The Straight Edge ideas pioneered in Washington DC by bands such as The Teen Idles, Minor Threat and SOA had by 1981 migrated to other cities. In Boston Alan Barile was particularly influenced by the power of Bad Brains and a discussion with Henry Garfield [who later changed name to Henry Rollins when he left SOA and joined LA based Black Flag] concerning how tight and united the Washington DC scene was. Alan Barile stopped drinking, took up the "X", the all ages crusade and formed Society System Decontrol [or simply SS Decontrol as they came to be known].The lineup was: Vocals: Springa Guitar: Alan Barile Bass: Jamie Sciarappa Drums:Chris Foley
SS Decontrol played their first show in the summer of 1981 and released a demo called How Much Art [which was an attack on the current state of Boston music]. The whole Boston Straight Edge thing simply took off behind them. In 1982 SS Decontrol release their debut album, The Kids Will Have Their Say, on their very own XClaim! label.
SS Decontrol were, along with Negative FX and DYS [and later on also Last Rights], at the core of the so-called Boston Crew. They were a group of about 20-30 people who used to follow SS Decontrol everywhere they went [and would crew for each other if not all bands were not playing]. There are numerous stories about what they did. One is how they used to roll into New York shows in SS Decontrol's black windowless van with X's painted on their heads. And if they saw a kid in the pit without an X on his head, they'd punch him as he was from New York. Yes, there was a lot of tension between the Boston and the New York scene. Boston had, along with the DC scene, a Straight Edge mentality and a suburban upbringing. The New York scene was based around the lower East side and seemed very street and violent compared to Boston. It also had beggars, Krishnas and other oddities. In 1983 Francoise Levesque joined the band as a second guitar player. Vocals: Springa Guitar: Alan BarileGuitar: Francoise Levesque Bass: Jamie Sciarappa Drums:Chris Foley
In May of 1983 the band released Get It Away [also on the XClaim! label]. With the band's next release, How We Rock [issued in September of 1984] a lot of things had changed. A new label [Modern Method], new name [they had officially changed it from SS Decontrol to simply SSD] and also a new sound. Instead of what you might have expected from a band such as SS Decontrol, they had ventured of into a more heavy rock/metal sound [just as so many other Hardcore and Punk bands have done over the years]. SS Decontrol played their final show in April of 1985 and in November of 1985 they released their final album, entitled Break It Up, also this on the Modern Method label. In 1992 Taang! Records issued a CD with SS Decontrol material from 1981 to 1985 in entitled Power.
