The Younger Hardcore Scene – An Xperience Article

The Younger Hardcore Scene – An Xperience Article – by Liam Sweeny.

It’s a Troy night outside of No Fun, a gathering place for an eclectic batch of both music and patrons. Hoodie weather, and kids (only by virtue of my own age, but some dipping into the teens) stood outside in groups as the inside was packed to the front doors. A wander inside and you’d see merch tables for bands maybe you’d never heard of if you were north of a mid-life crisis, but the graphics, the sketch art, is unmistakable to anyone with a taste for metal, more commonly branded today as “extreme music.”

They pull a kid out by his arms and legs. Little guy, dressed in a white T-shirt and white pants, no signs of blood. He’s gasping for air. He’s gotten the wind knocked out of him in the pit, and the people outside – strangers – get him seated in a chair and make sure he’s alright. He wants back in, but they’re convincing him to take a moment.

Extreme music encompasses metal and hardcore, and a myriad of subgenres like thrash, death metal, doom metal, metalcore, and more imaginative listings. It is a universe of ferocity, and a source of pride to all who listen. An enduring font of community. And on that night in Troy, I caught a glimpse of a new age and a new community.

Jake Roberts of the band Urine pointed out a good distinction between the sensibilities of hardcore past and hardcore present and cites social media as a double-edged sword at play.

“So straight out the gate, one thing that I will say is both a blessing and a curse to the hardcore scene nowadays is social media, 100%,” he says. “I think it’s a great thing and I think it’s an awful thing for bands. Because it’s given a lot of bands that lived those struggles … you know, I’m not gonna sit here and say that I had the worst life in the world. I didn’t even have that bad of a life. I’ve had my tragedies, you know, but there are some people obviously who have come straight out of the gutter, and they put all that emotion into their music. And it’s good for them to get it out. But I think social media also created this world where people feel like they are struggling more than they actually are.

“I’m trying to think of a good way to word it,” Jake continues. “So some bands definitely are coming out with the same attitude, the same problems, which is, you know, great for the nostalgia factor, not as great for the progressive times. But either way, it’s still happening. Then you have this whole new generation of bands that are saying it’s OK to be exactly yourself. You don’t need to have that extreme, covered-in-tattoos set. You don’t need to have the addict’s past. You don’t need to have this whole backstory to being what you are. And I personally think that a lot of the more older heads see that in the sense of, like, being a poser.”

While the younger extreme music scene has a generational gap from what came before it, it grew from the same love for the music and the community. Angie from the band Halo Bite talks about her introduction into the music she would come to pursue.

“I never associated myself as a ‘hardcore kid,’” she says, “until finding some meaning in it recently. Being born in 2003, I didn’t get to experience firsthand the immense wave hardcore was in during the ‘90s and early 2000s. I grew up listening to bands like Helmet, Quicksand, and Merauder, for example, without associating them with ‘hardcore’ yet. I just thought those kinds of bands had a unique and different interpretation of aggressive music from other forms of aggressive music during the time, like grunge or metal. However, what separated aggressive music from hardcore for me was the community behind it. Live hardcore shows don’t compare to anything else. The explosive, unapologetic, and intimate energy towards the band and the music is what made me familiar with the ‘hardcore’ name. It wasn’t until I started to go to hardcore shows that I started to feel like I belonged.”

Jason Krak (not there that night) is a DIY punk show promoter with a collective known as Crisis Isolation. He’s seen a rising, younger metal scene grow from the inside, and he’s been around long enough to have broader experience of the area’s punk and metal lineage. He’s noticed that many of the changes between this scene and the one that has existed for decades have been influenced by the changes in our overall culture. He notes movements like MeToo as more influential to the younger scene.

“I think that the younger scene is much more open-minded,” he said. “And is about accountability in the music scene and the MeToo movement in the music scene. For a long time, people who were involved in the scene, I feel like they didn’t put as much importance on accountability when there are musicians and promoters who have had sexual assault allegations or things like that. I feel like in the past, it was a murky area, whereas now, with the younger crowd, that is absolutely not acceptable. I’ve had shows myself where we’ve taken bands off or canceled the show, and it’s because of allegations that have come up and accountability, and I feel like that’s a part of the new scene.”

Accountability was never, however, wholly unknown to the older scene. Vegas Nacy, current singer of Faded Line and longstanding figure in the hardcore community talks about what it used to mean keeping the older scene safe.

“When I was coming up in the scene, dancing in a hardcore pit was still new,” Vegas says, “promoters and clubs were being told, ‘watch out if you book hardcore bands, the kids are coming with brass knuckles and other weapons,’ so some of the promoters and clubs were just passing on shows in fear of someone getting seriously hurt. Now, there were people sneaking weapons in (there still are to this day), but the hardcore community is one of the only genres that can pretty much police themselves, new and old school, so security can feel a little better knowing this.

“I have had the unique pleasure of being on both sides of the coin (as a musician in heavy bands and a longtime bouncer/security guy), so when I am onstage, I try to make sure security is treating the kids well and letting them have a blast, and when I am bouncing, making sure the kids are having a blast and going home the way they came to the show!”

While Krak draws distinctions between the older scene and the newer scene, he notes that the newer music itself, while it can be just as aggressive as older metal and hardcore, preaches to a new anger coming from a different well than existed in the nineties.

“I feel like the younger scene is very in tune with the fact that, for example, the rent’s insanely expensive. What do they get for it? What’s their future? The world’s getting flushed down the toilet. And, you know, what do they have to say for it?”

Angie believes that the anger and emotion that finds catharsis in hardcore, past and present, also benefits from diversity in bands; that those feelings can come from the experiences different social groups have.

“I think the older scene and younger scene have some similarities in how they deal with their hate through this avenue of music, but I do feel it has evolved with the help of diversity. From what I know, anti-fascist and straight-edge themes were the most popular amongst the “older” hardcore folks in terms of hymns about hate; and although I do know many current hardcore bands that preach on those same themes, the increase of diversity within hardcore is what enriches those themes a f*** ton more.”

In hardcore past and present, and really in all music, there’s an argument over what fits in what genre. But Angie notes that the younger scene is aiming to challenge that.

“Some old heads do possess a ‘gatekeeper’ mentality that I see some younger kids pick up too,” she said. “For example, the talk on ‘what’s hardcore’ and ‘what isn’t.’ F*** that. Hardcore means an open mind. Hardcore is about love and respect. I believe that once people understand that hardcore means those things instead of all the other rules they have made up, that gap between old heads and youngsters in the hardcore world will close up. Hardcore music is simultaneously an outlet and enclosure for many people. I believe there shouldn’t be any hesitancy towards wanting more people to be a part of its special nature. Therefore, I think people should keep challenging the existing barriers of hardcore; create a new meaning that respects its roots but comprises a new bloom.”

Krak feels that there is a lot that the older hardcore scene and the newer hardcore scene can do for each other if they can come together, but it starts with communication.

“I don’t think there’s as much a divide, as there needs to be better communication,” he said. “It could be beneficial for both scenes to work together. The older scene has experienced a lot of things they can share with the younger crew because not everything was recorded, archived. There’s a lot of hardcore history even in our area that wasn’t archived, so it’s still like a tribal, word-of-mouth type thing. So there’s those kind of scene elders, and it’s like, as a scene elder, are you gonna be a jerk, or are you gonna be open-minded?”

As for what the newer scene can bring the older scene, he said, “I feel like a lot of the young people are grasping what they think is important in hardcore and punk and making attempts at it, and a lot of times they’re gonna make a totally new form of hardcore punk, or make it fresh in a new way.”

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