Local punk band gets ready to detonate all over again.

Byline: Lewis Taylor The Register-Guard

The Detonators - a hard-core punk band that formed in Los Angeles, relocated to Eugene and dissolved in the late 1990s - is back for at least one more gig.

Guitarist and vocalist Bruce Hartnell (Los Mex Pistols del Norte) said the reunion show, which happens today at John Henry's, was inspired by the 20th anniversary of the group's debut album, "Emergency Broadcast System," and by what he described as a dismal political climate brought about by the Bush administration.

"We were kind of in that first wave of American hard-core bands," Hartnell said. "You could kind of lend yourself to the underground political movements that were happening. Rock against Reagan, that kind of stuff.

`We'd play anarchist festivals. We'd play anywhere that there were punk rockers pretty much."

Fueled by a hatred of the Reagan administration, the De- tonators sang out - make that screamed out - against Washington, D.C., warmongers, televangelists and heavy-handed cops. The group put out three albums, appeared on a dozen compilation albums and made it onto the cover of the underground punk magazine Maximum Rock 'n' Roll.

Along with Hartnell, the Detonators are/were guitarist and vocalist Juan Camacho (Crimes of Ambition), bassist Kirk Black and drummer Scott Adamo (formerly of Portland's King Black Acid). After moving to Eugene, the band played in basement venues, toured nationally and occasionally traveled to Europe on the dime of a German record label that was releasing Detonators albums abroad.

As with other hard-core bands, the Detonators were loosely associated with the anarchy movement, but Hartnell says the hard-headedness of the cause eventually drove the band away. He recalled speaking at an anarchist gathering on the subject of voting.

"One of the topics was whether you should vote or not and I got up and said, `Yeah, you should vote, because you pay taxes,' and these anarchists are like `We don't pay taxes,' ' Hartnell said. "I said, `Every time you get a gallon of gasoline you pay tax on it, every time you buy a beer. ... That's your money too, so you might as well vote.'

`That's apparently how we got in the situation we're in now with Bush."

Detonators tunes such as "Johnny Law," "Saints," "Iron Youth" and "Denied" may not have been anarchist-approved, but they did express blunt, anti-establishment thoughts. Still, Hartnell prefers to think of the group not as political, but as a working-class punk band with some strong beliefs.

"About as specifically political as we got was a song called "A Thousand Points of Lies," (which was) basically about the elder President Bush," Hartnell said. "Maybe we'll do one called `Son of a Thousand Points of Lies.' '

CONCERT PREVIEW

Detonators Reunion

Show

With: The Bastard Saints, Blackjack, the Weaklings

When: 10 p.m. today

Where: John Henry's, 77 W. Broadway

How much: $5