Adult Crash 2… the follow-up to 2008’s Adult Crash hardcore/punk photobook. This 2nd book is bigger than the first, with 144 pages of photos & anecdotes, compared to the 1st Adult Crash that was only 88 pages. The first book was all photos taken by me, Dave Brown, starting in the late-80’s. The new book is a compilation of photos taken by photographers from both coasts, going back to the early 80s. Chris Boarts Larson (Slug & Lettuce Fanzine), Ken Salerno (Thrasher Magazine/NYHC book), Joe Henderson (Flipside/Ink Disease Magazine), Al Quint (Suburban Voice Fanzine), and MANY others contributed photos… with many of these rare/unseen images in book-form for the very 1st time, along with some (in)famous images you’ll recognize from records in your collection, too. Over 250 photos spanning over 30 years. The book also contains anecdotes written by musicians, photographers, and other notable people from the punk/hardcore scene. Eerie Von from Samhain/Danzig, Kevin Seconds from 7 Seconds, John Stabb from Government Issue, Ron Guardipee from Brotherhood/Overkill Records, Theo Kogan from The Lunachicks, Matt Warnke from Bold, Chris Daily from Smorgasbord Records, and other folks wrote about what the adult crash means to them. Also included with the new book is a 4-track 7 featuring VIOLENT REACTION, BARGE, NIGHT BIRDS, and GOVERNMENT WARNING. Each band covers a song by an older band that influenced their sound, and all songs are unreleased/exclusive to this 7.

Our take: Long-in-the-works second volume of this photobook by Richmond stalwart Dave Brown. I’m not sure if many people remember the first volume as it was so long ago, but volume 2 is a huge improvement. First of all, the layouts are much improved and it’s just a generally cooler-looking product. Second, there’s a lot more writing in the book. In particular, Dave has collected all of these short little 1/2-1-page vignettes in which people from all eras of hardcore give a little explanation of what hardcore and punk mean to them. Not only do these cause you to linger on the book a little longer, but they also add some additional context to the images that gives them a lot more weight. Third, he’s expanded the scope of the book to include not only his own very good photography, but the work of lots of other photographers as well. So not only is there more variety to the images, but there’s also a lot more temporal and geographical coverage, including lots of shots from the early 80s and from bands beyond the mid-Atlantic region that was the focus of the first book. Finally, I like the 7″ that comes with this issue more than the one that came with the first book… this time around you get four cover songs, one each from Violent Reaction, Barge, Night Birds, and Government Warning, all of which are previously unreleased to my knowledge. Over the past few years there have been a heap of great books about punk and metal, but very few of them have the DIY spirit of Adult Crash. It’s sort of like a really good zine grew up and became an impressive, glossy, squarebound book. So, grab a copy and look for yourself in all the photos!

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