Bad Brains: Thrash as an Exercise in Zen

The Stones and the Who came back this summer. Mahogany Rush and Foghat are on the road again, even Paul Revere & the Raiders, so why not the Bad Brains, the Rasta-fied punk group that had about the same influence on New York’s hardcore rock scene in the early ‘80s that Black Flag did on L.A.’s?

The current black rock movement--Living Colour, 24-7 Spyz, Fishbone--is to some extent rooted in the all-black Bad Brains’ success at getting over in the overwhelmingly white punk movement. At the sold-out Country Club on Friday, the Bad Brains flipped their dreads, cranked their amps and blasted their solid-gold hardcore oldies to the sort of older punk aficionados who express deeper nostalgic yearnings by diving off a stage.

The Bad Brains roil as powerfully as any speedcore outfit, but singer H.R.’s vocal style is more laid-back Funkadelic soul crooning than Henry Rollins snarl, and at their most intense Friday he seemed almost beatific, as if thrash were an exercise in Zen. When Dr. Know shredded adrenaline funk riffs on guitar, he seemed almost like Hendrix--if not in sound, in the screeching conviction with which he deconstructs hard-rock cliche.