Steven Blush is an American author, journalist, record collector and film maker who is best known for his book American Hardcore and the movie of the same name. Blush has written 5 books, is the founder of Seconds (magazine) and has written articles for many magazines. Two of his books have been made into movies. Blush's work mainly specializes in hardcore punk music.
Blush grew up in a Jewish family in suburban New Jersey. He would travel into the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City with his father who owned a print shop there. In New York he would frequent music bars like CBGB and the Lismar Lounge and stores like Trash and Vaudeville. He witnessed the start of bands like the Ramones and Talking Heads and he found that he enjoyed small scale shows like that over larger shows like Led Zeppelin. He spent some time in England where he discovered UK punk bands like the Clash and Sham 69. He moved to Washington, D.C. to attend George Washington University, with a view to becoming a lawyer, but that changed when he saw his first Black Flag concert there, which lead to his getting involved with hardcore, working with bands like Black Flag, Minor Threat, the Circle Jerks and the Dead Kennedys. he briefly managed the noise band No Trend.