It’d be cool to uncover some random hardcore band from the second wave of it all and find out that there was some all important group of dudes running around the country doing damage – but for the right reason. Code of Honor isn’t it, but might be kinda close.
Coming out of the same scene that gave the world the Dead Kennedys, Code of Honor were apparently raised on the most visible of punk groups and a huge number of BYO albums. It’s not that Code of Honor apes a Youth Brigade thing – and thankfully, because this San Fran based act is dramatically more entertaining. But it’s not to difficult to hear the same type of hardcore 7 Seconds was working out in Las Vegas all over Code of Honor’s few releases.
As the story goes, a few of the would-be band members shared an apartment together and decided that there needed to be some sort of code to live by – for punks and in a general, day to day sense. Whether that actually happened or not is difficult to say. This band existed, though. As did a song with the same name, briefly detailing a proper way to live.
If that sounds like what accidentally happened with straight edge, you’re right. The thing is, though, no one took Code of Honor to an illogical end, basing existence on its songs. Of course, whatever one needs to get through the day is what one needs to get through the day.
Part of why this didn’t all catch on, though, was that due to Code of Honor coming up in the wake of those first string SST and Dischord bands, these Cali residents sought to expand the restrictive genre. That didn’t happen on its split with Sick Pleasure. That in-fact is a pretty rote representation of politicized punk at the time. But even the band’s first single sports a bit of nascent funk stuff – “What Price Would You Pay?”
As the band eventually arrived at its only long playing disc, entitled Beware The Savage Jaw, all involved had exerted enough individual musical acumen that squeezing it all into a single disc wouldn’t have made sense. It happened anyway. With front man Johnithin Christ moving closer to a beat poet’s conception of fronting a rock band, Code of Honor basically ceasing to exist makes sense. Why the Husker’s and Minutemen made it probably has to do with ditching punk’s trappings instead of augmenting them. There’s still good music from Code of Honor – it’s just obfuscated by some experimenting.