Hüsker Dü surely ranks up there with other groups attempting to push the genre forward. But those Minnesotans really wound up taking the pop-music detour. In Texas – and the Minutemen by extension over there in Pedro – hardcore acts possessed a sort of rhythmic diversity that no one else engaged with punk communities were able to muster, no wave groups being exempt from this discussion even as that’s probably unfair in light of Really Red’s “No Art.”
Beyond groups’ ability to change up songs beyond the fast/breakdown dichotomy, there was a surprising persistence of sound at work. The Dicks, the Big Boys and RR all were able to approximate a sound while not necessarily being a part of one, cohesive scene – RR being based in Houston with those other ensembles living three hours east in Austin.
Springing up independent of each other, there really wasn’t too good a reason for RR to sound too much like its Austin counterparts. But a quick listen to "Starvation Dance" reveals a surprising similarity to the Big Boys, melodically, rhythmically and stylistically. Of course, there’s only one Tim Kerr and RR suffers as a result of that, but the shards of guitar comprising the track’s melodic statement is pretty remarkable. And that’s not even examining how tight the rhythm section needed to be for the whole thing to get pulled off.
Even before RR was able to issue the long player featuring the aforementioned track in 1981, it was a 1980 single, and a few other early releasesm bringing attention to the Texas scene. “Modern Needs” b/w “White Lies” is a slab of politicized and social aware, skronked up punk on the edges of hardcore that didn’t quite define RR, but set out a good and pretty furiously fun template for them and their cohort to follow.
Out of all those Texas bands, RR probably gets the least amount of credit for releasing so much music over just a few years. There are issues with consistency the Big Boys didn’t have to deal with, but whatd’ya want from dudes living in Texas during the seventies?