Author/Filmmaker Steven Blush Celebrates the 15th Anniversary of the Award-Winning American Hardcore Film, the Second Edition of the American Hair Metal Book, and the Upcoming Trilogy Finale, When Rock Met Hip-Hop Announces Film Screening and Q&A
AMERICAN HARDCOREÂ Film Screening
Monday June 23, 7pm
âSonic Waveâ Series Orpheum TheaterÂ
156 Main St., Saugerties, NYÂ (845) 876-2515
Introduction and Q&A with author/filmmaker Steven Blush followed by: Slide Show and Talk with Steven Blush, hosted by Peter Aaron
at Inquiring Minds Bookstore, 159Â Main St., Saugerties, NY
American Hardcore: The History of American Punk Rock 1980â1986 is a documentary based on the book American Hardcore: A Tribal History written by Steven Blush. The film world-premiered at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival and was released by Sony Pictures Classics. It addresses the birth and evolution of hardcore punk rock. The documentary boasts extensive underground footage shot during the height of the hardcore movement. It features exclusive interviews with early hardcore punk music artists from bands such as Black Flag, Minor Threat, and the Bad Brains.
âThe excellent documentary American Hardcore chronicles the short-lived but influential musical moment when a defiantly anti-commercial underground put a distinctive U.S. stamp on the punk movement.â – VarietyÂ
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AMERICAN HAIR METAL, Second Edition
By Steven Blush
New Book Out Now!
Review Copies Available Upon Request
There was a time â not so long ago â when pomp and spandex dominated MTV and pop radio playlists. Nearly twenty years after the First Edition, people can’t get enough hair metal! The new expanded Second Edition of American Hair Metal by Steven Blush visually celebrates this orgy of flamboyance, androgyny, and animal magnetism, of big-haired alpha males and the beautiful women who surrounded them. Interest in hair metal is currently exploding: witness arena-level revival tours, reissue compilations, and documentaries and docudramas that revisit the excesses of the â80s and â90s. Hundreds of striking photographs are complimented by hedonistic ephemera from bands like Poison, Cinderella, Motley Crue, Skid Row, and Stryper. Wild quotes from major players such as David Lee Roth, Jon Bon Jovi, Sebastian Bach, Tommy Lee, Nikki Sixx, Bret Michaels, Don Dokken, and many unsung heroes.
âAmerican Hair Metal is the greatest blend of rock facts and metal fantasy imaginable.â – SLUG Magazine
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UPCOMING: THE THIRD BOOK IN THE TRILOGY By Steven Blush
When Rock Met Hip-Hop (November 2025)
When Rock Met Reggae (2024)
When Rock Meet Disco (2023)
When Rock Met Hip-Hop By Steven Blush
How Run-DMC, Aerosmith, Anthrax, The Beastie Boys, and More Crossed Cultural and Musical Boundaries
One of the most important events in modern music remains the late 80s cross-collision of rock and hip hop. Aerosmith and Run DMC, Public Enemy and Anthrax, Rick Rubin and Russell Simmons, De La Soul and 3rd Bass, Beastie Boys Paulâs Boutique, and the 318 hip hop records that sampled Billy Squierâs âThe Big Beatâ exemplify the era. Rap records sampled rock bands, elevating sampling into an art form, while influencing all other forms of popular music. One of the themes When Rock Met Hip-Hop by Steven Blush explores is the way the fusion of rap and rock delivered a sense of interracial harmony. In keeping with When Rock Met Disco and When Rock Met Reggae, this title relates the musical cross collision, and cultural fallout that changed music for the better, and remains an influence through today.
âSteven Blushâs recent rock series is the genreâs literary equivalent to Harry Potter.â – Edmonton Sun
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“Steven Blush may be the best interviewer in rock music today.” – Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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About STEVEN BLUSH:
STEVEN BLUSH got his start in the 1980s promoting hardcore punk rock shows in Washington, DC. He published the award-winning Seconds Magazine and served as music critic and editor for the late great Paper Magazine, where he became the first writer to cover both rock and hip-hop music. His journalism has appeared in over 25 publications, i.e. Spin, Details, Interview, The Village Voice, and The Times of London. He is the author of eight books about rock culture and sports, including American Hardcore (2001), American Hair Metal (2007), Lost Rockers (2015), New York Rock (2016), Bustinâ Balls (2020), and the trilogy of When Rock Met Disco (2023), When Rock Met Reggae (2024) and the upcoming When Rock Met Hip Hop (2025). He wrote and produced the theatrically-released, Sundance Film Festival-premiered documentary film American Hardcore (Sony Pictures Classics, 2006), and also released an expanded Second Edition of American Hardcore which is now available in six languages.
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