With DIY as the traditional battle cry of punk rock since its inception, the genre and its adjacent accouterments have made some bold style statements with homegrown graphic design. A lot of people know the crimson ghost Misfits logo, Ramones presidential seal design and CBGB awning signage better than their corresponding bands and locations.
Add to that list of resonant symbols the Mohican skull of the Exploited, a logo that has a way of turning up if you’ve ever seen a punk in a leather jacket in real life or on celluloid. It is a perfect avatar for Wattie Buchan, the singer and engine of the Exploited.
A controversial figure in a world overflowing with contentious characters, Wattie has opinions on everything — some prickly, but that is baked into the punk pie. The Exploited were a revolution in the 1978 English punk scene; their original street punk moved the genre away from wanky rock music and closer to the chaos that would become hardcore. Evolving into a crossover thrash band, the Exploited became the precursor to D-beat bands like Discharge, Chaos UK and Broken Bones.
Some bands play punk rock, and some are just Punk, capital P; that would be the Exploited. Wattie’s reputation for destruction and debauchery is legend. The man has had several heart attacks, some of them on stage mid-set, and still, the Exploited carry-on with Wattie as the face of smash-and-grab punk rock for over 40 years.
They’ve not released an album of new music since Fuck The System in 2003 but have no trouble mustering an extended set’s worth of pit fuel from a stockpile of anthems that go back to the Army Life EP in 1980 and the Exploited’s indestructible, still, full-length debut of 1981, Punks Not Dead. And really, why do we need new when we all know we want “Dead Cities” rolling right into “Don’t Pay the Poll Tax”? I guess it would be nice, but unnecessary as a catalyst for the hell-raising energy of an Exploited show.
The Exploited, Total Chaos and Tara Who? play 7pm Monday, October 6 at The Culture Room in Fort Lauderdale. the-exploited.net ~ Tim Moffatt
