State of the Unity: DIWhy?
It’s been about 3 years since I last wrote, a lot has happened since then -- Lil Ugly Mane released Volcanic Bird Enemy and the Voice Concern, HBO Max is only Max, How Long Gone reached 500 episodes, & every NYer you know is living in the sepia filter (haha aren’t we funny?).
This isn’t a humble homage or a return to form but I want to give objective continuity from my last article - A Train No Pandemic Can Stop. Back then I talked about a little known band called Sunami. Painfully and plentifully mentioned, but horribly adhered to, Sunami is a meme band; formed as a joke to poke fun at faux tough guy bands with overly cringey lyrics about “turning off your nightlight.” (Figure it out) I claimed Sunami had been doing what all memes should do: leaning into the internet. They participated in Twitter beef, made self-deprecating jokes, sold boatloads of merch, and still remained the hardest band in the Bay. At the time, I had discovered Sunami through the infamous Halloween show where you can see all your favorite characters throw down. More importantly, Sunami had a total of 27.5k listeners, about the same size of your favorite meme page that’s about to start selling merch. Right now, they have about 169k on Spotify alone, headline major domestic & international fests, and have contributed more to West coast hardcore than one could have ever predicted. Sunami has everyone exclaiming “YOUR A BITCH.” Regardless, it’s clear they were the train that couldn’t be stopped and I was right. I’ll chalk it up to a common JTTB win.
Hardcore is all the rage now, huh? Every coastal outlet’s music section wants a piece of this growing subgenre that has historically kept its wings tucked like a mother bird. I can answer the why for you: Music outlets are lazy. It’s uncommon for writers to be active participants in the underground scene. From Outlaw Country to Noise, many outlets report based on virality -- Sourced videos are often uplifted by the algorithm based on the engagement, and the so-called “cream of the crop” is bagged to be sold for human consumption. This isn’t a threat to the scene, but more of a bastardization. It disregards the 40+ years of hard work placed into the scene by people we may never meet, however tangible the results may be. It boils a subgenre with rich and influential history to a 10 second “Day in my life” video of a dude stitching a new Sunami patch to his battle jacket.
I’m trying really hard to not sound like a curmudgeon. Who am I to wave my finger at commercial success? Why write anything if I was already correct? Where is the address for the show on Saturday? Good lord, where is the remote for my fan?
I want to focus on the channels that this media dynamite has opened. The implications. The times to come. The reactionary causes to this unearthed underground. We have to start with genres that have a longer (and perhaps similar) history. Country music broke itself up into plenty of subgenres, many of which can now be seen bucketed as Mainstream Country (your Luke Bryans, Jason Aldeans & Luke Combses) and Outlaw Country (your Charley Crocketts, Justin Townes Earles, & Paul Cauthens). A clear divide between the themes of life. One indulges in hedonism of living an elevated country lifestyle riddled with coastal state college folks taking up three spots at your local boardwalk. And the other speaks truthfully of the pain and sorrow of everyday life. Let’s face it, you’re not playing If I Was The Devil by Justin Townes Earle at the function. Fortunately, country music has been around for over 100 years with clear ebbs & flows where authentic roots always bear their face regardless. But let’s use the recent example of Hip Hop. One that has probably the closest roots to Punk and shares a similar birth in the mid-70s, yet exists on an entirely different landscape. Over time, Hip-Hop has single-handedly dictated music-derived culture, creating an unfathomable number of subgenres. However, on your hand, count the amount of contemporary “underground rappers” you know of. I’m talking about actively making music, playing a few “underground” shows, and possessing a cult-like following. Someone who isn’t a part of a crew, isn’t a merch machine, isn’t a clone of a clone, and has a unique sound. I’m not saying “rEaL HiP hoP iS dEaD'' but rather that the list is very hard to make. Somewhere along the way, the art was lost. It still exists, but the spectator’s expectation of any artist with traction is to eventually hit big arenas, get the GOAT features, and live lavishly. So is a fan who saw Odd Future in an asbestos filled venue with 75 like-minded people allowed to fill duped? Yes. Are you allowed to hate the artist? Absolutely not. The hustle can’t be knocked, but the energy can. I can analyze music all day, but in every artist, band, and act’s life; there is a moment, not an album, where you realize it’s not for you anymore. The “authentic times” are gone and the idea of the live show has lost its legitimacy. In other words, they’re not playing to you anymore, they’re playing to the masses.
Justin Townes Earle
So how do you anticipate this? Historically, acts deviate from the norm and create a subculture as a soft rejection of the current culture. Country to Outlaw Country, Rap to Trap, Dubstep to Hardstyle, Rock to Metal. The blueprint is there. We have Black Flag, Bad Brains, & Minor Threat. Which parlays into Agnostic Front, Cro-Mags & Warzone. Which Parlays to Madball, Strife, & Hatebreed. This list goes on. Much like Hip-Hop, it brought ideals rooted in the scene. It birthed ideas of Straight Edge, militant Veganism, and the youth crew. Hardcore continued to sonically transition from a fast beat two step sound to borrowing sounds from sludge and metal. Sonically hardcore sounds different now and will continue to sound different with new bands borrowing from a plethora of influences. That’s just the evolution of music.
The key connection hardcore has to all these genres are the deep roots in the idea of “Do It Yourself.” Almost any hardcore show you attend has been booked by a participant. The drummer of one band is working the door, his little brother is stamping your hand, that same drummer’s band opens, his bassist is also running the merch table; hell, the promoter might be playing on the bill as well. There is no middle man, no invisible hand orchestrating the show. The venue booked was the best they could get, advertising is through social media or flyers, and the gear is probably being shared by 2-3 touring bands. It represents true underground in an era where no underground exists. This is not to take away from bands that launched into the mainstream. Bands like Hatebreed, AFI, and Title Fight all found commercial success after starting in the hardcore scene. These bands used to come along once a decade, a band that was thrust into commercial appeal purely through support was rarely heard of. Lately, through obvious social media intrusion, many hardcore bands have cast their net way further than any before them. Bands like Turnstile, Knocked Loose, Gel, Code Orange, Scowl, and Jesus Piece have all gathered mainstream appeal their predecessors never touched. Pitchfork, Stereogum, GQ, and the fucking New York Times have all weighed in on a topic very few seem to have an actual pulse on. They’re using buzz words like “disruption,” “momentum,” and “renaissance.” A genre that’s known for backflips, hospital trips, and free expression is being compartmentalized as some sort of technological dark horse ready to take on Google.
Jesus Piece for Kerrang
Growth is good. I admittedly have enjoyed or still enjoy the bands I’ve listed. There is no shame in that. However, do I value my experience seeing Jesus Piece in a Polish Club basement over seeing them in a barrier infested venue? Absolutely; I respect the time they’ve put in and all they’ve given to my local scene.
So what happens when all of this comes to the surface, when a culture that has carried itself for decades suddenly gets approached by said invisible hand asking DIWhy?
Well, it’s not as bad as doomsayers profess. Promoters keep it in house, big bands still play local spots, and the energy is there. I refuse to let this be a hit piece. We’re talking about the “boots on the ground” implications that arise from mainstream success. To place blame on a band is to stifle the freedom the genre stands for to begin with. In short, the potential hazard lies within the participant.
I really want to lean on a common hardcore moniker of “no gods, no masters.” At a show, no one, not even the vocalist, is more important than anyone else in the room. The mic is yours. The show exists because of the collective effort of everyone in the room; whether small or large. In hardcore you are not the commodity, you are the active participant in a genre whose only energy hinges on the involvement of its attendees. This symbiotic relationship is one of the rarest (and important) things you can find within art, most importantly music. Each person's contributions stack to create the personification of what is. Identification & execution of this principle is what paves way towards maintaining its core values while growing roots within progress.
Magnitude by Carl Gunhouse
The social media double edged sword has already perforated a majority of listeners. On one side of the spectrum, folks, including me, are finding different regions of hardcore at a record breaking speed. I’m talking about What It Takes Blog, xBrutalYouthx, Feet First Productions and, of course, Hate5Six, all running on their very own tank of hardwork and dedication. It’s creating unprecedented collaborations, tour exposure, and cultural sway. You’ve seen the memes, I don’t need to keep beating the horse. Conversely, with massive growth, it beckons new folks who often fully consume the content but only halfway consume the context. The band’s time, the venues, the sunken costs, the emotion, the existing labor of love, and the idea of leaving things better off than how we found them. I implore you, if you so chose, to enter this music with those running thoughts. Hardcore is raw, unfiltered, violent, fun, and sometimes downright idiotic. But maintaining the thought of the collective effort in each and every show makes the experience 10x times more beautiful.
I’m really not trying to sound like a curmudgeon. So I’ll skip the deep dive on commodification of culture and its soulless threat. I’d like to believe the bedrock foundation created by 40 years of proofing has a self-regulating feature found in the form of the community. And if your local scene doesn’t come with one, send them this article; or just ask a punk.
