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[livingthelie]

i'm hoping i'm not the only kid out here into hardcore.

but here are some good albums to get into.

Barricade - the weathered
Holy Mountain - enemies
Tragedy - vengeance
Good Clean Fun - saving the scene from the forces of evil
Blood For Blood - outlaw anthems
The Answer - you had your chance

anyone out there wanna contribute?

[BeoPuppy]

I was once at a Biohazard concert. SSomeone asked his girlfriend to marry him from the stage. The band kindly allowed this. Unfortunately, the girl never responded. So, it became sort of sad really soon.

But Biohazard was fun.

[Thrillho]

The hardcore I've heard, I love. There's a passion and extremity to the music that I can identify with. Black Flag, for example. Their first album is practically aural mush, but the staggering emotion to it blows me away. Plus I love 'Six Pack.'

I also quite like some post-hardcore. I adore Refused's last album.

[livingthelie]

oh, yeah, i love post-hardcore.  planes mistaken for stars ranks as one of my all time favorite bands.  and refused's last album rocks my socks.

biohazard is good stuff, but they have some shady members (i.e. their bassist having a sideline as a porn star).  but, whatever makes them happy, right?

tommy, if you liked minor threat, maybe you should check out trial.  their ep "are these our lives" while not a direct homage to those early hardcore bands, is still very obviously influenced by them.  real good stuff.

[livingthelie]

er...yes and no, i suppose.  you see, all those bands are definately INFLUENCED by hardcore.  but their sound is a little too different to really be considered pure hardcore.

ok, so yeah, that made me sound like a total snob, i know, but bear with me.

converge, who are awesome, don't consider themselves hardcore.  i remember reading an interview with them in which jacob bannon described them in some incredibly pretentious way (i believe it was "emotional noisecore") and i just kinda laughed.  cuz in the end, they're a convergence of sound and philosophy that attracts hardcore, metal, and indie rock kids alike.  they are, in effect, "post-hardcore" (a similarly pretentious monikor, but better than nothing, eh?)

[crotch rot]

are you from the northwest?

[Skibas_clavicle]

Hardcore is a genre I have some of the most difficulties with. I like Black Flag, Circle Jerks, some Discharge and The Germs.  The closest new music to harcore on my "like" list would be The Blood Brothers and Alexisonfire. I used to listen to PMFS a few years ago, not much anymore.

[Johnny C]

Man, Alexisonfire's new album was disappointing.

[Skibas_clavicle]

No, their second albums was disappointing. The first albums had such a hard sound and the second was so watered down.  I was not expecting anything for this one.

[Will]

I will chime in with my own twopence here...

I'm not a fan so much of the traditional, straight hardcore...don't much care for the old 80's stuff - I consider Henry Rollins to be one of my literary heroes, but I never cared much for the music - but I do like a lot of music that gets lumped in with hardcore.

I can't possibly gush enough over bands like American Nightmare/Give Up The Ghost, The Hope Conspiracy, or Modern Life Is War.  I guess these guys are pretty standard hardcore.
Converge is my favorite band hands down, but I don't really consider them hardcore; I actually just call them punk rock, which gets me in trouble with a lot of punk purists, but I figure a band that for 15 years has done their own thing their own way, and is still going on as hard and as arasive as ever is punk rock to me.  Most of what I like is more hardcore influenced, rather than being purely hardcore - Orchid, Pg. 99, City Of Caterpillar, just about every band that has put out music on Level Plane records...most of what is released on Deathwish also greatly appeals to me.

I guess to me, the term "hardcore" in music is interchangeable with "punk rock" and I don't use either one in their strictly traditional sense; they both describe music that I find to be deeply passionate and played with a great deal of heart.  A lot of what falls into the hardcore genre just feels too cut-and-paste, riff-by-numbers, and scene obsessed.  There's a great deal of insincerety from what I have witnessed, so I try to distance myself from the label itself, and just listen to what moves me.

I'm just doing what I can to prove all the people who told me that "when you grow up, you'll grow out of this yelling screaming noisy music" wrong...

Edit:  Tommy, I don't know why this is, but it just seems a little strange to me that you used to listen to Converge...cool and all, but hard to picture. 

[livingthelie]

yeah, pretty much what i believe.  the entire term "hardcore" can and is overused.  but i still use it for lack of a better label (and please don't anyone chime in with some tired 'why do you need to label yourself' comment.  i don't care) and will continue to label myself in that way.  btw, i LOVE modern life is war, and hope conspiracy.  and converge continue to be just fucking fantastic.

and crotch rot, yeah, i live in victoria, bc, canada.  about as northwest as you can get without being in the yukon.

[beat mouse]

i've been in a love-hate relationship with hardcore for a while now, because while i simply cannot deny my love for so many hardcore bands (admittedly hailing from new england moreso than the northwest) i fucking LOATHE the scene that comes with it. the northwest scene generally bores me, and while there could be a few good bands creeping out once in a while, they get so overexposed to me that when i hear what the bass player had for dinner last night from 14 people that dont even know him, i just cant bring myself to go to their shows or listen to their music.

I also hate northwest hardcore because i think FSU is a complete joke and everytime a friend of mine brings them up I try to remind them that FSU is a scummy gang that deals coke, and not in fact a bunch of friends who stand united.

[Rizzo]

Let's see... I'm a huge fan of Tragedy, From Ashes Rise, Ramallah, Comeback Kid, Modern Life is War, Converge, Shai Hulud and The Bronx. Plus there are plenty of local hardcore bands who I could pimp.

[Scytale]

Hmm to be honest I'm not hugely into Hardcore, Refused is about the only HC band I listen to regularly and I really only listen to "Shape of Punk to Come", that album just seems to  click, decent vocals, good lyrics and excellent riffs.

A lot of my friends in Canberra are heaps into hardcore, whenever I visit my parents I'll ususally go to a show with them, a must admit the music is a lot better live then on cd. They are all into Australian shit mainly, stuff like "Embodiment 12:14" "Parkway Drive" and "I Killed the Prom Queen". They've tried to get me into bands like "Thursday", "Ringworm", "Shai Hulud" (probably because of the dune reference ) and "Most Precious Blood", but I'm not a fan at all.

Some of the 80's "thrashy" stuff like DRI, SOD, MOD and that sort of thing I don't mind, not sure how "hardcore" they are though.

[livingthelie]

i've been in a love-hate relationship with hardcore for a while now, because while i simply cannot deny my love for so many hardcore bands (admittedly hailing from new england moreso than the northwest) i fucking LOATHE the scene that comes with it. the northwest scene generally bores me, and while there could be a few good bands creeping out once in a while, they get so overexposed to me that when i hear what the bass player had for dinner last night from 14 people that dont even know him, i just cant bring myself to go to their shows or listen to their music.

I also hate northwest hardcore because i think FSU is a complete joke and everytime a friend of mine brings them up I try to remind them that FSU is a scummy gang that deals coke, and not in fact a bunch of friends who stand united.

...except that FSU was founded in, and still based in, boston.  SOOOOO yeah.  i guess new england sucks too.

but, your right.  generalities aside, there are problems with the hardcore scene.  thank god the indie rock scene and the hip hop scene and the punk rock scene are such shining examples of ethics, standards, and openness.

oops, wait, no, they're just as bad.

fact is, any scene youre in is just as bad as you make it.  simply standing on the sidelines and doing nothing will not make a scene better.  if you really love hardcore, but hate the way kids act, then jump in, put in your two cents, and do something to make a positive difference.  otherwise, don't tell me how much my scene sucks.  because i'm doing the best i can to make it better, and hearing that from someone kinda makes it harder to do that.

please refer to suicide files song "i hate you" for a more concise version of what i just said.

/rant

p.s.  but yeah, FSU sucks.  no question of that.

(edited for spelling)

[Will]

Dude, we KNOW Rizzo's hardcore...look at his sig!
I forgot to add Ringworm.  Didn't really care about that band until I saw them play live with Converge last year. 

[livingthelie]

Let's see... I'm a huge fan of Tragedy, From Ashes Rise, Ramallah, Comeback Kid, Modern Life is War, Converge, Shai Hulud and The Bronx. Plus there are plenty of local hardcore bands who I could pimp.

pimp, pimp!!  i love discovering new bands, thats always awesome. 

oh, and i LOVE tragedy, and ramallah. 

and scytale, that's too bad that you can't get into most precious blood.  they're a fantastic band (at least in my opinion).  but, the fact that you gave them a listen and tried them out is pretty awesome.  not a lot of people give hardcore even that much of a chance.

[ALoveSupreme]

What's too bad is that I grew into hardcore (aside from finding refused on 120 minutes, staying up "late" freshman year) with the hardcore scene that is now generally regarded as ingenuine, cheap and fake. 

The "metalcore" scene of the midwest with bands like End This Day and Dead to Fall and most notably 7 Angels 7 Plagues was one of the most amazing things to see grow, and is probably the only "scene" I'll ever truly feel attached to.  Getting to watch these types of bands in shithole basements where most of the audiance dancing had to worry they'd slam their head on the 7 foot high, dilapidated cieling, while these kids did what they loved and did it with the true passion of any DIY scene will always inspire me.

Now I see tons of bands that are just capitolizing on the fact that this has become a huge trend in heavy music (basically no better than numetal at this point), and what's almost worse is hearing people who know nothing about what the begining was like deride it as shit music through and through.

I don't really care that those types of bands aren't "hardcore" in the classic sense of Bad Brains or Nation of Ulysses or whatever.  I'll always associate the movement I experienced with the overall essence of the hardcore/punk DIY ethic and emotion. 


oh, and to add for favorite albums (again, not technically "hardcore", but all of these bands drew from hardcore roots, etc blah blah blah):
Coma Eternal- The Nuance Formula
End This Day- Sleeping Beneather the Ashes of Creation
Dead to Fall- 2002 5 Song Untilted demo
7 Angels 7 Plagues- Jhazmyne's Lullabye

[Rizzo]

Dude, we KNOW Rizzo's hardcore...look at his sig!

Haha, Cthulhucore for life. I'd forgotten about my sig.

Pimping you say?

The Wrongmen; Auckland band similar in many ways to Converge but more political and more brutal.
http://www.the-wrongmen.com/

Antagonist; Hamilton metalcore band, getting a bit fruity these days but still pretty decent.
 http://www.myspace.com/alwaystheantagonist

Every Man for Himself; Auckland metalcore band, keeping it real, Christian and quite posi but still damn good. Probably the coolest website of any hardcore band, especially the dressups game.
http://www.myspace.com/everymanforhimself
http://www.willworkforfood.co.nz/emfh/

Fever Lake; Auckland, they vary between genuine screamo and hardcore.
http://www.myspace.com/feverlake

Cold by Winter; Auckland, meh, most famous but possibly least original.
http://www.myspace.com/coldbywinternz

Kill Me Quickly; Auckland, very political hardcore, now broken up or so I heard.
http://www.myspace.com/killmequicklynz

Damaged; Wellington, good shit.
http://www.myspace.com/damagednz

Actionman Records; NZ's hardcore label.
http://www.actionmanrecords.com/

[livingthelie]

sweet!!  i'm gonna check all those bands out.  thanks.

and lovesupreme, i feel your pain.  metalcore really isn't my thing (although there are a few really good bands out there) but i understand the frustration of watching a once great scene go to shit because of kids getting "too cool" or because of shit talking.  sucks, sucks, sucks.

a few great bands to check out from victoria:

tough as nails

  http://www.myspace.com/toughasnailshc

this band has been around a long time, and is fantastic because of it.

AK47

http://www.myspace.com/ak47_hardcore

really awesome thrashy hardcore from guys that have been doing this shit for longer than most of us have been alive.  they still come to shows, too.  rad, rad people.

ice cold

http://www.myspace.com/icefuckingcold

ok, technically, these guys are from vancouver, and TECHNICALLY they're broken up, but man are they good.  and really nice guys,too.  like, ridiculously nice. 

no holding back

http://www.myspace.com/noholdingbackband

the most amazing band in existence, they will cause you to transcend the evolutionary ladder, and come out a new person  ok, so it's my band, and we're just ok.
 whatever.

so, yeah.  there.  whoo!

[ImRonBurgundy?]

LIMPWRIST!

[Will]

Limpwrist is some fun times...

I LOVE...HARDCORE BOYS...I LOVE BOYS HARDCOOOOOOOOOOORE!!!!

Gots ta love it

[livingthelie]

haha.  one of the guitarists in my band is gay.  he keeps (only half) jokingly trying to convince us to change our name to joe holding jack, and to become a queercore band. 

[KharBevNor]

I like some old school hardcore, and a lot of crossover.

Wouldn't touch metalcore, post-hardcore or deathcore with a ten foot fucking bargepole though, and almost without exception the 'hardcore kids' here in the South of England are the ones responsible for violence and ruining gigs. What I've read about American groups like FSU and salt lake city straight-edgers makes them sound approximately ten times worse. The hardcore/emo (fuck you tommy) scene cabal on the Isle of Wight destroyed everything that I found good in local music within about six months of me getting in to it. 

So, meh.

[livingthelie]

my problem with statements like that is that it isn't particularly objective, or fair to the rest of the hardcore scene.  it would be like saying "all metal kids are just a bunch of drunk assholes who have the intelligence of cold toast".  true, i've met LOTS of metal kids like that.  but i've also met a shitload of really great, nice, intelligent metal kids that simply love their music, and love their scene.

the fact is, you'll find assholes in pretty much any walk of life.  i am by no means saying that the actions of FSU or militant asshole sxe are ok.  i won't condone their actions, ever.  what i am saying, is please don't paint all of us with the same brush.  that's unfair, and frankly untrue. 

most hardcore kids i know simply love life, love their family, and love their music.  that's it. 

[KharBevNor]

Read the whole sentence. It's quite obvious I'm talking about the emo thing.

[E. Spaceman]

Has Envy been mentioned? I like Envy

[KharBevNor]

What the fuck? Sorry for wounding you to the very core of your being and expressing my deepest, utmost feelings with a fucking throwaway remark in brackets about the usage of the word 'emo' on a fucking forum on the internet.

I give up.

[!!!CPAOI!!!]

so i deserve a 'fuck you' because you used i word i despise?

seriously khar, would it really hurt you to give me an inch occasionally? i really am trying to appreciate your point of view on all matters but it's hard when you aren't prepared to accept any middle ground between us.

He was only casually referring to your militant hate of the term and half-sticking it to you before you went on another rant about it.  Chill out bro  .

[livingthelie]

...BOY I SURE DO LOVE HARDCORE!!! 

anyone wanna maybe talk about that?

HUH?!?

[KharBevNor]

Tommy, I think you have some sort of persecution complex/sense of humour deficiency.

I was talking about hardcore. Do kids nowadays think of Stormtroopers of Death as hardcore at all? Because I was always trying to play them to my mates who said they liked hardcore and/or metalcore and was always getting blank stares in return.

[livingthelie]

meh.  i always consider SOD in the same vain as pantera style metal.  that's just me, though.

[Misereatur]

Ok, a lot of bands have been name dropped in this thread. So, can you guys just list a few albums to get me started with hardcore?

[Thrillho]

Ok, a lot of bands have been name dropped in this thread. So, can you guys just list a few albums to get me started with hardcore?

Black Flag - Damaged
Refused - The Shape Of Punk To Come
Lucky Nine - True Crown Foundation Songs

That's more or less how I started, and I'm doing just fine...

[livingthelie]

if i could, i'd just like to add:

boy sets fire - in chrysalis

snapcase - progression through unlearning

trial - are these our lives?

those are all really good, and pretty easy to get into.  plus, boy sets fire does a great cover of "holiday in cambodia" thats still the best i've heard.

[Johnny C]

No, their second album was disappointing.

Julia, you're shattering the foundations of my world. Watch Out! was a record well-above par, boasting both an exploratory nature and lyrical maturity. The singles off of the record were postively superb, whereas tracks like "Sharks And Danger" and "Happiness By The Kilowatt" showed off a rather gorgeous understanding of aural texturing. There were admittedly fewer serrated edges to the album but I would rank it as their best to date, easily.

Also everything in the last ten-ish posts would be far easier to avoid if we just used "de-pop," which I'm going to keep saying until everyone fucking does it already.

[Kyros]

Well I love Minor Threat but other than them I never really got into any other hardcore bands.  Unless you count Bear vs. Shark as hardcore, or post hardcore or whatever. I love me some BvS.

[livingthelie]

oh, bear vs. shark are amazing.  but i don't think i'd classify them as anything. they're just too damn weird.

[crotch rot]

and crotch rot, yeah, i live in victoria, bc, canada.? about as northwest as you can get without being in the yukon.

yea, im from washington and saw you meantion a bunch of nwhc bands soooooo yea.
did death threat go to canada this weekend?

[livingthelie]

if they did, i didn't know about it.  i love death threat.  i would have been there, for sure.

[jeph]

Something about hardcore really bugs me, but I'm not sure what it is.

Could be the silly-ass moshpit dancing ("THIS MUSIC ROCKS SO HARD IT MAKES ME WANT TO PUNCH THE FLOOR!!![/B]")

[livingthelie]

yes.  your right.  it's so silly.  not nearly as intelligent as say headbanging (which hurts my neck just looking at it). or maybe the "punk rock drunken stumble into the PA".  or how about burning down churches...wait, sorry, that was just norway.

how about we accept the fact that everybody's scene's have things in them we don't particularly understand, and probably never will. 

honestly, i'm NEVER gonna get the industrial scene. 





ever.

[KharBevNor]

It's not that hard to understand, really. It's just a load of really left wing people pretending to be robot space nazis.

What's the current opinion on the Dead Kennedys. They still hardcore? Because if so they're probably the hardcore band I most like and respect.


Punk's not dead
It just deserves to die
When it becomes another stale cartoon
A close-minded, self-centered social club
Ideas don't matter, it's who you know
If the music's gotten boring
It's because of the people
Who want everyone to sound the same
Who drive bright people out
Of our so-called scene
'Til all that's left Is just a meaningless fad
Hardcore formulas are dogshit
Change and caring are what's real
Is this a state of mind
Or just another label
The joy and hope of an alternative
Have become its own cliche
A hairstyle's not a lifestyle
Imagine Sid Vicious at 35
Who needs a scene
Scared to love and to feel
Judging everythng
By loud fast rules appeal
Who played last night?
"I don't know, I forgot.
But diving off the stage Was a lot of fun."

[livingthelie]

haha.  yeah, i had a really good friend once who was super into industrial.  like, "looked like a rejected matrix extra" into industrial.  he pretty much said the same thing.  just kinda goes over my head, really.

and yeah.  i'd say dead kennedy's are fully in the realm of hardcore.  early hardcore, in the vein of black flag, but definately hardcore.

[Will]

If I may add a few album recommendations of my own:

Modern Life Is War - Witness.
American Nightmare (later known as Give Up The Ghost) - Background Music
The Hope Conspiracy - Death Knows Your Name.
Blacklisted - The Beat Goes On

Those are all some straight hardcore albums that really make me happy.

[Johnny C]

What's the current opinion on the Dead Kennedys.

The current opinion is I don't like the Dead Kennedys.

[jeph]

yes.? your right.? it's so silly.? not nearly as intelligent as say headbanging (which hurts my neck just looking at it). or maybe the "punk rock drunken stumble into the PA".? or how about burning down churches...wait, sorry, that was just norway.

You forgot the indie-rocker stand-still-with-your-arms-crossed-and-nod-your-head dance.

[Johnny C]

and you forgot the toe-tap! the toe-tap makes that move, jeph. makes it.

[Scytale]

What about at Prog concerts where people bring foldout chairs with them to sit down in the front row and watch...

[SpacemanSpiff]

I'm not quite sure whether what I like is actually hardcore in the purest form, save for a few classic bands such as Black Flag, Gorilla Biscuits, Minor Threat, Dead Kennedys ... are Nation of Ulysses considered hardcore now or not?
For some reason though, bands like Biohazard and Sick of it All don't do it at all for me. Like many other hardcore bands I know, the music is pretty good live (and sometimes painful, for example The Hope Conspiracy) but on CD rather boring. I guess I need more than a couple of breakdowns.
I'm more partial to what hardcore inspired, namely stuff like Botch or Ion Dissonance, noise-influenced hardcore like M?nus, bands like Orchid or Rorschach and especially that spastic hardcore for people with ADD, such as Daughters, The Locust and especially the early 90s San Diego scene.