Before Phoenix had an acknowledged music scene, a scorched suburban pocket in Sunnyslope ignited an underground shockwave that birthed Arizona punk rock.

In the blistering summer of 1977, Sunnyslope and the West Phoenix sprawl were dominated by three-set cover bands and hostile biker haunts. To hear the Sex Pistols’ “Anarchy in the U.K.,” kids had to drive across the Mojave Desert to Los Angeles because no Arizona record shop dared stock it. Out of that sensory isolation, suburban boredom, and relentless desert heat came an explosive, homegrown reaction that predated anything else in the Southwest.

ANTI ANTI ANTI documents the foundational 1977–1980 flashpoint that permanently altered American underground music. Assembled from rare late-’70s ephemera—unreleased rehearsal cassettes, surviving gig flyers, and raw firsthand accounts from Don Bolles and Dan Clark—this volume chronicles the tightly knit circle of teenage agitators who built a scene out of thin air. It traces the razor-sharp musicianship of The Consumers rehearsing across from Cortez High and inciting drawn knives at The Zoo; the primitive art-brut noise of The Liars and Kray-Zee Homicide bashed out in the egg-carton-lined rooms of “Satan’s Disco”; gigs shut down after four songs at rented fraternal halls and midnight screenings at the Valley Art Theatre; and the relentless assault of The Exterminators, powered by fourteen-year-old guitar prodigy Doug Clark (Buzzy Murder) and Don Bolles dodging beer mugs on local dive bar stages before a four-hundred-kid house show brought out police helicopters and a tactical SWAT team.

When the pressure cooker blew in 1978, an unprecedented exodus carried that desert venom westward into Hollywood’s Canterbury Apartments and The Masque, directly seeding The Germs, The Bags, and 45 Grave. Back home, that foundation fueled Frank Discussion’s Feederz, catalyzed the 1980 emergence of the Meat Puppets, and drove Doug Clark’s post-Exterminators outfit The Brainz, which forged the eerie desert art-punk that evolved into gothic-hardcore pioneers Mighty Sphincter.

ANTI ANTI ANTI documents the uncredited desert origin of Arizona punk rock—the foundational Sunnyslope ground zero that gave Slope Records and Slope Press its name and permanent purpose.

Hardcover | ISBN: 979-8-234-26583-8 | LCCN: 2026927378

© 2027 Slope Press / Slope Records LLC. All rights reserved.