America 250 Rocktober Song #8: "Livin' in the '80s" by Zero Boys

First off, I want to wish you all a happy Canadian Thanksgiving.  Second, there will be no Canadian music for you to hear, since we're celebrating American music this Rocktober.  Our next song comes from the Crossroads of America.  Formed in Indianapolis in 1980, Zero Boys were one of the few hardcore punk bands that wasn't from one of the coasts.  I had the pleasure of seeing them at Riot Fest last year, and I'd be lying if I told you I had heard any of their music before making my Riot Fest playlists.  But I liked what I heard!

They put out their self-released debut single, "Livin' in the '80s" in late 1980, and it was also later included on the band's first full-length album, 1981's Vicious Circle.  It starts off with a nice fuzzy guitar riff, and the song is about not being dead in the penultimate decade of the last millennium.  It has a nice sing-along call-and-response chorus, and it also packs in a nice little guitar solo into the two minutes and ten seconds of song.

The band continued to make music throughout the '80s, though most of their output was on compilations.  They broke up in the late '80s, but then reunited shortly thereafter and released studio albums in 1991 and 1993, before breaking up again for another decade.  They reunited in the mid aughts and put out another record in 2014.  Apparently, lead singer Paul Mahern now lives in Bloomington, so that's cool.