American hardcore was a Los Angeles, back alley, coat hanger abortion gone terribly wrong. The terribly wrong part was that it survived, killed its mother (the artistically inspired and socially conscious underground), and then spread like bubonic plague, far and wide, deadly and predominant by the fall of '81. This musical miscarriage was most evident in the city’s suburban sphere where many of these bands barely saw the light of day, owing to an illusive camaraderie that was pervasive during the first wave of LA punk. All were racing to plant some threadbare, testosteronic banner atop a lonesome, phallic peak whilst grinding each other out of existence. Modern Industry was one of the first of a new breed of LA (suburban) punk; they were most certainly hardcore, and much to their unsuspecting dismay, a band that would be caught up early in that self-destructive wave. Formed in the long-gone, key swapping paradise-lost of West Covina in the eternal spring of 1980, this ruddy-faced teenage brood—celebrated in the vernacular amongst their plebeian base as the Mighty MI—set about to first rival and then eclipse such iconic contemporaries as the Germs, Middle Class, Black Flag, and the Weirdos. The juvenile, lounge chair-moping quartet lasted the better part of three years, recording several demos in-between a hailstorm of fisticuff-infused, trailer park soirées that never amounted to anything more than a solid black eye. Chris Bowd (guitar) left the band in '82, only to reunite a year later. Marc Burgess, Valinda’s favorite son, temporarily replaced him. The band released one EP in early '83, “Man In Black,” and one track on the inaugural “Noise From Nowhere” compilation, both on Toxic Shock Records. After disbanding in the transient spring of 1984, several members went on to either form or appear with other acts such as The Flower Leperds, Abandoned (85), The Cosmic Waste Band, Sludge, Sicky Velvet, and Pomona’s Totempole, just to name a few.