall, required listening for any serious examination of hardcore.