Picking up where my last article left off, I’m going to gloat. The hardcore bands I listened to in high school are way better than the hardcore bands you listened to in high school. These are the bands of my youth, more or less. The bands I spent my entire paycheck on. The bands I would ride the T up to Boston to see. The bands I whose patches I spent hours meticulously sewing patches onto my flight jacket and jeans. These are the bands I lived and died by. A big thank you to all of them for saving me from a life a misery.
10 -Born Against
Born Against were your super-political-to-the-point-of-being-an-asshole friend in band form. Rising from the ashes of NYHC anti-heroes Life’s Blood, who had the horrible misfortune of being left-wing skinheads who hated everything before anyone else knew that shit was hella boss. Born Against were Life’s Blood taken to their logical conclusion. For a band that cared a lot, Born Against did not give one single solitary shit. Those d-bags who walk around Portland dressed as ugly as they possibly can? Little do they know that they’re aping Born Against’s thrift store / don’t give a fuck fashion ethos. Sloppy as hell, but without losing any power, Born Against become more important with each passing year.
Crucial Album: The Rebel Sound of Shit and Failure. Their actual album material isn’t as essential as this odds and sods compilation.
9 – Assück
It’s not pronounced “Ass-ook” so stop saying it that way. Quibble over genre labels all you want, Assück fit right at home in 90’s DIY hardcore. Short, brutal songs about everything fucked up about life in general and the world at large. COOL MOMENTS IN HARDCORE: When I was 15 I saw Assück play at the lamented Rat in Boston with (of all bands) Hot Water Music and Toxic Narcotic. In between getting roughed up by Seth Putnam and finding a knit ski cap I own to this day in the parking lot, I also sang lead vocals on “Corners” with one of my best friends. No shit. I have witnesses.
Crucial Album: Misery Index. The EPs are great and everything, but it all really comes together on MI. And if you can find the version of “Corners” from Baggy Pants Waste Precious Fabric, the only known appearance of the enigmatic Spinach on lead vox, all the better.
8 -Siege
Technically an “old guy hardcore” band, I suppose, Siege never got their due. They stood outside the cliquish “Boston Crew” (SSD, DYS, Negative FX, and Impact Unit) in mutant terra incognita with the grotesquely underrated Deep Wound. Siege may have lost the battle for short term popularity, but they definitely won the war. The entire genre of grindcore came from the fertile imagination of four miscreants from Weymouth, MA. Say what you will about the white noise quality of their songs. The fact that they’re all playing together ten seconds in says a lot about how good they are.
Crucial Album: Any version of Drop Dead you can get your hot little hands on.
7 – Failure Face
Failure Face were one of the first hardcore records I ever got. I was instantly attracted to them for their misanthropic, self-loathing lyrics. They also scared the ever loving shit out of me. I hated everything and myself, but FF took it to a whole other level. Failure Face were one of the first bands worthy of the “powerviolence” moniker to live more than 20 miles from Man Is The Bastard. More than even most bands today trying to claim the mantle, FF understood that, above all, powerviolence is hardcore taken to the nth degree. Get your fucking metal out of my hardcore.
Crucial Album: Complete Failure has everything you’ll need. No one has YouTubed anything by them, but this guy uploaded the aforementioned collection.
6 -Los Crudos
Crudos were the headliner at my first hardcore show. Despite not knowing a word of Spanish, I can sing along with their songs word for word to this day. Crudos were like the CNN of hardcore in the 1990s. Anything you needed to know about Latin America, you were going to learn from Crudos. The band also had a fury unmatched since the days of Minor Threat. Martin was always happy to return my idiotic teenage letters. I’m somewhat amazed that they didn’t touch off a full on movement of Latino bands that only sing in Spanish.
Crucial Album: For my money, their side of the split with Spitboy is far and away their best album. They didn’t really do anything after that I care for.
5 -Ripcord
To anyone who says that Brits can’t play hardcore I have one word- RIP. FUCKING. CORD. Overshadowed by the more famous and acclaimed Heresy, Ripcord tear it the fuck up. Firmly rooted in the classic sounds of ‘82 style hardcore, but versed in the sounds of Napalm Death and Metallica. Ripcord knew their way around other genres, but always kept it hardcore and kept it old school. Nothing beats hearing them cover “Boiling Point” in the accent of a BBC presenter.
Crucial Album: If you haven’t heard Poetic Justice you don’t know what hardcore is.
Some bands are just bands. Other bands are movements. Few bands in 90s hardcore could be considered a movement quite so much as Man Is The Bastard. They came with their own iconography (skulls and stark type on white), ethos (hail nothing / shit species), and mythology (the Skull). They also had aggro white boys too numerous to mention collecting hello kitty, braiding their hair, and donning barrettes. Not to mention that MITB subverted the entire hardcore band as rock band paradigm by foregoing a guitar player but adding a pulse cutter(!). Did I mention that they rage hard? Did I need to?
Crucial Album: Thoughtless… says everything that needs saying about anything. Though you need to hear “H.S.M.P.” which is the definitive anthem of powerviolence. The number one reason my hardcore scene is better than yours? We’ve got H.S.M.P.
3 – Rorschach
Slopcore masters who brought elements of prog rock into hardcore while still keeping it brutal and edgy. I hesitate to compare anyone to Hawkwind, but I’ve only heard one other band spoken of in the same reverent tones, and that’s the almighty Rorschach. No other band could sound quite so comfortable covering “My War” and “21st Century Schizoid Man.” They’re doing reunion shows on the east coast right now, and by all accounts tearing it the fuck up. If they come through your town you are a total fucking fool if you don’t go see them.
Crucial Album: Remain Sedate will melt your fucking face off even before you get to The Twilight Zone samples.
2 -Dropdead
I’m not sure that I would have had good taste is music if it weren’t for the Dropdead boys. In the first place, they were the band that more than any other made me realize that hardcore wasn’t something that happened for two years after I was born. Hardcore was and is a living, breathing musical and social movement. COOL MOMENTS IN HARDCORE: Ben sold me a first pressing copy of the “Where’s the Unity?” 7″ for a cool eight bucks. Dropdead were, are, and always will be the definitive Providence hardcore band… no matter how many people think they’re “crust” or whatever.
Crucial Album: The second self-titled on Armageddon is the only thing that even comes close to capturing the live show.
1 -Despise You
In high school, there was only one band I liked more than Dropdead. The Latin powerviolence wrecking crew known as Despise You. Despise You seamlessly unite Negative FX, Cryptic Slaughter, and X into a one-of-a-kind brand of brutality that is often imitated but never duplicated. Did you know that their singer Chris is one of the nicest, most soft spoken guys in hardcore it has ever been my privilege to shake hands with? The DY / Stapled Shut split was one of the first hardcore records I ever got and it totally blew me out of my Chuck Taylor low-tops. Let the carnage never stop.
Crucial Album: Get the discography or go the fuck home.
0 – Infest
True story: Powerviolence didn’t come from grindcore. It came from a youth crew band full of brohams in athletic gear who played way faster than anyone else. Infest were that band. An interview given years ago famously stated that the only two contemporaneous bands they respected were Hardstance and Chain of Strength. Good fucking choices, gents, as late-80’s hardcore was quickly becoming overrun by total shite like Insted and Bold. Infest cut the bullshit out and made hardcore hard core again. No more back slapping boys club crap. Just a thousand miles an hour anthems to hate. Thanks for bringing it back, boys.
Crucial Album: Sorry, dudes. No Man’s Slave totally blows everything else away. It’s probably the only reunion album ever made that outstrips the band’s original output. That’s some 9/11 truth.
Posts
I don’t get why you say this is “your scene”. These bands are from across the country and elsewhere. Crudos are from Chicago, Man is from Cali, Assuck from Florida.
| November 6, 2009 @ 8:46 am
Because it’s the one I grew up on. As opposed to say, if I were into Strife or Snapcase or One Life Crew or whatever. Don’t take shit so seriously, brah.
| November 6, 2009 @ 10:33 am
My band played with crudos and dropdead between 97-2001. Killer ass bands. Being a part of the New England punk scene basically defined my early life, and continues to do so. For my part, one of the biggest influences on our band, (maybe cuz we played with them so many times) was Toxic Narcotic. I still listen to them. Also, no bigger thrill than when Aus Rotten would come up from Pitt, or the Pinkerton thugs would come down from Maine. Man, I miss those days…..Getting stoned, playing hardcore punk rock, going to the Living Room on a friday night….now I work and pay bills….kill me please.
| November 6, 2009 @ 11:28 am
Sweet. My personal vote would go to hardcore hometown faves Die Kreuzen.
| November 6, 2009 @ 9:00 pm
Not sure if this is accurate, but I heard that the music for No Man’s Slave was actually recorded shortly after their second 7″ (while they were still an active band) and sat in a closet without the vocals for a few years before Joe recorded vocals for it. Sent those jags $30 for a shirt and goodies back in 1990 and got nothing. Years later their dickwad guitarist had a hissy fit on me for selling a bootleg shirt I made of them on ebay. I sent him like 12 and the dildo emails me back going “Thanks for having some balls bootlegging scum, and remember, don;t make anymore of these shirts, dig?” I was like “You’re welcome for not sending me (or anyone else’s) shit back in 1990, assbag.”
Oh, and Josh Gravel recently told me that Eric Wood from MITB called him after Josh sent him an offer to appear on an ill- fated Motley Crue covers comp., to which Eric’s reply was to call him on the phone and ask “Are you fucking retarded?”
| November 9, 2009 @ 9:01 am
fuck yeah, all these bands rule
Bob Suren was the lead singer of Failure Face and is currently of Murder-Suicide Pact and I get the privilege to see them play almost every other weekend
Florida Rules!
| November 9, 2009 @ 11:33 am
Love all those bands, but Anticapital is a thousand times better than Misery Index, and pretty much any other grindcore album outside of the Napalm Death Peel Sessions. And No Man’s Slave better than Slave? Whoa. I can honstely say, Slave is the album i’ve listened to the most times from 1987 to present day, and it still sounds as good now as it did then.
| January 13, 2010 @ 11:38 pm