Previously did a blurb on them, giving them the full essay treatment
The human mind is an ugly thing. For every beautiful triumph it has produced, there are ten more atrocities to its credit. Inhumanity is all around us. Thomas Hobbes staked his reputation on the proposition that man's natural state was evil. Niccolo Machiavelli created an entire school of thought on how to manipulate man's evils to work for you. In truth, the driving force of humanity comes from our innate desire to destroy others. A great deal of our technological advances came from research done during wartime. We landed on the moon in a campaign to beat the Russians, not because man had long dreamed to walk on the moon. We were summoning the spirit of Napoleon, not Jules Verne. We are horrible creatures. Selfish, ambitious, and avaricious. There is a reason why so much of our contemporary existence is mired in things that serve to dull our minds. Drugs, prescribed medication, television, ESPN, all of it. Marx would tell you all of this adds up to part of the superstructure and it is a negative feature of society. If Hobbes saw today's superstructure, he would be relieved that there is something keeping all of this potential evil busy. The worst thing in this world is an idle mind. It doesn't wander so much as it does sink.
Boston's Mind Eraser focuses on man's shortcomings. Their themes coupled with their aesthetic could be argued as "evil" but in a much different vein than a great deal of their contemporaries. Unlike black metal acts who write about occult themes or d-beat bands who write about abstract wars, Mind Eraser asserts that the greatest evil of all is the organ inside your skull. What makes it all the more distressing is that this evil is real for everybody. Not all of us will ever be close to a war nor do all of us believe in ghastly spectres, but all of us have done something wrong to someone in our lives. We will likely do something wrong to someone again. That's the nature of the beast; the beast being us. The human brain fails us more in our lifetime than any other organ. If you believe everything you've read to this point, you'd agree that it is because our brains were built to fail.
On the band's debut album Cave, songs like "Internal Dialogue" and "Don't Find Me" highlight the horrors of the human psyche. The album offers commentary against people and the narrator himself (vocalist DFJ). The second album Glacial Reign, features more of the same themes from the first album. The artwork is a homage to Rudimentary Peni's Death Church which is most appropriate considering Nick Blinko, the band's vocalist, famously served time in a mental institution. The band furthered their work into a two song LP entitled Conscious Unconscious which explored the topic of psyche. The band also released an EP titled The Prodigal Son Brings Death touching on other topics with songs like "Insertion" and "Withdrawal Symptoms".
Musically, the band's lineup of Chris Corry, Brendan Radigan, and Craig Arms produce a sound that does well to sonically capture what goes on in the brain. Everything from the fast parts (mania) to the grating breakdowns (depression). The members' talents allows for a lot of interesting mid-tempo parts. This can be likened to something of an even keel state. Mind Eraser musically goes beyond simple powerviolence. It can be compared to a sonic representation of bipolar.
Mind Eraser's discography are documents to teach a psychology class. They don't mince words about what people are. There are no illusions about silver linings. A man can love a woman, but he can also kill his brother. A nation can join hands and sing merry tunes, but it will likely happen on the bodies of millions. There is no love. There is no happiness. Everything is transitory. Your mind is a weapon that will never be happy. It will consume and take until there's nothing left to take from. We are all backstabbers, junkies, liars, users, and abusers. All Mind Eraser's music does is eliminate any denial or illusion we may have had about that fact.
http://www.mediafire.com/download/de9do6v8208wpko/Mind+Eraser.rar
Wednesday, November 11, 2015
Friday, November 6, 2015
Ten Best Hardcore Punk Guitarists Of All Time
Honorable Mentions:
- Kawakami (Disclose)
- Parris Mayhew (Cro-Mags)
- Matt Henderson (Madball)
- Gavin Van Vlack (Absolution, Burn)
- Greg Ginn (Black Flag)
- Porcell (Youth of Today, Judge, Project X)
- Tim Kerr (Big Boys)
- John Hagerty (Naked Raygun)
- Greg Sage (Wipers)
- Frankie Stubbs (Leatherface)
- Chris Rest (RKL)
- Frank "3Gun" Novinec (Ringworm, Integrity)
- Woody Weatherman (Corrosion of Conformity)
- Souichi (Forward, Gudon, Insane Youth AD)
- AJ Novello (Leeway)
- Rich McLoughlin (Breakdown, Raw Deal, Killing Time)
10. Zigyaku (Bastard, Judgement)
9. Randy Uchida (GISM, Randy Uchida Group)
8. Wade Allison (Iron Age)
7. Rob Echeverria (Straight Ahead, Rest In Pieces)
6. Vinnie Stigma (Agnostic Front)
- Kawakami (Disclose)
- Parris Mayhew (Cro-Mags)
- Matt Henderson (Madball)
- Gavin Van Vlack (Absolution, Burn)
- Greg Ginn (Black Flag)
- Porcell (Youth of Today, Judge, Project X)
- Tim Kerr (Big Boys)
- John Hagerty (Naked Raygun)
- Greg Sage (Wipers)
- Frankie Stubbs (Leatherface)
- Chris Rest (RKL)
- Frank "3Gun" Novinec (Ringworm, Integrity)
- Woody Weatherman (Corrosion of Conformity)
- Souichi (Forward, Gudon, Insane Youth AD)
- Todd Burdette (Tragedy, Severed Head of State, His Hero Is Gone, Warcry)
- Mike Dijan (Breakdown, Crown of Thornz, Show of Force)- AJ Novello (Leeway)
- Rich McLoughlin (Breakdown, Raw Deal, Killing Time)
10. Zigyaku (Bastard, Judgement)
9. Randy Uchida (GISM, Randy Uchida Group)
8. Wade Allison (Iron Age)
7. Rob Echeverria (Straight Ahead, Rest In Pieces)
6. Vinnie Stigma (Agnostic Front)
5. Pig Champion (Poison Idea)
4. Anthony "Bones" Roberts (Discharge, Broken Bones)
3. Gary "Dr. Know" Miller (Bad Brains)
2. Aaron "A2" Melnick (Integrity, In Cold Blood, Inmates, One Life Crew, Cider)
1. Chelsea (Paintbox, Death Side, Poison Arts)
Sacrilege
One of the more polarizing topics in the last couple of years is female vocalists in punk. You either love em or you hate em. I personally love them. I think there's a certain abrasive / snotty quality that the female voice's higher pitch offers a complement to the often frenetic paced punk tunes they're singing over. If I had a criticism for female vocals, it is that effects are used a lot that the aforementioned vocal quality I just talked about is lost in the mix. The other side of that coin is that reverb drenched vocals are great so it is another point to the argument that female vocals are cool. In the last few years, there has been a surge of great female-fronted bands in hardcore punk. However if you want to which band is queen of the female-fronted genre, look no further than Birmingham, England's Sacrilege.
A common conversation with detractors of female fronted hardcore punk bands might go something like this:
"I don't like female vocals"
"What about Sacrilege?"
"Well that's different, you can't hate Sacrilege."
When you discuss the best female-fronted subculture bands (punk, hardcore, metal), Sacrilege is always the first band brought up. The rest of the discussion is to determine who is second best.
The band came out of the early 80s UK crust scene. This is the same scene that gave the world Deviated Instinct, Hellbastard, Axegrinder, Napalm Death, and Bolt Thrower. Sacrilege is fronted by the Lynda "Tam" Simpson. Earlier I said a lot of female vocalists utilize heavy reverb, Tam was one of the first to do it. When we think of the best uses of reverb in hardcore punk vocals, Sacrilege's name is almost always at the top, gender notwithstanding.
The band's output includes two demos and three albums. Their first album Behind The Realms of Madness is an essential album both in the crust and thrash scenes. Its pacing is so methodical. The riffs are something that thrash bands in the USA were a few years away from arriving at themselves. The d-beat driven drums never fail to keep pace and, at times, dictate it. Lastly, Tam's vocals are almost paradoxical. When you hear them, it's clear they're a female's, but never once do you make the mistake of presupposing that she is some kind of dainty flower. She have been conscious of this fact when recording: that she needed to sounded menacing but also convincing. Too often when a woman wants to sound "mean" on record, it usually comes off as very forced and laughable. Tam's vocals bear a sense of anxiety, urgency, and anger to them that speaks to a lot of feelings women grapple with daily. It's almost as if Nora from Ibsen's A Doll's House was given time in a recording booth to air out her grievances with daily life. The record itself is perfect. Most thrash records usually have one overbearing element like the guitars or vocals. Behind The Realms of Madness is a perfect blend of biting guitar work, sublime vocals, and strong drum work. It is essential listening. "Shadow From Mordor" is also one of the hardest songs ever written.
Included is Sacrilege's complete discography (yes, even those metal records most people don't like).
http://www.mediafire.com/download/11yf7x25e7xeivj/Sacrilege.rar
A common conversation with detractors of female fronted hardcore punk bands might go something like this:
"I don't like female vocals"
"What about Sacrilege?"
"Well that's different, you can't hate Sacrilege."
When you discuss the best female-fronted subculture bands (punk, hardcore, metal), Sacrilege is always the first band brought up. The rest of the discussion is to determine who is second best.
The band came out of the early 80s UK crust scene. This is the same scene that gave the world Deviated Instinct, Hellbastard, Axegrinder, Napalm Death, and Bolt Thrower. Sacrilege is fronted by the Lynda "Tam" Simpson. Earlier I said a lot of female vocalists utilize heavy reverb, Tam was one of the first to do it. When we think of the best uses of reverb in hardcore punk vocals, Sacrilege's name is almost always at the top, gender notwithstanding.
The band's output includes two demos and three albums. Their first album Behind The Realms of Madness is an essential album both in the crust and thrash scenes. Its pacing is so methodical. The riffs are something that thrash bands in the USA were a few years away from arriving at themselves. The d-beat driven drums never fail to keep pace and, at times, dictate it. Lastly, Tam's vocals are almost paradoxical. When you hear them, it's clear they're a female's, but never once do you make the mistake of presupposing that she is some kind of dainty flower. She have been conscious of this fact when recording: that she needed to sounded menacing but also convincing. Too often when a woman wants to sound "mean" on record, it usually comes off as very forced and laughable. Tam's vocals bear a sense of anxiety, urgency, and anger to them that speaks to a lot of feelings women grapple with daily. It's almost as if Nora from Ibsen's A Doll's House was given time in a recording booth to air out her grievances with daily life. The record itself is perfect. Most thrash records usually have one overbearing element like the guitars or vocals. Behind The Realms of Madness is a perfect blend of biting guitar work, sublime vocals, and strong drum work. It is essential listening. "Shadow From Mordor" is also one of the hardest songs ever written.
Included is Sacrilege's complete discography (yes, even those metal records most people don't like).
http://www.mediafire.com/download/11yf7x25e7xeivj/Sacrilege.rar
Mission Statement and New Features
It's November 6th 2015.
I don't remember when I said I was moving to Justified Arrogance from the basic confines of the blogspot to a full site. It might have been January. As they say, life happens. I moved to a different part of the country. I got a new job. I saw friendships end. I made new ones. Things kept progressing and all the while I still thought about the proposed evolution of Justified Arrogance.
I pursued other writing opportunities in that time. I had hoped that I could parlay Justified Arrogance into bigger opportunities that could help me improve my life station. It didn't work and I ended up compromising myself in the process. It wasn't a great feeling. Sometime recently I gave up on this goal of trying to make a name under someone else's. Much like everything else in the subculture, the best way to make a name for yourself is by yourself. I forgot that this year.
So I'm back again. I gave up on the idea of a full site for now mostly because I was using it as an excuse to not pick this back up. In addition to essays, Justified Arrogance will be broadening its scope of coverage. The general idea of this is to cover more than just the past and to talk about more current topics. These topics will include:
New Band Spotlights - There are great new bands coming out all the time. Consider the fact that this year's Best Demo list had to be upped to 10 because there were too many great debuting bands this year. Justified Arrogance will work to highlight the best new bands year round.
Album Reviews - Covering more than the classics and essentials. Justified Arrogance stays current with the best music of the day as much as it does those of yesterday. One of the most common criticisms within the subculture is that "nothing good ever comes out anymore". This statement couldn't be more false and our album reviews will showcase the best music coming out.
Show Reviews - Bands cut their teeth with recordings but always make their bones with their live performances. Highlighting worthwhile shows and tours carry many latent effects. Most importantly, it relays the elements of a band that can't be captured on record.
Interviews - The art of interviewing is to uncover knowledge about the subject. The questions are the instrument of discovery. The line between asking stock questions and gossiping is so thin that it is easy to miss it. A good interview is something that transcends time and place. It is more than something about a new album or how a recent tour fared. Justified Arrogance will work to bring these kinds of interviews to you.
Book Reviews - The genre of subculture literature continues to grow exponentially every year. With more and more titles being released, it is important to highlight and celebrate the best ones. Justified Arrogance is committed to the knowledge of the subculture's history and written culture as much as it is to its sonic excellence.
Artist Profiles - One of the best things about the subculture is its neverending supply of talented artists. Being in the subculture typically means you have a fractured view of the world, life, and society. It is always refreshing and captivating to see the artwork by so many great artists. While the art will end up on record covers, merch, zines, and other ephemera, the artist is largely unheralded. Justified Arrogance is a place that celebrates great artists and their work.
I want this to be a place where people can come to learn more about the subculture they belong in. I also want it to be a place where people can just learn more in general. If you can come away from Justified Arrogance having learned one thing you didn't already know before, then we will have done our work right. This blog / idea started out over a year ago because I was losing my mind and needed an outlet. In the beginning, I was really just talking to myself about my favorite bands. I didn't think anyone was reading.
Justified Arrogance is the idea where you know you are great at what you do. Being in the subculture is a privilege. It is a badge you have to earn. In recent years, the subculture has become increasingly accessible for people who don't care about its history, culture, and ideas. It has become a place where kids are often stagnant upon entry with little desire for growth. They are happy to collect their attendance awards, believing that alone is enough. If you are not here seeking personal growth through a community whose very existence is predicated on the acrimony borne from its opposing views on society, culture and lifestyle, then why are you here? It isn't enough to be different anymore in 2015. Too often our society tells us that we are already different and we are already special. Being different is the new normal. Going forward, you have to be better. That's what Justified Arrogance is about.
- James Khubiar
I don't remember when I said I was moving to Justified Arrogance from the basic confines of the blogspot to a full site. It might have been January. As they say, life happens. I moved to a different part of the country. I got a new job. I saw friendships end. I made new ones. Things kept progressing and all the while I still thought about the proposed evolution of Justified Arrogance.
I pursued other writing opportunities in that time. I had hoped that I could parlay Justified Arrogance into bigger opportunities that could help me improve my life station. It didn't work and I ended up compromising myself in the process. It wasn't a great feeling. Sometime recently I gave up on this goal of trying to make a name under someone else's. Much like everything else in the subculture, the best way to make a name for yourself is by yourself. I forgot that this year.
So I'm back again. I gave up on the idea of a full site for now mostly because I was using it as an excuse to not pick this back up. In addition to essays, Justified Arrogance will be broadening its scope of coverage. The general idea of this is to cover more than just the past and to talk about more current topics. These topics will include:
New Band Spotlights - There are great new bands coming out all the time. Consider the fact that this year's Best Demo list had to be upped to 10 because there were too many great debuting bands this year. Justified Arrogance will work to highlight the best new bands year round.
Album Reviews - Covering more than the classics and essentials. Justified Arrogance stays current with the best music of the day as much as it does those of yesterday. One of the most common criticisms within the subculture is that "nothing good ever comes out anymore". This statement couldn't be more false and our album reviews will showcase the best music coming out.
Show Reviews - Bands cut their teeth with recordings but always make their bones with their live performances. Highlighting worthwhile shows and tours carry many latent effects. Most importantly, it relays the elements of a band that can't be captured on record.
Interviews - The art of interviewing is to uncover knowledge about the subject. The questions are the instrument of discovery. The line between asking stock questions and gossiping is so thin that it is easy to miss it. A good interview is something that transcends time and place. It is more than something about a new album or how a recent tour fared. Justified Arrogance will work to bring these kinds of interviews to you.
Book Reviews - The genre of subculture literature continues to grow exponentially every year. With more and more titles being released, it is important to highlight and celebrate the best ones. Justified Arrogance is committed to the knowledge of the subculture's history and written culture as much as it is to its sonic excellence.
Artist Profiles - One of the best things about the subculture is its neverending supply of talented artists. Being in the subculture typically means you have a fractured view of the world, life, and society. It is always refreshing and captivating to see the artwork by so many great artists. While the art will end up on record covers, merch, zines, and other ephemera, the artist is largely unheralded. Justified Arrogance is a place that celebrates great artists and their work.
I want this to be a place where people can come to learn more about the subculture they belong in. I also want it to be a place where people can just learn more in general. If you can come away from Justified Arrogance having learned one thing you didn't already know before, then we will have done our work right. This blog / idea started out over a year ago because I was losing my mind and needed an outlet. In the beginning, I was really just talking to myself about my favorite bands. I didn't think anyone was reading.
Justified Arrogance is the idea where you know you are great at what you do. Being in the subculture is a privilege. It is a badge you have to earn. In recent years, the subculture has become increasingly accessible for people who don't care about its history, culture, and ideas. It has become a place where kids are often stagnant upon entry with little desire for growth. They are happy to collect their attendance awards, believing that alone is enough. If you are not here seeking personal growth through a community whose very existence is predicated on the acrimony borne from its opposing views on society, culture and lifestyle, then why are you here? It isn't enough to be different anymore in 2015. Too often our society tells us that we are already different and we are already special. Being different is the new normal. Going forward, you have to be better. That's what Justified Arrogance is about.
- James Khubiar
Wednesday, November 4, 2015
Best of 2015
James Khubiar
Justified Arrogance Boss
Top Hardcore and Punk LPs:
1. Total Abuse - Excluded
2. No Tolerance - You Walk Alone
3. L.O.T.I.O.N. - Digital Control And Man's Obsolescence
4. Anasazi - Nasty Witch Rock
5. Vaaska - Todos Contra Todos
6. Dawn Of Humans - Slurping At The Cosmos Spine
7. La Misma - Kanizadi
8. Sudor - Enamorado De La Muerte Juvenil
9. Violent Reaction - Marching On
10. Absolut - Hells Highest Power
(At the time of this writing I have not heard the Butcher, Video, Magic Circle albums but they are worth noting as they likely would have made this list)
Top Non-Hardcore Punk LPs:
1. Kacey Musgraves - Pageant Material
2. Royal Headache - High
3. Destruction Unit - Negative Feedback Resistor
4. Pleasure Leftists - The Woods of Heaven
5. Young Guv - Ripe 4 Luv
6. Best Coast - California Nights
7. Title Fight - Hyperview
8. Wildhoney - Sleep Through It
9. John Carpenter - Lost Themes
10. Swervedriver - I Wasn't Born To Lose You
Top EPs / Singles:
1. Rixe - Coups Et Blessures
2. Blazing Eye - Ways To Die
3. Sadist - The Shadow of the Swastika
4. Ajax - Ajax
5. Barcelona - Extremo Nihilismo En Barcelona
6. Ivy - A Cat's Cause, No Dog's Problem
7. Anxiety Hammer - What Stands Between Us
8. Pure Disgust - Chained
9. Exit Order - Exit Order
10. Aggression Pact - Aggression Pact
(At the time of this writing, I have not heard the newest Aspects of War and Strutter and is worth noting as it would have likely made this list)
Top Demos (Usually this list is limited to 3-5 but 2015 was an incredible year for debuting bands):
1. Strutter
2. Concealed Blade
3. Latisha's Skull Drawing (LSD)
4. Mommy
5. Girls Living Outside Society's Shit (GLOSS)
6. Firewalker
7. Lock
8. Body Pressure
9. Blockhead
10. Smear
(I haven't heard the Indignation demo at the time of this writing, rest assured it would be on this list)
Top Rap Releases (in no order since 4 are from Future and 3 are from Young Thug):
- Young Thug - Slime Season
- Young Thug - Slime Season 2
- Young Thug - Barter 6
- Lil Durk - Remember My Name
- Lil Ugly Mane - Third Side of Tape
- Peewee Longway - Blue M&M Vol. II: King Size
- Future - Dirty Sprite 2
- Future - Beast Mode
- Future - 56 Nights
- Future x Drake - What A Time To Be Alive
Justified Arrogance Boss
Top Hardcore and Punk LPs:
1. Total Abuse - Excluded
2. No Tolerance - You Walk Alone
3. L.O.T.I.O.N. - Digital Control And Man's Obsolescence
4. Anasazi - Nasty Witch Rock
5. Vaaska - Todos Contra Todos
6. Dawn Of Humans - Slurping At The Cosmos Spine
7. La Misma - Kanizadi
8. Sudor - Enamorado De La Muerte Juvenil
9. Violent Reaction - Marching On
10. Absolut - Hells Highest Power
(At the time of this writing I have not heard the Butcher, Video, Magic Circle albums but they are worth noting as they likely would have made this list)
Top Non-Hardcore Punk LPs:
1. Kacey Musgraves - Pageant Material
2. Royal Headache - High
3. Destruction Unit - Negative Feedback Resistor
4. Pleasure Leftists - The Woods of Heaven
5. Young Guv - Ripe 4 Luv
6. Best Coast - California Nights
7. Title Fight - Hyperview
8. Wildhoney - Sleep Through It
9. John Carpenter - Lost Themes
10. Swervedriver - I Wasn't Born To Lose You
Top EPs / Singles:
1. Rixe - Coups Et Blessures
2. Blazing Eye - Ways To Die
3. Sadist - The Shadow of the Swastika
4. Ajax - Ajax
5. Barcelona - Extremo Nihilismo En Barcelona
6. Ivy - A Cat's Cause, No Dog's Problem
7. Anxiety Hammer - What Stands Between Us
8. Pure Disgust - Chained
9. Exit Order - Exit Order
10. Aggression Pact - Aggression Pact
(At the time of this writing, I have not heard the newest Aspects of War and Strutter and is worth noting as it would have likely made this list)
Top Demos (Usually this list is limited to 3-5 but 2015 was an incredible year for debuting bands):
1. Strutter
2. Concealed Blade
3. Latisha's Skull Drawing (LSD)
4. Mommy
5. Girls Living Outside Society's Shit (GLOSS)
6. Firewalker
7. Lock
8. Body Pressure
9. Blockhead
10. Smear
(I haven't heard the Indignation demo at the time of this writing, rest assured it would be on this list)
Top Rap Releases (in no order since 4 are from Future and 3 are from Young Thug):
- Young Thug - Slime Season
- Young Thug - Slime Season 2
- Young Thug - Barter 6
- Lil Durk - Remember My Name
- Lil Ugly Mane - Third Side of Tape
- Peewee Longway - Blue M&M Vol. II: King Size
- Future - Dirty Sprite 2
- Future - Beast Mode
- Future - 56 Nights
- Future x Drake - What A Time To Be Alive
Tuesday, November 3, 2015
Power Trip - Intro / Manifest Decimation
At the This Is Hardcore Festival this past summer, Power Trip performed at the Kung Fu Necktie for an after show. The intro they opened with is a segment of a new song from their upcoming album. They followed it by breaking into the opening song off their transcendent opus Manifest Decimation. In the bridge, there is a shout out for us here at Justified Arrogance. Worth posting by sheer virtue of the fact that it is this outfit's first shout out on stage. Thanks, Power Trip. You were one of the first Justified Arrogance essays and we can't wait for the new album.
Total Abuse
Austin, Texas for about ten years has been one of the strongest fortresses for hardcore punk in the United States. It is a city that prides itself on being "weird". The fact that the city has become increasingly consumer driven in the past decade should be distressing to the city's subculture scene. In theory, if the locale is becoming safer and more normalized, the scene should suffer, right? Instead, the opposite is occurring: kids are becoming more aggressive, inspired to new heights, and the quality of the scene continues to be raised. The same has been happening in places like Portland and Brooklyn. Turns out the more normos your city gets, the better your punk scene becomes. Austin's has been blessed with a lot over the years. Things like Chaos In Tejas, a parade of incredible bands, venues, and personalities have helped to make Austin one of the premier scenes in the world.
One of the Austin scene's most remarkable products are Total Abuse. The band was formed in 2006 and featured members of older local band The Snobs. The thing that makes The Snobs such a noteworthy band in the annals of history were the members' ages. Everybody in the band's ages ranged from 12-14. They were literally kids when they were taking the stage at places like Posi Numbers Festival. Total Abuse was a completely different monster from The Snobs however. The band, named after a Peter Sotos book compilation, features a line up of Rusty Kelley (vocals), Ryan Foster (guitar), Duncan Knappen (guitar), Dustin Pilkington (bass), and Matt Lyons (drums).
There are a variety of factors that one can point to and say "Total Abuse is special". First, the band's personnel boasts experience and nuanced sensibility that few within the hardcore punk scene possess. Kelley's major interest is power electronics / harsh noise, a genre where the absolute worst of life is harnessed into sound. While Kelley is far from the first person to traverse into both subcultures, he is the first to grasp an understanding from harsh noise and translate it into hardcore punk. On record, Kelley's vocals are dripping with the nihilistic vantage point of life that friends, sex, drugs, and violence fail to remedy. Most hardcore punk vocals can be gauged on a scale of primary emotions like love and hate. Kelley's are gauged somewhere between 'kill you or kill myself, either way I don't care'. What's more, the band is able to recreate these attitudes on a sonic level. Anywhere from the blown out bass kicking in like a sledgehammer for segues to the guitars that alternate from grating to despondent. Total Abuse on an emotional level understand the music they're producing. This sounds corny, but consider it this way: if you're trying to articulate a message, an idea, or a feeling and you're trying to sound like Negative Approach to do it, you're not really expressing yourself, you're using their mouth to say your words. Not many bands playing understand this idea and the few that do are the ones who transcend the milieu of bands in the subculture. Negative Approach got it, so did Cold Sweat, and Total Abuse does now. What's insane is that all three of those bands are criminally underrated (yes, even Negative Approach when you consider how high people hold them among first wave USHC bands).
Part of why Total Abuse are so underrated is because a lot of kids in hardcore punk really can't handle what they're doing. I know I've criticized today's kids in the past so this point shouldn't come as much of a surprise. Total Abuse cultivate a sound that makes people uncomfortable (when you're named after Sotos, if you're not making people uncomfortable, you're doing something wrong). A lot of kids aren't really ready for the mental / emotional depths that Total Abuse drags listeners to. Most of the time the people who really appreciate it, have been there themselves or are fascinated by it. Hardcore punk kids will sit there and say that the scene is a place that is naturally uncomfortable, but the fact is that much of what is produced is often in the same vein or archetype. There's no danger in a record influenced by Breakdown. It's the same thing you've heard going all the way back to Breakdown. Hearing an album like Prison Sweat is something that serves to condition you to what they want you to hear. A lot of people can't handle that kind of idea. Records are meant to be played, not grappled with. Music is supposed to be fun, not a spiritual gauntlet. Total Abuse attacks basic convention on how we should approach music. They're not for everyone. It isn't because they're too esoteric, it's because most people are too weak.
I took Total Abuse for granted when I was younger for a lot of the reasons I just described. It does take a certain kind of person to really get them. They're one of the best bands of our generation and you don't even know it. Check them out. Listen to their records now. Listen again after you've gone through a personal tragedy or hardship. Listen to them again when you're at a low point. Total Abuse isn't about overcoming challenges and they're not about understanding yourself better. If you think you're a bad person, you're right. If you think life sucks, it does. If you wonder if things will ever get better, they're not. That's Total Abuse.
Included are their Mutt, Prison Sweat albums as well as their Sex Pig, Self-Titled, and Looking For Love EPs.
http://www.mediafire.com/download/2akorgmedr9ma8r/Total_Abuse.rar
4-1610
One of the Austin scene's most remarkable products are Total Abuse. The band was formed in 2006 and featured members of older local band The Snobs. The thing that makes The Snobs such a noteworthy band in the annals of history were the members' ages. Everybody in the band's ages ranged from 12-14. They were literally kids when they were taking the stage at places like Posi Numbers Festival. Total Abuse was a completely different monster from The Snobs however. The band, named after a Peter Sotos book compilation, features a line up of Rusty Kelley (vocals), Ryan Foster (guitar), Duncan Knappen (guitar), Dustin Pilkington (bass), and Matt Lyons (drums).
There are a variety of factors that one can point to and say "Total Abuse is special". First, the band's personnel boasts experience and nuanced sensibility that few within the hardcore punk scene possess. Kelley's major interest is power electronics / harsh noise, a genre where the absolute worst of life is harnessed into sound. While Kelley is far from the first person to traverse into both subcultures, he is the first to grasp an understanding from harsh noise and translate it into hardcore punk. On record, Kelley's vocals are dripping with the nihilistic vantage point of life that friends, sex, drugs, and violence fail to remedy. Most hardcore punk vocals can be gauged on a scale of primary emotions like love and hate. Kelley's are gauged somewhere between 'kill you or kill myself, either way I don't care'. What's more, the band is able to recreate these attitudes on a sonic level. Anywhere from the blown out bass kicking in like a sledgehammer for segues to the guitars that alternate from grating to despondent. Total Abuse on an emotional level understand the music they're producing. This sounds corny, but consider it this way: if you're trying to articulate a message, an idea, or a feeling and you're trying to sound like Negative Approach to do it, you're not really expressing yourself, you're using their mouth to say your words. Not many bands playing understand this idea and the few that do are the ones who transcend the milieu of bands in the subculture. Negative Approach got it, so did Cold Sweat, and Total Abuse does now. What's insane is that all three of those bands are criminally underrated (yes, even Negative Approach when you consider how high people hold them among first wave USHC bands).
Part of why Total Abuse are so underrated is because a lot of kids in hardcore punk really can't handle what they're doing. I know I've criticized today's kids in the past so this point shouldn't come as much of a surprise. Total Abuse cultivate a sound that makes people uncomfortable (when you're named after Sotos, if you're not making people uncomfortable, you're doing something wrong). A lot of kids aren't really ready for the mental / emotional depths that Total Abuse drags listeners to. Most of the time the people who really appreciate it, have been there themselves or are fascinated by it. Hardcore punk kids will sit there and say that the scene is a place that is naturally uncomfortable, but the fact is that much of what is produced is often in the same vein or archetype. There's no danger in a record influenced by Breakdown. It's the same thing you've heard going all the way back to Breakdown. Hearing an album like Prison Sweat is something that serves to condition you to what they want you to hear. A lot of people can't handle that kind of idea. Records are meant to be played, not grappled with. Music is supposed to be fun, not a spiritual gauntlet. Total Abuse attacks basic convention on how we should approach music. They're not for everyone. It isn't because they're too esoteric, it's because most people are too weak.
I took Total Abuse for granted when I was younger for a lot of the reasons I just described. It does take a certain kind of person to really get them. They're one of the best bands of our generation and you don't even know it. Check them out. Listen to their records now. Listen again after you've gone through a personal tragedy or hardship. Listen to them again when you're at a low point. Total Abuse isn't about overcoming challenges and they're not about understanding yourself better. If you think you're a bad person, you're right. If you think life sucks, it does. If you wonder if things will ever get better, they're not. That's Total Abuse.
Included are their Mutt, Prison Sweat albums as well as their Sex Pig, Self-Titled, and Looking For Love EPs.
http://www.mediafire.com/download/2akorgmedr9ma8r/Total_Abuse.rar
4-1610
Monday, November 2, 2015
Discharge
The two most important bands in hardcore punk history are the Bad Brains and Discharge. If you disagree with this fact, you're wrong.
The Bad Brains took the American punk movement and made it into hardcore. More often than not, you can't actually quantify the difference between hardcore and punk into sonic terms. Especially when it comes to the first wave of USHC. The Bad Brains presented the formula of harder, faster, and meaner. There was something to be seen from what they were doing in DC. In the course of their time, they inspired the scene around them to step up. Because of that, we got the early DC scene that included Youth Brigade, Void, and Minor Threat. Eventually the Bad Brains were "banned in DC" by 1979 where they picked up and left for New York City. Now boasting the Bad Brains, New York City's hardcore punk scene exploded almost overnight. The band showed kids how it was done and the entire scene rose to the challenge of keeping up with the Bad Brains. Almost overnight bands like the Cro-Mags, Beastie Boys took cues from the Bad Brains while kids wanted to play harder, faster, and meaner. While Bad Brains was causing the scene to undergo a renaissance, back in DC the hardcore punk scene was already entering its twilight years. By the mid 1980s, much of the DC scene's first wave of hardcore would be broken up. The best way to explain the Bad Brains's importance to USHC history is to look at them like a foundation. Where they went, they laid down the groundwork that others built themselves on top of. In DC they were the city's foundation (HR famously claims that it was him to tell Ian MacKaye to put himself out there more with Minor Threat). Once they left, the scene stayed up for but a few years before collapsing into post hardcore (something that would eventually happen to NYHC in the late 80s). They arrived in New York where they laid down the basis for the greatest hardcore scene of all time. Without the Bad Brains, NYHC never really happens.
The point of explaining the Bad Brains' importance is to better understand Discharge's importance. While the Bad Brains were the 'foundation', Discharge were the disease. Their influence is not something that people have built on top of. Rather it is something punks have spent thirty years trying to reinterpret, distort (sometimes literally), and co-opt Discharge's iconography, aesthetic, and sound.
Whereas Bad Brains' influence is limited mostly to the DC and NYC areas, Discharge's infection spread across the world like a plague with varied results. It's interesting when you look at the global punk landscape and see what Discharge wrought from it. Without them, we don't have Swedish or Japanese punk as we know it. The US crust punk scene would also be markedly different. There are punk legends that have made entire careers in pursuit of Discharge's mantle such Disclose and Anti-Cimex. The band took the most basic concepts about war, death, and society and hammered home a sense of futility and nihilism to all of it. While the anarcho bands were preaching about a call to action, Discharge was making it very clear that all the rallies and votes in the world won't change the fact that you will never get a say in society's workings and if the war has to come to kill you, so be it. Anger borne from society and politics shouldn't illicit apathy, but it does. That's part of Discharge's magic. A sort of kamikaze spirit that has come to terms with the fact that we will all die and that our control of this death is minimal. It speaks more to the solider fashion (and typically reckless lifestyle) that many punks take on.
The band's golden era runs from 1977 - 1983. The lineup included Anthony "Bones" Roberts on guitar (who would leave in 1982 to start Broken Bones), Royston "Rainy" Wainwright on bass, Terrence "Tezz" Roberts on drums (the man who is often credited for innovating d-beat in punk), and Kelvin "Cal" Morris on vocals. These were the four major members (the band has famously had a revolving door of personnel for the last three decades). In that period they produced two albums, five EPs, and three singles. The full length albums Why? and Hear Nothing See Nothing Say Nothing are classics, only worth comparing to each other. Those six years of Discharge are without measure or peer. Some punks will spend their entire lives trying to understand and recapture what the band was able to produce in that time. There's a reason why the Never Again dove, the Decontrol face, and the rest of Discharge's iconography ends up everywhere to this day. They are a disease. One that continues to inspire kids and scenes around the world. No one will ever be Discharge again, but in the course of trying, amazing bands will happen.
Included are both full lengths and all of their EPs / singles under The Clay Punk Singles Collection compilation. Download these. Learn them. Hear them. There is only one Discharge.
http://www.mediafire.com/download/zbev3j18kc1q652/Discharge.rar
The Bad Brains took the American punk movement and made it into hardcore. More often than not, you can't actually quantify the difference between hardcore and punk into sonic terms. Especially when it comes to the first wave of USHC. The Bad Brains presented the formula of harder, faster, and meaner. There was something to be seen from what they were doing in DC. In the course of their time, they inspired the scene around them to step up. Because of that, we got the early DC scene that included Youth Brigade, Void, and Minor Threat. Eventually the Bad Brains were "banned in DC" by 1979 where they picked up and left for New York City. Now boasting the Bad Brains, New York City's hardcore punk scene exploded almost overnight. The band showed kids how it was done and the entire scene rose to the challenge of keeping up with the Bad Brains. Almost overnight bands like the Cro-Mags, Beastie Boys took cues from the Bad Brains while kids wanted to play harder, faster, and meaner. While Bad Brains was causing the scene to undergo a renaissance, back in DC the hardcore punk scene was already entering its twilight years. By the mid 1980s, much of the DC scene's first wave of hardcore would be broken up. The best way to explain the Bad Brains's importance to USHC history is to look at them like a foundation. Where they went, they laid down the groundwork that others built themselves on top of. In DC they were the city's foundation (HR famously claims that it was him to tell Ian MacKaye to put himself out there more with Minor Threat). Once they left, the scene stayed up for but a few years before collapsing into post hardcore (something that would eventually happen to NYHC in the late 80s). They arrived in New York where they laid down the basis for the greatest hardcore scene of all time. Without the Bad Brains, NYHC never really happens.
The point of explaining the Bad Brains' importance is to better understand Discharge's importance. While the Bad Brains were the 'foundation', Discharge were the disease. Their influence is not something that people have built on top of. Rather it is something punks have spent thirty years trying to reinterpret, distort (sometimes literally), and co-opt Discharge's iconography, aesthetic, and sound.
Whereas Bad Brains' influence is limited mostly to the DC and NYC areas, Discharge's infection spread across the world like a plague with varied results. It's interesting when you look at the global punk landscape and see what Discharge wrought from it. Without them, we don't have Swedish or Japanese punk as we know it. The US crust punk scene would also be markedly different. There are punk legends that have made entire careers in pursuit of Discharge's mantle such Disclose and Anti-Cimex. The band took the most basic concepts about war, death, and society and hammered home a sense of futility and nihilism to all of it. While the anarcho bands were preaching about a call to action, Discharge was making it very clear that all the rallies and votes in the world won't change the fact that you will never get a say in society's workings and if the war has to come to kill you, so be it. Anger borne from society and politics shouldn't illicit apathy, but it does. That's part of Discharge's magic. A sort of kamikaze spirit that has come to terms with the fact that we will all die and that our control of this death is minimal. It speaks more to the solider fashion (and typically reckless lifestyle) that many punks take on.
The band's golden era runs from 1977 - 1983. The lineup included Anthony "Bones" Roberts on guitar (who would leave in 1982 to start Broken Bones), Royston "Rainy" Wainwright on bass, Terrence "Tezz" Roberts on drums (the man who is often credited for innovating d-beat in punk), and Kelvin "Cal" Morris on vocals. These were the four major members (the band has famously had a revolving door of personnel for the last three decades). In that period they produced two albums, five EPs, and three singles. The full length albums Why? and Hear Nothing See Nothing Say Nothing are classics, only worth comparing to each other. Those six years of Discharge are without measure or peer. Some punks will spend their entire lives trying to understand and recapture what the band was able to produce in that time. There's a reason why the Never Again dove, the Decontrol face, and the rest of Discharge's iconography ends up everywhere to this day. They are a disease. One that continues to inspire kids and scenes around the world. No one will ever be Discharge again, but in the course of trying, amazing bands will happen.
Included are both full lengths and all of their EPs / singles under The Clay Punk Singles Collection compilation. Download these. Learn them. Hear them. There is only one Discharge.
http://www.mediafire.com/download/zbev3j18kc1q652/Discharge.rar
Friday, October 30, 2015
The end of NYHC's Golden Era
Can revolutions be interrupted?
New York hardcore was supposed to be a revolution. People today will still you it was a revolution. They want to believe that it was about unity, brotherhood, and passion. They're not all the way wrong in the belief that NYHC changed things forever, but they're also not telling you the whole story. The timeline to the first generation of NYHC is wild. It is loaded with great bands, wild anecdotes, and legendary personalities. The first period is pre-82 New York punk. This is the city's formative years where nothing was anything yet. The second period is 82-86 where the Bad Brains arrived like the big bang and the entire scene exploded with the likes of Agnostic Front, Warzone, Murphy's Law, and more. It is in the second period that NYHC was truly born. The third period is 86-87 which is NYHC's golden era. For two years, the scene was at its zenith with the likes of the Cro-Mags, Youth of Today, and Breakdown holding it down. The fourth period is 88-91 which saw to the end of the first generation of NYHC. Beginning in this era, a lot of the kids within the scene had moved on elsewhere to crossover metal, post-hardcore, and other ventures. The kids that did stay were left to confront the harsh changes that were about to hit the NYHC scene head on.
By 1988, the city was undergoing a great deal of upheaval, particularly in the famed Lower East Side and other parts of lower Manhattan where most of the NYHC community claimed as their stomping grounds. Gentrification, drugs, and growing sectarianism caused fractures within the scene's once united front.
Today's Lower East Side and its neighboring areas resembles an adult Disneyland. Upscale bars, classy dining, and enough good looking people in one area that you'd think the place was a eugenics project. The LES that Raybeez famously sang about was a markedly different place. It was a drug-soaked warzone where basic laws no longer existed and the social contract was effectively replaced by the laws of the animal kingdom. The laws that the 80s NYHC kid lived by were simple: strength in numbers, do unto others before they do unto you, and most of all, survival of the fittest. Where you would measure someone living off Houston St in 2015 by their money, you would measure someone in 1985 by their survival instinct.
By the end of the 80s, beginning with the Tompkins Square Park riots which illuminated to the powers that be that there was a third world country rotting in lower Manhattan, the city began to root out a lot of undesirable parties in favor of more attractive ones. Where this concerned the legendary CBGBs, which resided at 315 Bowery (now an upscale fashion boutique), became an uphill battle to stay put. There were still hardcore shows happening there, especially the famous Sunday Matinee shows, but by the end of the 80s the shows would continue to become more and more violent. Stabbings were a regular occurrence, as were people getting jumped and beaten with most anything kids could get their hands on. CBGBs finally banned hardcore shows as the violence was drawing unwanted attention from the city.
Here's something you should know: it doesn't matter how famous a venue is, no city office will ever want a hardcore punk venue in their town and they will find any excuse to shut it down. With this in consideration, CBGBs banning hardcore shows was inevitable. A lot of people will point the finger at Dmize for the ban saying their shows specifically were the most violent. Because of this NYHC had to find a new home. The scene would set up shop in places like Coney Island High, ABC No Rio (who was also engaged in its own legal war with the city / changing neighborhood) and Wetlands. They served their purpose and the scene survived on. Meanwhile CBGBs stayed put in the Bowery at the heart of a losing war with gentrification. By the time NYHC was welcomed back to the venue by the mid 90s, the disease was thick in the neighborhood and it was clear that CBGBs would not survive. It was only a matter of time.
Growing sectarianism within the NYHC scene at the end of the 80s was another major problem for the scene. At this point, much of the people in the scene had grown up together. A lot of them gelled together like a family, while others were like oil and water. The ABC No Rio scene became a mark of difference between CBGBs kids. Where ABC No Rio kids were punks, CBGBs kids were the hardcore kids. The biggest reasons for these schisms, in addition to sonic differences, was also the arrival of drugs to the scene. This will sound corny, but drugs destroy people. If you consider drug addiction for what it is and not what you've heard, you know that it can hold a person, change them, and eventually take them from you. It is no surprise that the youth crew movement really got its legs in the fourth period of NYHC (the same time drugs, namely heroin, began to invade the scene). The youth crew movement is cliquish by nature and standoffish because it had to be. Kids today often criticize modern day youth crew kids and their attitudes towards substance abuse as immature. The thing worth noting from the original youth crew movement is that it was simply following the rules allotted to them by the scene: strength in numbers and survival of the fittest. Today we joke about edgebreak as this passe ritual, in late 80s NYC if you broke, you were liable to become a full blown junkie.
Other groups formed for the simplest of reasons. For example, a group of kids across the bridge from Queens who liked to write graffiti and go to hardcore shows started their own clique. It would come to be known as DMS (a derivative of NYHC forerunners Agnostic Front's Doc Marten Skins). DMS bands like Madball, Crown of Thornz, Merauder, and others would become the backbone of NYHC in the 1990s. Without DMS in the 1990s, NYHC as we know it dies.
Where there no groups or cliques existed pockets of outliers. Kids who were still in the scene but held no real designation or clique. They just played hardcore to what they knew. This group of bands like Uppercut, Life's Blood, and Citizens Arrest played music that sounded angry, cynical, and exhausted. You could actually hear how tired they were in their music and voices. They were voices of people who had become frustrated with what the scene had become. They made hardcore their entire lives only to see it beaten back by the establishment and from within. They were voices of kids who had nowhere left to go and no idea what to do with themselves. They had been defeated. By society, by their own principles, by their own people. They felt betrayed by the very scene they gave themselves too. This sounds dramatic but it is a reality in the subculture. You grow up with the same group of kids living a certain way and, I'm not saying it happens to everyone, but for some you say "this isn't me" and you begin to question all of it.
Coming up in NYHC, you don't really have many modes of expression, there's aggressive and outright confrontational. A lot of these bands were confronting their own scene and its perceived failures. For failing to stop drugs from getting in and for failing to stay united in the face of change. They didn't want to fight about it nor did they want an apology. They were just wanted to declare that it was over. The golden days were done. What they had, their subculture utopia, was gone. I think they just needed to tell themselves that more than anyone. Listening to bands like Uppercut and Life's Blood is a sad experience because you can hear them lamenting over the loss of it all. By 1991, you saw most of these bands completely gone. Much like a great deal of the NYHC scene, they had departed to other projects.
Did the revolution fail? I don't know. Hardcore stayed alive and well in NYC thanks to the likes of Madball (they even wrote an album called Hold It Down if that gives you an idea of how they feel about the 90s) and others. Kids who left would eventually call back to their roots with great fondness. Today's NYHC has undergone a renaissance. This is thanks in part to CBGBs efforts to keep from closing in 2005-2006. Just about every band you could think of got back together to help do their part to keep the place open. Unsurprisingly they failed and the famed venue still shut down, but for the first time in almost twenty years the scene felt whole again. Beyond that, the work of the Black N Blue Radio and their annual Black N Bowl festival helped to bring back bands like Judge and Burn to the stage in recent years.
To revisit the question one more if the revolution failed or not, I guess that all depends on your perspective. Revolutions aren't always fought with soldiers, front lines, and battles. Sometimes they're deeper than that. All it takes is belief. Belief in what you're fighting for and, more importantly, who you're fighting alongside. NYHC's revolution didn't fail and it didn't end, it just assumed new forms.
New York hardcore was supposed to be a revolution. People today will still you it was a revolution. They want to believe that it was about unity, brotherhood, and passion. They're not all the way wrong in the belief that NYHC changed things forever, but they're also not telling you the whole story. The timeline to the first generation of NYHC is wild. It is loaded with great bands, wild anecdotes, and legendary personalities. The first period is pre-82 New York punk. This is the city's formative years where nothing was anything yet. The second period is 82-86 where the Bad Brains arrived like the big bang and the entire scene exploded with the likes of Agnostic Front, Warzone, Murphy's Law, and more. It is in the second period that NYHC was truly born. The third period is 86-87 which is NYHC's golden era. For two years, the scene was at its zenith with the likes of the Cro-Mags, Youth of Today, and Breakdown holding it down. The fourth period is 88-91 which saw to the end of the first generation of NYHC. Beginning in this era, a lot of the kids within the scene had moved on elsewhere to crossover metal, post-hardcore, and other ventures. The kids that did stay were left to confront the harsh changes that were about to hit the NYHC scene head on.
By 1988, the city was undergoing a great deal of upheaval, particularly in the famed Lower East Side and other parts of lower Manhattan where most of the NYHC community claimed as their stomping grounds. Gentrification, drugs, and growing sectarianism caused fractures within the scene's once united front.
Today's Lower East Side and its neighboring areas resembles an adult Disneyland. Upscale bars, classy dining, and enough good looking people in one area that you'd think the place was a eugenics project. The LES that Raybeez famously sang about was a markedly different place. It was a drug-soaked warzone where basic laws no longer existed and the social contract was effectively replaced by the laws of the animal kingdom. The laws that the 80s NYHC kid lived by were simple: strength in numbers, do unto others before they do unto you, and most of all, survival of the fittest. Where you would measure someone living off Houston St in 2015 by their money, you would measure someone in 1985 by their survival instinct.
By the end of the 80s, beginning with the Tompkins Square Park riots which illuminated to the powers that be that there was a third world country rotting in lower Manhattan, the city began to root out a lot of undesirable parties in favor of more attractive ones. Where this concerned the legendary CBGBs, which resided at 315 Bowery (now an upscale fashion boutique), became an uphill battle to stay put. There were still hardcore shows happening there, especially the famous Sunday Matinee shows, but by the end of the 80s the shows would continue to become more and more violent. Stabbings were a regular occurrence, as were people getting jumped and beaten with most anything kids could get their hands on. CBGBs finally banned hardcore shows as the violence was drawing unwanted attention from the city.
Here's something you should know: it doesn't matter how famous a venue is, no city office will ever want a hardcore punk venue in their town and they will find any excuse to shut it down. With this in consideration, CBGBs banning hardcore shows was inevitable. A lot of people will point the finger at Dmize for the ban saying their shows specifically were the most violent. Because of this NYHC had to find a new home. The scene would set up shop in places like Coney Island High, ABC No Rio (who was also engaged in its own legal war with the city / changing neighborhood) and Wetlands. They served their purpose and the scene survived on. Meanwhile CBGBs stayed put in the Bowery at the heart of a losing war with gentrification. By the time NYHC was welcomed back to the venue by the mid 90s, the disease was thick in the neighborhood and it was clear that CBGBs would not survive. It was only a matter of time.
Growing sectarianism within the NYHC scene at the end of the 80s was another major problem for the scene. At this point, much of the people in the scene had grown up together. A lot of them gelled together like a family, while others were like oil and water. The ABC No Rio scene became a mark of difference between CBGBs kids. Where ABC No Rio kids were punks, CBGBs kids were the hardcore kids. The biggest reasons for these schisms, in addition to sonic differences, was also the arrival of drugs to the scene. This will sound corny, but drugs destroy people. If you consider drug addiction for what it is and not what you've heard, you know that it can hold a person, change them, and eventually take them from you. It is no surprise that the youth crew movement really got its legs in the fourth period of NYHC (the same time drugs, namely heroin, began to invade the scene). The youth crew movement is cliquish by nature and standoffish because it had to be. Kids today often criticize modern day youth crew kids and their attitudes towards substance abuse as immature. The thing worth noting from the original youth crew movement is that it was simply following the rules allotted to them by the scene: strength in numbers and survival of the fittest. Today we joke about edgebreak as this passe ritual, in late 80s NYC if you broke, you were liable to become a full blown junkie.
Other groups formed for the simplest of reasons. For example, a group of kids across the bridge from Queens who liked to write graffiti and go to hardcore shows started their own clique. It would come to be known as DMS (a derivative of NYHC forerunners Agnostic Front's Doc Marten Skins). DMS bands like Madball, Crown of Thornz, Merauder, and others would become the backbone of NYHC in the 1990s. Without DMS in the 1990s, NYHC as we know it dies.
Where there no groups or cliques existed pockets of outliers. Kids who were still in the scene but held no real designation or clique. They just played hardcore to what they knew. This group of bands like Uppercut, Life's Blood, and Citizens Arrest played music that sounded angry, cynical, and exhausted. You could actually hear how tired they were in their music and voices. They were voices of people who had become frustrated with what the scene had become. They made hardcore their entire lives only to see it beaten back by the establishment and from within. They were voices of kids who had nowhere left to go and no idea what to do with themselves. They had been defeated. By society, by their own principles, by their own people. They felt betrayed by the very scene they gave themselves too. This sounds dramatic but it is a reality in the subculture. You grow up with the same group of kids living a certain way and, I'm not saying it happens to everyone, but for some you say "this isn't me" and you begin to question all of it.
Coming up in NYHC, you don't really have many modes of expression, there's aggressive and outright confrontational. A lot of these bands were confronting their own scene and its perceived failures. For failing to stop drugs from getting in and for failing to stay united in the face of change. They didn't want to fight about it nor did they want an apology. They were just wanted to declare that it was over. The golden days were done. What they had, their subculture utopia, was gone. I think they just needed to tell themselves that more than anyone. Listening to bands like Uppercut and Life's Blood is a sad experience because you can hear them lamenting over the loss of it all. By 1991, you saw most of these bands completely gone. Much like a great deal of the NYHC scene, they had departed to other projects.
Did the revolution fail? I don't know. Hardcore stayed alive and well in NYC thanks to the likes of Madball (they even wrote an album called Hold It Down if that gives you an idea of how they feel about the 90s) and others. Kids who left would eventually call back to their roots with great fondness. Today's NYHC has undergone a renaissance. This is thanks in part to CBGBs efforts to keep from closing in 2005-2006. Just about every band you could think of got back together to help do their part to keep the place open. Unsurprisingly they failed and the famed venue still shut down, but for the first time in almost twenty years the scene felt whole again. Beyond that, the work of the Black N Blue Radio and their annual Black N Bowl festival helped to bring back bands like Judge and Burn to the stage in recent years.
To revisit the question one more if the revolution failed or not, I guess that all depends on your perspective. Revolutions aren't always fought with soldiers, front lines, and battles. Sometimes they're deeper than that. All it takes is belief. Belief in what you're fighting for and, more importantly, who you're fighting alongside. NYHC's revolution didn't fail and it didn't end, it just assumed new forms.
Friday, January 16, 2015
Violent Minds
Hardcore punk has two qualities that have made people gravitate toward it since time immemorial: personality and animalistic conduct. People like hardcore because it is out of control. They want to hear that this dude in that band is "out of his mind". The story of Violent Minds is unique. It's the only way to describe it. The band was a cut out of the 80s NYHC scene. Not in the sense of sound, in that sense they were first wave USHC, 100%. They were a cut out in the sense that the band featured a revolving door of members, but, like, Agnostic Front with Stigma / Miret and Warzone with Raybeez, Violent Minds also had its talisman: vocalist Zach Amster AKA Zach Attack.
Amster made a name for himself in the early 2000s Philadelphia hardcore scene with the band Shark Attack (along with one-time Violent Minds member Matt Summers). After Shark Attack ended, Amster would move to Toronto to join No Warning. It was there that the seeds would be planted for Violent Minds. The early 2000s Toronto hardcore scene was (and really, still is) a bit of a jaded place. The kids there knew hardcore better than most people in North America. They would tell you if they thought you sucked and if you weren't good, you didn't last. It was that simple. This was the same scene that would produce the likes of No Warning, Career Suicide, and Fucked Up.
Quick to ensure that Violent Minds would not become "The Zach Amster Show", Amster molded a talisman for the band in the image of the wolf.
The Wolf.
So much has been written about the animal that it defies any effort to catalogue it. Books have been written to discuss its feral nature. Poems written to describe its pride and spirit. Movies made to provoke fear into the hearts of people. The wolf is both the most beautiful and terrifying animal. It was for these reasons that Amster chose it for Violent Minds.
The band would see a variety of personnel come and go over the years. Despite that, the band continued to write excellent music. In the process, they quietly became one of the best hardcore bands of the 2000s. It didn't matter if they weren't headlining fests or selling out a thousand records. They knew they were great. The people who knew them, knew that. Violent Minds became an understanding among the initiated.
Amster chose the wolf for another reason: it is immortal. Much like Aldo Leopold wrote of the resurgence of the wolf population after their near extinction in A Sand County Almanac, Violent Minds can't die. It won't die. This spring, Amster is returning to the studio to record a new LP along with Ben Cook (No Warning, Fucked Up), Justin DeTore (not even going to try to list them all), Haroun Khan (RZL DZL, Cold World, Build & Destroy), and Matt DeLong (No Warning). Along the way will also be long time Violent Minds member Tait Organt who will be there to tour with the band (this does mean Violent Mind gigs are coming).
The wolf is back.
http://www.mediafire.com/download/99eu7jmrm39uv2o/Violent+Minds.rar
Amster made a name for himself in the early 2000s Philadelphia hardcore scene with the band Shark Attack (along with one-time Violent Minds member Matt Summers). After Shark Attack ended, Amster would move to Toronto to join No Warning. It was there that the seeds would be planted for Violent Minds. The early 2000s Toronto hardcore scene was (and really, still is) a bit of a jaded place. The kids there knew hardcore better than most people in North America. They would tell you if they thought you sucked and if you weren't good, you didn't last. It was that simple. This was the same scene that would produce the likes of No Warning, Career Suicide, and Fucked Up.
Quick to ensure that Violent Minds would not become "The Zach Amster Show", Amster molded a talisman for the band in the image of the wolf.
The Wolf.
So much has been written about the animal that it defies any effort to catalogue it. Books have been written to discuss its feral nature. Poems written to describe its pride and spirit. Movies made to provoke fear into the hearts of people. The wolf is both the most beautiful and terrifying animal. It was for these reasons that Amster chose it for Violent Minds.
The band would see a variety of personnel come and go over the years. Despite that, the band continued to write excellent music. In the process, they quietly became one of the best hardcore bands of the 2000s. It didn't matter if they weren't headlining fests or selling out a thousand records. They knew they were great. The people who knew them, knew that. Violent Minds became an understanding among the initiated.
Amster chose the wolf for another reason: it is immortal. Much like Aldo Leopold wrote of the resurgence of the wolf population after their near extinction in A Sand County Almanac, Violent Minds can't die. It won't die. This spring, Amster is returning to the studio to record a new LP along with Ben Cook (No Warning, Fucked Up), Justin DeTore (not even going to try to list them all), Haroun Khan (RZL DZL, Cold World, Build & Destroy), and Matt DeLong (No Warning). Along the way will also be long time Violent Minds member Tait Organt who will be there to tour with the band (this does mean Violent Mind gigs are coming).
The wolf is back.
http://www.mediafire.com/download/99eu7jmrm39uv2o/Violent+Minds.rar
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