Under the Influence: New York Hardcore
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I always wondered what happened to the people. It’s cool to see that this music led to some really creative careers and different ways of thinking that they’ve carried through to the present. For myself, it sparked a DIY spirit and an idea that alternative paths can lead to worthwhile endeavors.
One thing that surprised me in this video is the fact that the music lives on and has sprouted new hardcore scenes, including overseas. I’ve gotten the sense in the past few years that guitar-oriented rock is fading as fans age, but it was refreshing to see young people still getting into the music and the spirit. It’s totally underground, but that’s OK, too ...
I want as many people to have access to the music as possible, but being underground is kind of a requirement for hardcore music. You don't want it to be an affectation or exclusionary, but hardcore has always been about not fitting in and being on the outside of quotidian society.
I still listen to old bad brains, cro-mags, youth of today, warzone, etc when I need to bang out some code (not really for when I have to design something, though). Overall, it's a really positive scene. I feel that a lot of people don't really get that, though.
The best part was how incredibly close to the records they sounded. It was obvious that they still loved what they were doing despite how long it had been since they were last around. Sometimes older bands that get back together just seem to be going through the motions. Judge definitely wasn't.
Sorry to sound like an old man, but I just don't understand this latest version of moshing. Maybe I need to go to one of these shows and get in the pit to see if I'm missing something (blow off some steam).
It's exactly like you said, "a strange mix between violence and friendliness". I'm usually friends with nearly every single person in the room but much of what happens would constitute assault in any other context. People still pick each other up when they fall, even that person just punched them in the back of the head. I suspect you'd find very little has actually changed.
On a semi-tangential note: It's always so amusing trying to explain this sort of thing to someone who has never been a part of punk. Another commenter in this thread said that it's self regulating. And that's what so many people don't get. There are rules. Unspoken ones, but they are there. Everyone in the room knows when something is actually out of hand. It may look like total mayhem at times to the untrained eye but if you've been around long enough you see the same sort of organic patterns of behavior at every show. Sometimes I'm inclined to think you've never really connected with others until you've been to a punk show with a hundred other like minded people crammed into a tiny dim smelly space with terrible music playing as loud as the speakers will allow, all the while loving every moment.
i mostly just want to brag, it is very rare my interests intersect like this. so i'll try to add some value: there is something we can all learn about community from the hardcore scene. regardless of how large it grows or how transient members can be, it is self policing of it's values which remain unchanged for probably 40 years now. it remains original and pure in a way that HN couldn't dream of.
this is obviously kind of new school with respect to the documentary, but they feature some newer bands so I thought it was fair game. :)
I was at this show with Shai Hulud (all time favorite status) at ABC No Rio https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_52HtykF1gs.
the odds of seeing a thread like this on HN seem slim, and the odds someone here is familiar with one of my bands even slimmer.
i stopped playing with them in 2009 when i landed a gig in the startup world that was too hard to pass up, so unfortunately i wasn't actually at the show in the video. but it still means a lot to me to see it posted here. :)
http://fredbenenson.com/2014/01/19/digital-forensics-rancid-...
I very much want to know the attitudes of all those white men toward women and non-whites.
But, you're right. Hard core and punk were boys clubs, historically speaking. It took whole separate scenes (riot grrrl, among others) to push those boundaries out to include more diversity. There are now reasonably large feminist hard core and punk scenes, as well as lots of off-shoots. I just caught Sleater-Kinney live a few days ago; they're, I guess they might be called, second generation feminist punks, and they had a huge sold out crowd.
Punk and hard core were also occasionally ambiguous about LGBTQ folks, even though several quite important bands had gay members (Husker Du, The Dicks, Big Boys, etc.) or were vocally supportive of gay rights. Bad Brains, featured in this video, and among the best loved hard core bands in history, had a well-known falling out with MDC over some hateful comments H.R. (singer of Bad Brains) made about Randy "Biscuit" Turner from Big Boys. "Queercore" is now a thing that has a name, and being gay isn't a thing to keep secret in the modern punk and hard core world. I don't know if H.R. is still a homophobic asshole. Some people grow out of that stuff.
I think we can reasonably say that working and middle class white dudes aren't renowned for being inclusive, but some try harder than others. And, of course, one could also argue that part of the reason there are few women or people of color is because this particular art form was born of a very specific experience...and that experience is that of a bunch of young, angry, working and middle class white dudes. Early hip hop scene films feature predominantly young, angry, poor, black dudes, probably for similar reasons.
That said, there are racist/sexist/homophobic hard core bands. There are hard core bands that actively promote white supremacy, various bigoted "Christian" values, etc. The bands featured in this video aren't really among them, however. Even the "skinhead" bands in the film, like Agnostic Front and the Cro-Mags, are of the "non-racist" breed...maybe even anti-racist. I'm not deeply familiar with any of them, so I wouldn't want to make too many sweeping pronouncements about how they feel about racism/sexism/homophobia (except the Bad Brains thing, because that story includes one of my favorite bands/artists as the target of their homophobia, so I'm familiar with that story).
the scene has definitely become more diverse. non-whites and females are more well represented in hardcore than they are in the software industry.
that all said, racism and sexism have basically always been unacceptable in the hardcore community, and blatant racist or sexist behavior at a show would, for better or worse, probably result in having the shit kicked out of you. not that i condone violence, but there are few places in the world where discrimination is so actively discouraged.
there are racist subdivisions and bands, but they are basically considered the Westboro Baptist Church of hardcore.