- 97a – Hardcore band from New Jersey. History, records, sound clips and photos.
- Champion – Straight Edge hardcore band from Seattle. Biography, pictures, shows and news.
- Crossingpoint – Straight Edge hardcore band from Durban, the heart of the east coast of South Africa. Lyrics, flyers, gig dates, pictures, audio and video section.
- Crucial Youth – News and album discography from this band.
- How’s Your Edge? – Interviews, reviews and messageboard. Host official sites for new Boston area bands.
- Monster X Tribute Page – Grindcore Straight Edge band from Albany, NY with interviews, reviews, pictures and a message board.
- Mutiny, The – News, merchandise, shows, discography and pictures.
- Product – Northern Italy Straight Edge old school punk band with biography and discography.
- Redemption – Official site with releases, pictures, tour dates and links.
- The Straight Edge – Describes the basics about the movement.
- Straight Edge, A Subculture Dominated by Music – Discusses the history of this subculture as well as the lifestyle and «Straight Edge» lyrics led by Ian MacKaye and Minor Threat.
- Straightedge Lifestyle – Punk zine. Integrity, interviews, gigs, photos and links.
- Summer League – Antifascist, prochoice, sporty, veggie and sXe hardcore band.
- Tinman Rusted – A one-gal, sXe, veggie, acoustic/punk band hailing from Mesa, Arizona. Biography, pictures, music, lyrics, and shows.
- Verbal Assault – Official site features photos, lyrics, flyers and merchandising.
- X Nanticoke Straight Edge X – Hardcore band in Pennsylvania featuring message boards, chat room, shows, news, concert reviews, classifieds, and discussion of the values endorsed by the group.
- xRadical Attackx – Straight edge hardcore band from Quebec, Canada. Contains news, shows, biography, and lyrics.
- Straight Edge Online – Offers thought-provoking comments on the clean life. Includes message boards, free email and articles.
- Straight Edge Tattoos – Gallery of Straight-edge tattoos.
- Straight-Edge .com – Features information on the lifestyle including hardcore, shows, reviews, message board, and links.
- The sXe Community’s Journal – The sXe community on LiveJournal.
- sXe FAQ – alt.punk.straight-edge FAQ.
- sXe Straight Edge Tribe – Online community with discussion boards. Anti: drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, meat, dairy, casual sex. Pro: punk/ hardcore, animal rights, keeping your body free of poison.
- sXe.com – Message board and website dedicated to the straight edge lifestyle.
- To Be Straight-Edge – Promotes veganism/animal liberation, SxE beliefs, and hardcore music.
Straight edge (sometimes abbreviated to sXe or SxE) is a lifestyle and (counter cultural) subculture, closely associated with punk, hardcore punk, emo and more recently heavy metal music. It advocates total, life long abstinence from tobacco, alcohol, and recreational drug use — especially psychoactive and stimulant drug use. Some straight edgers also abstain from promiscuous sexual behavior.
Originally inspired by the hardcore band Minor Threat, it has spread around the world, but is most popular in industrialized Western countries with a large middle-class, such as United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, and much of Western Europe. Although straight edgers or «edge kids» do not necessarily identify with a particular worldview on social or political issues, many do subscribe to precepts associated with anarchism, vegetarianism–veganism, socialism, environmentalism, and the deep ecology movement. Some straight edgers are Christians or Hare Krishnas, as well as other religions, and there are even some straight edgers who hold extreme right wing views.
Origins
In the book Our Band Could Be Your Life, Ian MacKaye reports that during the mid- and late 1970’s, he and friends often missed musical performances by their favorite groups because they were held in clubs in and around Washington, D.C. that served alcoholic drinks and banned anyone under 21 years of age from entering.
Rock musician Ted Nugent was an early inspiration for MacKaye and his close friend Henry Rollins. In an era when most popular rockers were known for their copious drug and alcohol use, Nugent made a point of proclaiming his teetotaller status.
MacKaye’s group, the Teen Idles, made a brief west-coast tour in 1980. At San Francisco’s Mabuhay Gardens, club owners were sympathetic to youngsters wanting to see musicians perform, and had begun writing a large ‘X’ on teenagers hands with a permanent marker as a warning to bartenders that such persons should not be served alcohol.
The album cover of the Teen Idles’ EP Minor Disturbance features one of the iconic symbols of the straight edge movement: the Xed hands.
Upon returning to Washington, D.C., MacKaye suggested this same notion to various area club owners as a means to allow teenagers into the clubs, while preventing them from being served alcohol. Several clubs began doing so, and the «X» drawn on one’s hand eventually became a symbol of a stand against alcohol and drugs. The Teen Idles’s «Minor Disturbance» EP, released on the highly influential DIY label Dischord Records in 1980 featured two X’d up hands on the cover. This EP also marked the beginning of what would become the straight edge scene within hardcore and punk.
There are differing views on the origins of the actual term «straight edge». The usual explanation is that it was coined by MacKaye’s second hardcore punk band, Minor Threat, in the early-mid 1980s. The straight edge lifestyle that began soon afterwards is in fact largely defined by the lyrics to Minor Threat’s songs, specifically «Out of Step» and «Straight Edge».
The term was first used in song form in the song by Minor Threat called «Straight Edge,» which simply tied together many of the concepts that had been floating around in the Washington, D.C. music scene for a while. Just as many underground movements have done, the straight edge scene has diversified. There are some who preach complete «militant» purity, while there are others who, while still remaining straight, refuse to label themselves as having «the edge.» Many straight edge «kids» no longer wear the trademark black ‘X’ on the back of their hands.
The subsequent straight edge movement however, was never advocated by singer Ian Mackaye, who thought of it as more the personal choices that he had made in his life. After some tension with the other members, Mackaye noted that some of Minor Threat’s personnel drank (though rarely to excess).
The hardcore punk scene has been viewed by those unfamiliar with it as a mass consensus of angry kids, uniting with the purpose of creating fast, rebellious music in the hopes of reshaping a society that they perceive as bad. Although hardcore bands share some of the same themes, their lyrics, politics and attitudes can range from right to far left, from extremes to moderation, from hostility to hospitality.
While the first wave of the straight edge movement was centered around Washington, D.C. (Minor Threat, G.I.’s, Faith) and Boston bands (SSD, DYS) from 1981-83, there is a new wind of bands from around the country and the world calling themselves straight edge. (seen in the names of not only the bands, such as Bold and Straight Ahead, but even in the names of the record labels, such as New Beginning, Positive Force, and Revelation.)
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