Entry #16 - Musings on Hardcore - 6.3.07

In a previous entry, I mentioned a neighboring college radio station that we are able to listen to with our portable radios. Well a few weeks ago I discovered that Wednesday nights from 9-11 PM they have a hardcore/punk/metal show hosted by a core-centric individual. Needless to say, I was elated and have since made listening a weekly ritual. I even wrote the DJ twice in the span of 2 weeks to express my appreciation for his labor and to provide him with a list of requests, which he has heeded with fervor.

The past week, he played several tracks that I had asked for, but one really stood out: “Hanging On The Corner” by Blood For Blood, from the release Serenity. Hearing it literally brought a tear to my eye. It’s a song of empathy, dedicated to professing the band’s support for those experiencing the rough and tumble side of life.

“All you forgotten in the projects – I hear ya'!
All you numbers in the cell block – we care!
All you sweatin' in the detox – we care!
To all you hoods that are dodgin' cops – we care!
And to all you bleeding from a broken heart
You know you've got a brother here.”

I was actually quite touched hearing this song for the first time while “behind bars.” To me, it is music that really means something, deeper and full of purpose in a way that indie rock and emo and traditional metal simply will never be. Even the scores of suburban-born straightedge bands will never realize the sense of urgency fostered by this brand of hardcore. Yet I realize that this band and their kin are looked down upon by much of the punk rock world.

While growing up, bands like Blood for Blood, Madball, Sheer Terror, and 25 Ta Life were hardcore. Although I was exposed to it via bands like Bad Religion and Helmet, hardcore spoke to me in a unique sense and introduced me to a scene of kids that I related to in a different way. Nowhere kids.

I grew up in a working class town. There were a few artists but even they were spawned from homes that could aptly be referred to as white trash. As I began skating and going to shows, I began to connect with other neighboring towns, many of which were wealthier than mine, yet a common theme of dysfunction and a desire to make sense of it ran through all of us. We would congregate at shows and forget about our alcoholic homes and our Prozac-laced existences. We’d see the aforementioned bands as well as Hatebreed, All Out War, Candiria, and Polyglot. After the shows, we’d go to afterparties, drink and hookup and enjoy one another’s company. Amongst my group of friends were some who would go on to define the next generation of hardcore, including the future bassist of Blood for Blood, the lead singer and the guitarist from American Nightmare/Give Up the Ghost, and the drummer from Isis. At the same time, though, you could sense that we included future drug addicts, gang members, suicides, teen pregnancies, and convicts (plus a handful of success stories). No one knew who’d end up where, and sometimes sitting in a circle it felt like we were playing Russian Roulette with our futures.

Some of us were, however, fortunate enough to go to college, as was I. The hardcore scene that I encountered in college (as well as in the neighboring Syracuse) bore little resemblance to the one I’d left behind in New England. Off-time signatures and arbitrary artistry were valued over authenticity. Over-privileged suburban twits degraded the bands that I’d grown up with, while extolling groups that were little more than scenester fashion statements. I, too, began to turn my back on the hardcore of my youth, believing that I was developing more sophisticated tastes.

This line of thinking continued until my senior year, when I took a course called “The Political Economy of African Diaspora Music.” We discussed the origins of jazz time signatures and their reflection of the exploratory nature of the oppressed lashing out against their white oppressors. In an attempt to expose my professor to the cacophonic bravado being explored by hardcore bands of that period, I played him Dillinger Escape Plan and Drowning Man. When I asked my professor what he thought of it, he replied “white alienation.” I was taken aback by this response. He had just trivialized music that, at the time, served as my lifeblood.

In retrospect, however, he was dead on. Aside from creating a false sense of avant-garde musicianship, there was no purpose for the arrhythmic time signatures these bands toyed with. In fact, aside from entertainment purposes and posturing, there was no real reason for bands such as these to even exist. They weren’t calling for any real political change. Usually, they were just bitching about how much some cheesy girl had hurt them or creating imaginary shootout scenarios of no consequence. At best, one may catch a glimpse of the lead singer’s manic depression and mental illness, but aside from that, their catharsis was largely fruitless. It seems that I had missed the whole point of what made this music that I’d come to love so great.

I’ve come to realize that what makes punk and hardcore distinct is the accessibility that the simplicity of the linear 4/4 creates. DIY provides a forum for the voiceless and truly alienated to get up on stage and reach a large group of people with relatively little skill. It is colloquial and egalitarian in a way that its predecessor Oi, or its kinder spirit – early hip-hop—is. In my current predicament, it speaks to me like no other form of music ever could.

Playlist

Song: “Count Me In” by Death Before Dishonor – Gang-related but so what. It speaks to the underdogism and loyalty by a scene like no other.

Book: Speaker of the Dead by Orson Scott Card – presents fascinating moral dilemmas of anthropology and globalization in an accessibly sci-fi format.

Article: “Banksy Was Here” by Lauren Collins, from the May 14th ’07 issue of The New Yorker – A look at the most important graf artist of our day. Seems to parallel many of my beliefs about the art world and mass consumer markets.