Artist Extraordinaire
BRIAN WALSBY

If you are on this site you probably know Brian’s work from these two covers, the Nardcore comps.

Well Bifocal Media just put out Brian Walsby's 5th book - MANCHILD 5. This one chronicles how Walsby moved from CA to NC and everything that happened in the hardcore scene (in NC) between 1982 and 1989.

It starts off with the 1985
ILL REPUTE/SCARED STRAIGHT Disastour...

Go to Bifocal Media
to get Brian’s latest book Manchild 5 or one of his past books or one of his classic
T-shirts. His latest one being The Melvins.

And out now
his Descendents design

Currently Brain is playing in his band DOUBLE NEGATIVE,

he is available for freelance artwork - EMAIL BRIAN
and has mentioned wanting to do his next writings on his hometown, the 805, and his experiences with the Nardcore scene.

My memories of the Nardcore thing: Yeah we went there a lot, probably more times than I remember actually. It was exciting to live somewhat nearby that scene. The Los Angeles scene was closer but it also seemed so big and spread out that the Oxnard thing seemed smaller and more appealing. Plus Oxnard is sort of a weird place. Hell, looking back almost all of Ventura County is a weird place..but pretty.

I really didn’t have any friends and most people thought I was weird. Punk rock seemed to come along at the right time. And the discovery of the letter writing and tape trading circuit of those times was crucial to me. I was the kid in town that did a lot of that stuff. Plus, I could draw..well, not very well at all but who cared? I was able to make friends through the music and somehow contribute to this massive secret thing that no one really knew about that I wanted to be a part of.

Drawing was really my way in, the one thing I had going for me that I could offer up to anyone, which is how I met Scott Radinsky and the rest of the guys in Scared Straight, the local Simi Valley punk hardcore band. I was instantly a fan. They played in people’s backyards, once with Dr. Know. A real out of town band. Things just snowballed from there. We were lucky and it was very exciting.

The local bands: I think Aggression already had their high water mark, that BYO album. They were back then, the biggest band, and then the rest soon followed: Dr. Know, Stalag 13, Ill Repute, False Confession and all of the rest. All of those bands were good. Looking back, False Confession was always a real cool band to see. Dr. Know’s “Plug In Jesus” was a big fave, Stalag 13 were a action packed live band, and Ill Repute became our eventual mentors, taking us on the road and helping us a lot. They were a bunch of positive (not “straight edge positive” mind you) cool guys who put out one of my favorite records, “What Happens Next”. The weird thing is that the overall best band happened to live in nearby Santa Barbara, RKL. They were impressive even back in early 1984 when I saw them at the Sun Valley Sportsmans Lodge. And lastly, the Hernandez brothers came from there. Enough said. So yeah, it was a close knit neat little kind of scene.

Lastly, a funny story: Did you know that the cover for NARDCORE is not the original cover? The original cover was drawn in heavy pencil and looked much better than what they eventually did. Which was not to call me about details or explanations and instead, get someone else to TRACE OVER THE COVER I GAVE THEM WITH A BLACK PEN. That is really the cover. Amazing, is it not?

Brian Walsby

ARCHIVES 1

ARCHIVES 2

Check out Brian’s website

ARCHIVES 3

ARCHIVES 4

ARCHIVES 5

Bands, Photographers, Promoters, etc.
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