San Diego, California is home to pristine beaches, outstanding Mexican food, subpar National League baseball, and to the occasional "killer whale kills or mauls human" story. It has also a city that carved out a very unique place in the history of American underground music, and one person in particular has been a major driving force behind the knife San Diego used to cut the face of punk and hardcore from ear to ear, leaving behind an ugly reminder that punk isn't and shouldn't be safe from itself. Justin Pearson began what would eventually become an admirable and prolific, yet often controversial presence in punk/hardcore scene as the bassist of Struggle in 1991, and went on to form and play in Swing Kids, The Crimson Curse, and The Locust throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. These three bands in their own ways shook up punk and hardcore by highlighting new/refocusing on and challenging old ideologies, adding elements of jazz and electronic music that hadn't really been explored in the context of punk at that time, and by employing and utilizing aesthetics, be it via printed album art/flyers or on-stage costumes, or (dare I say) fashion in general within the movement. While each of these bands are incredibly unique from each other, they shook up punk at a time when punk bands were beginning their rise to becoming multi-platinum household names or wallowing in tired and played out sounds and rhetoric carried over from the late 80s, and wondering if there was a place for them amongst Green Day, the Offspring, and the Van's Warped Tour.
Pearson also founded Three One G Records, a label that not only released a lot of his own projects, but also releases by other bands that broke ground in punk and hardcore including Unbroken, The Blood Brothers, Get Hustle, as well as many other bands that put their own unique and often chaotic spin on traditional hardcore. Aside from running Three One G, the last few years saw Pearson exploring electronic oriented music via projects such as All Leather, The Leg Lifters, and collaborating with The Bloody Beetroots. He has also dabbled in radio, television, and recently published an autobiography. As far as media is concerned, Justin Pearson hasn't really left a stoned unturned.
What do you do when you've accomplished so much and already left a sizable footprint on the ass of a subculture? Apparently you start from scratch by getting some friends together and start a ruling, back to basics hardcore punk band and start gigging around Southern California and the UK like a motherfucker. Ladies, gentlemen, all of you somewhere in between ladies and gentlemen, behold....Retox:
Also featuring The Locust/Le Butcherettes drummer Gabe Serbian, as well as other members of "some grand dicksucking accomplishments" (a direct quote from the bands bio on www.threeoneg.com), Retox adopt a brutal, jagged approach (at least compared to its members' previous bands and projects) to taking on the world at large, and the result is a San Diego (read: chaotic and polyrhythmic) take on early 80s hardcore punk a la Black Flag or The Germs. Retix have an obvious air of life experience and musical know-how about them, which will impress the older crowd who were fortunate to live through punk when it was something kids were banished to versus another look that can be bought and sold at a mall, yet are aggressive and heavy enough to get fifteen year olds with skateboards and bootleg Minor Threat t shirts to kick the living shit out of each other in fits of adolescent rage. Coming from a city/scene often charged with being too high brow or cerebral for a lot of hardcore and punk rock's masses, Retox are a defiant example that intelligence and aggression are not mutually exclusive.
The band's self-titled ep was available as a free download a few months back, but has since been pulled as a free download, and is available for purchase via iTunes and Three One Records. The band is preparing to release a full-length entitled Ugly Animals this summer, and sees them touring California with 90s "electronica" troublemakers Atari Teenage Riot through the 7th and 9th of September. It's rare to find an active band in punk or hardcore that has appeal to different generations of fans with far different opinions and experiences of living in these subcultures. Retox have managed to find that multi-generational sweet spot, and are not a band to be ignored.
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