Everybody's Scene Book Release Party 11/27/2009 8PM Cafe 9, New Haven CT

Ken Salerno on Victim In Pain part II

This is the continuation of Ken Salerno's Agnostic Front "Victim In Pain" photo post. In case you forgot, the reason for all these "Victim In Pain" appreciation and memories posts stem from the official re-release of AF's "Victim In Pain" on Bridge 9 Records. I received my copy in the mail last week, along with the re-release of AF's "United Blood" EP and I gotta say, Chris Wrenn and the rest of the B9 crew did a great job on these re-releases. Check it out here B9 Store, you won't be disappointed. -Tim DCXX

Jay Krakdown part II

Jay hits the NYC crowd during a Krakdown set at CBGB's, Photo: Boiling Point

Who were your favorite HC bands early on?

My favorite bands…wow another hard one…so I am just going to make a quick list of bands as they come to mind…so this is in no particular order: Sick Of It All, Killing Time, Cro Mags, AF, CFA, Murphys Law, Regan Youth, Void, Minor Threat, Bad Brains, Mariah Carey (just making sure you’re still paying attention), Absolution, Circle Jerks, Sham 69, GB, Outburst, NY Hoods, 7 Seconds, Slapshot, Urban Waste, The Mob, Icemen, Underdog, Rest in Pieces, Straight Ahead, Dr. Know, Iron Cross, Mental Abuse, Black Flag, The Germs, Token Entry, Warzone, Nausea, and on and on.

I know I left so much out…especially all the old punk that influenced me before I discovered hardcore but I guess that will have to do for now. I really liked most of the bands I saw. I was not this huge record collector (although I have many old records and tapes from back then).

Again, for me hardcore was about the people, especially my friends. So I can’t tell you what band cut a rare record in such and such a year but I do know who I hung out with at such and such a show. Hardcore to me was about live music and friends and the energy associated with seeing a live band. That is why I slowly moved away from the scene as it changed. Now that I am older I look back on the changes and realize all things change and evolve. The anger I felt back then was wasted energy and I am grateful for the time I had to be a part of something as amazing as the NYHC scene. I am happy to see some of my closest friends from the scene still out there playing and waving the flag of NYHC as it once was.


When and how did the idea to start Krakdown develop?

The idea to start Krakdown was really accidental. In 1985 Damon and I were messing around with music and lyrics when we both got the idea to start a band. Damon had some music and I had some lyrics so we decided to form a band. We got our friend Richie on board and started jamming. Richie was in the original Krakdown that was formed and disbanded in 1984 so he asked Damon and I if we would be interested in playing some of the old Krakdown songs. We were both fans of Krakdown so we figured it would be pretty cool. We had a hard time finding a drummer that understood the feel we were looking for. We finally found John through an ad he hung on the wall of Some Records. John had seen the old Krakdown and had the old punk drumming sound we were looking for. We could not come up with a name for the band so we decided to carry on the Krakdown torch.

Where did you see Krakdown fitting into the NYHC scene at the time and who were the bands you most liked playing with?

How did Krakdown fit in to NYHC…shit I don’t know if we fit in with each other let alone the scene. Let’s see, Damon the bass player was an angry Rasta/skinhead that spoke of peace as he beat your ass, Richie was a whacked out pot smoking, drinking skater, John the drummer was in his 40s at the time and was the first macrobiotic I had ever met…so we laughed at how he ate seaweed and rice, and there was me…an angry kid that had just quit drinking, drugging, and HS…not to be straight edge but to stay out of jail. So how does that dysfunctional mess fit in with the scene? I guess we were misfits so we were a perfect fit!

I guess I see our place in the history of the scene as just another band that loved to play more of a old style punk/hardcore than just straight hardcore. We never really fit into the mold of many of the bands that were coming out at that time. The music was changing to a much heavier, tougher sound than in the past but we stuck with the older more punk sound of hardcore. Don’t get me wrong, I loved all the bands that were coming out at the time but we tried to keep our sound alive. I know that cost us in popularity but we didn’t care (remember we were angry kids so fuck everyone else). We also didn’t record as much as a lot of other bands and we didn’t write new songs as fast as everyone else. This is because our focus was on playing live and putting on crazy shows full of energy. I don’t know if we accomplished that but fuck it we tried. We were also too dysfunctional to write new music or get our asses into the studio. Combine that with marriage, jobs, etc. so all we had was our live shows. That was when we didn’t argue…I just got on stage and had a blast. So I hope we will be remembered as just a band that loved to play, loved the scene, and put on a good show.

As for who I liked playing with the most…well just my friends: SOIA (we did a lot of shows with them and we always had a blast…I still sport my Alleyway Crew tat with pride and respect to my brothers!), Raw Deal/ Killing Time, Absolution, Token Entry, Ludachrist, Rest in Pieces, Nausea, Trip 6, Maximum Penalty, Straight Ahead, SFA, Side by Side, Supertouch, GB, Outburst, and on and on. Sorry I know I left people out but you know who you were. I always had a blast playing with these guys and it made for a good time.


Jay and Richie with Krakdown, Photo courtesy of: Jay

Brian Walsby on The Cathay De Grande

The Cathay De Grande was this seedy basement club a block or so away from Hollywood Blvd. in (you guessed it) Hollywood. It was on a street called Selma Ave. And even more interesting was that Mystic Records was a block away! I think I spent the bulk of 1984 going to this club to see a variety of cool bands. I was sort of making up for lost time; at this point I was already a published cartoon scribbler and started to get mail, but I still hadn’t gone to a real show until December of 1983 (which was 45 Grave, Redd Kross (with Dez Cadena) and D. Boon). I didn’t drive. So I waited till some of the friends I had made as pen pals would actually go out of their way to come get me for some shows...even if I did live in Ventura County, seemingly a million miles from anything cool or exciting.

By this time, I had also met the guys in Scared Straight. Scott Radinsky drove and had a blue pick up truck. We’d make the trek into Hollywood a lot to see shows, and for whatever the reason most of them were at the Cathey De Grande. It was exciting. Finally I was able to see all of this cool shit. And there was a dangerous vibe to it as well. I thought anything could happen at any time, and there was rarely any occasion that made us feel that it wasn’t worth the trek.

Looking back, I am struck by what a naïve and undeniable dork I was, definitely not one of the tough and scary kinds of punk rockers. I was a slightly pudgy longhaired Jewish kid with glasses. I was just totally into the music and lived to find out more about what I had been buying and reading in this subculture. And it was all good at that point. Even when it wasn’t it still was. It was exciting just being in that room far far away from my parent’s house. And of course I met a lot of other like minded kids that were also really into the same things.


A shredding Die Kreuzen

Die Kreuzen played there on their first album tour. To say they were good and ahead of their time would be a great understatement. They were perhaps the ultimate band at the time but still seemed so weird and different then almost everybody else at the time. I have a picture somewhere of me and Ryan Hoffman (of Justice League) sitting on a monitor on the nonexistent stage watching bassist Keith Brammer play, and we are both sitting there looking at him with our eyes and mouths wide open like we are watching the second coming of Jesus...or at least Marc Bolan. I mean, he really had good hair.

Seven Seconds and Uniform Choice played a great show there as well. Some of the times I had seen 7 Seconds play they were not too hot. Not this night. It was like a nonstop sing along, one would be hit after another, the bulk of “The Crew” and “Committed For Life” unfurled. There was another show where I saw this one band called Condemned To Death. They were from San Francisco and they were an amazing band. A lot of people don’t really remember these guys but they were great.


Kevin Seconds (with the Brian Walsby drawn shirt) and Steve Youth with 7 Seconds at the Sun Valley Sportman's Hall 1984, Photo: Joe Henderson

Another show that I remember there was during the summer of 1984. Some of you might remember that the Olympics were being held in Los Angeles back then, so the city appeared to have looked a little cleaned up. The previous night was a big Goldenvoice show at the infamous Olympic Auditorium where Dead Kennedys, Raw Power, Reagan Youth and BGK played. We had heard that a quickie show was being held the next night at the Cathey and that some of the same bands would be playing. The bill ended up being Cause For Alarm, AOD and BGK. It was a great show but I remember BGK totally stole the show. At the time they were one of the most precise hardcore bands I had ever seen. It was hot as shit down there that night. Good times.

The club also had this once a week thing called DUNKER NIGHT. For the price of one dollar, you could get in and watch up to eleven bands in one night! And a lot of them were real good. There was one band that seemed to play that night all the time called Incest Cattle. They were this amazing trio that had all of these weird songs that ran the gamut from post punk screeching noise to furious hardcore to overt metal songs and everything in between. The weird looking short bassist with the Human League haircut turned out to be Doug Carrion who joined the Descendents when they reformed a year or so later. I remember seeing a band called MADMEN that featured people that looked (gasp!) old. What were these people doing here? Remember how it was when you were eighteen and when you met someone who was not even thirty, and you couldn’t believe it? Well, these guys were older than that, I bet. The singer was this furious front person who really had presence. They also seemed to have more command of their instruments; unlike some of the other fellow youngsters I have seen playing music. Dunker Night was always really cool for me. I wonder if anyone else remembers that?

I met all kinds of people there. I remember hanging out with Tim Kerr and Randy “Biscuit” Turner of the Big Boys in the stairwell one night. I was struck by how nice and friendly they were, which is what everyone said. It left a big impression on me. Almost every single living punk rock “celeb” that I knew of seemed to drop by there at least once. Sometimes I would bother these people but most of the time I would just admire them from afar, too nervous to actually engage in conversation. I met the legendary El Duce of the Mentors, who was everything you would think he would be if you know who that person was; a total laugh riot. Of course he was shitfaced. Hanging out with Al and Hud from the legendary FLIPSIDE magazine was also a big deal. And it was really cool to find out that almost all of the people that I had admired, known about and looked up to were all personable and nice. I wasn’t sure why I expected anything else but there you go.


The infamous Olympic Auditorium

Speaking of shitfaced, the funniest thing about all of the times I went to the Cathay De Grande was how I was this dumb little kid who didn’t do anything but religiously watch these bands and the fact that I usually was surrounded by all of these fucked up and drunk people. I never drank or smoked pot or anything like that...not at that time anyways, so it meant nothing to me but I had no problems with it. Actually, it was kind of exciting to be around, to be honest. It made things scarier, if that makes sense. And for every time I saw a show there like 7 Seconds where there were more young people that didn’t necessarily want to get fucked up, there were plenty of drug addicts, speed freaks and alcoholics at various other slightly more “adult” shows that catered to those damn punk rockers.

I can’t seem to recall when and why the club closed down but I think it happened right before I moved to the East Coast. So I am guessing that it was the end of 1985 or so. I haven’t been to a club that had that kind of vibe since. It was disgusting and seedy and falling apart but for awhile it was like a second home to me. There have probably been at least a thousand photos that people took of bands playing at the Cathay De Grande...and some of those photos have made it into fanzines and the back covers and inserts of rare records that some of you reading this right now probably own.


Brian Walsby and Al Quint of Suburban Voice Fanzine, 1985, Photo courtesy of: Al Quint

Ken Salerno on Victim In Pain

Just got back to the east coast and wanted to put my two cents into the AF Victim In Pain post. Since everyone is commenting on how that album changed their lives and such, I thought I'd do a photo essay because AF was one of those bands that was soooo easy to shoot. These photos are all from City Gardens. Randy Now (CG's show promoter) was always nervous about a few bands that were regulars because of the NO SLAM DANCING, NO STAGE DIVING rule put in place by Frank "King Tut", the owner of City Gardens. Randy had to take shit from Frank, parents and Trenton police(on occasion) if the bands went off big, and AF ALWAYS went big. Anyway, here's what I saw at the time. Kudos to Roger and AF for still being out there. Over/Out, Salerno










To be continued...

Everybody's Scene outtakes with Ray Cappo part II

Here's the continuation of Ray Cappo's interview outtakes from Chris Daily's upcoming book, Everybody's Scene. If you liked the first entry, this one hits just as hard, if not harder. This pretty much goes without saying at this point, but thanks to Chris for letting us use this and definitely grab the book when it's released. -Tim DCXX

The Anthrax became our new hangout, basically. We'd go every weekend practically. Sometimes they'd have like three shows a week and it would just get to be too much. But we pretty much went every weekend.

We all came from Danbury to Stamford, and we just sort of met everybody from there. I remember Porcell came. I met Porcell there. He was just like, "Holy crap! You guys are Violent Children! I always hear you guys on Adventure Jukebox!" We put out a single, also, which was, through Bill. Bill produced the whole thing. We recorded in his basement. He produced Moby and the Vatican Commandos, and he did Reflex From Pain and he did CIA's stuff. He was like, "you wanna do a single?" And we were like, "Yeah!" So we recorded 8 songs and we just put it out ourselves. We didn't even know if we'd sell any, we just sold it to the local crappy record store, the Record Express or something right on West Street or something. Same street that West Conn is on. "Can we sell our records here on consignment?" And we'd sell them! Unbelievable. Strange as hell. Sell all these records right there at that store. Rough Trade said we'd like to buy 300 records. "Yeah we'll take ‘em on consignment." And we sold them, and they'd send us the check! I never thought they'd send us a check. We were holding that check for six hundred dollars! We could not believe it. That was it. That was the beginning of me and my record business. Started making and selling records. We only made 500 and we sold them quick. It's been bootlegged a few times.

As far as Shaun and Brian, I think I got kicked out by Shaun once at The Anthrax. Brian kicked me out once for doing something. I got 86'd from the Anthrax once cuz I stole a flyer. But I'm great friends with both of them. I love them both. We were like family back then. But I think at one point they kicked me out for stealing a flyer. I didn't think it was bad though. I was like, "You can't steal 'em? I like it. Can't you just copy it?"


A faux gig with Cappo singing to his crazed fans in some bedroom in Newport RI. This was a stop while on tour with 7 Seconds and Youth of Today. In the photo is: Ray, Kevin Seconds, Jordan Cooper, Porcell, Eric Boofish Barclay, Galen Young, Pete Chramiec, Dave Stein, Photo: Bessie Oakley

There's the story with them and how they didn't want YOT to play with 7Seconds. There was a special bond with us and 7Seconds. They ruled our lives. They were our Gods. So when they came to town, they had made special arrangements. At that point there was such a tight community between Boston and Rhode Island and Albany and us in Connecticut that, When 7 Seconds was coming to town, Youth Of Today got on all the shows. Violent Children was allowed the year before to play with them in Connecticut. That was the dream come true. But then the next year, with YOT, the dream came even more and we played a whole little tour. But by the time it came to The Anthrax in Connecticut, the Sheridans wouldn’t let us play. Brian was giving us a hard time. He didn't want us to play, I was freakin' ready to kill him. Brian was only a few years older than us, but he appeared to be an adult. We appeared to be a bunch of dirt bags. He represented a few notches under my dad.

He's turning 50 this year, and I'm 43. So 7 years older than me. But back then he was like 25... you know, you old piece of shit. It's like, "You're 25!?!?! And Vinnie Stigma, he's 30!" That was like, the big outrage, "He's 30 years old and he's still into this shit!?!?" So anyway, he wouldn't let us play the show. I was just always trying to sneak in the door. You'd never know if he was trying to rip you off or we were just being cheap. I mean, he did have to run a business. What I do remember is when we went from the small Anthrax to the big Anthrax, we went from getting paid nothing to one day, Brian from the big Anthrax was like, "here's 500 bucks" and we were just like, "What?! You're going to pay us 500 dollars for one show?! Oh my God!" We'd always get like, "Okay, here's 20 bucks." Okay, thanks. We would never argue about money. It was never an issue to get paid, no one thought, we're doing this to get paid.

But as YOT got bigger later on, they were big shows. Youth Of Today, as we got big, we didn't realize we were big. I remember coming back to Connecticut and Todd Knapp goes, "So what's it like? You're in a big band." I was like "I am?" He was like "What do you mean man, you're in every fanzine, and they're all writing about you guys!" We were a little oblivious almost. My thinking was, well I guess we've done our time, doesn't everyone get big? Youth Of Today just became a phenomenon and we didn't really understand it while it was happening.


Youth Of Today at Gilman St. 1987, Photo: Wayne Vanderkuil

As YOT got bigger, I will say it was a little weird for me because all those guys in CT were like my elders in the scene. I was a young kid in the Connecticut scene. It was peculiar. I remember playing with AOD. AOD was one of the older guys' bands. We really loved them. We were playing some show in Arizona when they had to open for YOT and I was like, "They're the big band! Why are they opening for us!? We're the little band!" It threw stuff around for me in my mind. But at that point it was sort of cool because I wasn't really part of the Connecticut scene at that point, because I had moved to New York. So it was cool to have some place where you knew everybody and felt comfortable.

I will say I wish I saw all those old Anthrax shows at the newer Anthrax in Norwalk. The newer Anthrax was so exponentially better to go to a hardcore show. The whole fun of going to a hardcore show is stage diving, let’s face it. If you're a teenage boy, it's the most fun thing in the world. You can jump off the stage and not get hurt, and pile up. It's good fun.


Youth Of Today at The Living Room, January 1989, Photo: Brian Boog

This reminds me of how I learned about stage diving. It goes back to the first time I went to a hardcore show - that Young And The Useless show. We went with Fudd, who was our authority. We respected anything he said - even though he was a total story teller. Let me go off on an aside here about Fudd for a minute:

He was a year older than us and he loved to lie, he was a pathological liar. I think he wanted us to be his friends so he could lie to us. He would tell us these fascinating stories that we were too dumb to call him on. His famous one, that we'll all recollect, is that he walked to Bridgeport from Danbury to see Laurie Anderson. He would look in the Village Voice, see that Joe Jackson was playing Peppermint Lounge, "Oh, I walked to New York to see Joe Jackson, it was really good." Oh you can WALK to NEW YORK? We were too dumb to understand that you can't walk to Bridgeport. So we were like, "Really? Wow. Fudd's been everywhere!"

The thing is, we were so desperate to have any punk friends, we accepted anyone. That's how we met Jordan from Revelation. He was the new kid in school and he had a Dead Kennedys "DK" written on his book. And I thought, “Oooh, a convert.” I can preach to him the ways of hardcore. All you needed was just a little bit of interest. All you needed to do was doodle a little anarchy "A" and we were like, "Let's get this guy!" We were always looking for converts to get someone from that regular scene into our scene to bring to our shows.


Tim Schellin, Ray, Bessie Oakley and Angie Whitworth Pace goofin' around at the Grange Hall, Photo courtesy of: Bessie Oakley

So anyways, Fudd would tell us he would go to all these shows. We accepted him as the punk elder out of us five: Me, Warren, Dave Rinelli, Chris Getz. So, according to Fudd, there was no such thing as slam dancing. It didn't exist. It was something that happened in the 70s. It was pogoing, and slamming, and then it ended. It was like, "Oh. That sucks. Can we slam?" He was like, "You can slam but it isn't real anymore." All of a sudden me and Fudd and this other girl, Shelly, a friend from high school, we all went to CBGBs. We were sitting at a table, we may even have been ordering a drink or something. So we are sitting at CBs, some rock band played, and all of a sudden Young And The Useless played and everyone starts slamming. And I just stood up and said "They're slamming! Fudd! They're slamming!" I could not believe it! I wanna slam too!"

I just started running, I had this long army trench coat, and a long mohawk. Of course there is a method to New York City slamming; you just don't run in. But I'm like this dorky kid from Danbury who didn't know the rules. I just ran in there and started slamming into everybody as much as I could. I remember perfectly, this guy grabs me and who is it? John Watson. He grabbed me by the neck and cocked his fist and was ready to punch my lights out and I just put up my hands, I said "I'm sorry, I'm new to this! I don't know what to do!" He just like, threw me down.

Then I also noticed that everyone was stage diving. It was the first time I ever saw stage diving. I saw these guys stage diving, they would say something into the microphone; I didn't realize they were singing along. I just thought they would say something random into the microphone. I was like, "alright, you've gotta pick something clever to say, because before this show stops I have to jump off that stage." So I’m slamming, slamming, slamming. And then the UK Subs were like, "Okay this is our last song," and I was like, “I've gotta do it.” So I jumped on the stage, I grabbed the microphone and said "Fuck Ronald Reagan" and I jumped off the stage. I didn't realize I was supposed to say the lyrics of the song. I just said something I thought was very poignant and would make me look cool. it probably had the opposite affect. That was it. From then on, we slammed...actually, we moshed. We copied the New York Style of moshing.

We were really into dancing as part of the culture. 100% stolen from New York. But I will say..and I traveled a lot back then...New York had a style of dancing that no one else had around the country. I mean, just from traveling around the country back then, it was actually an art form. I can't describe it. So we mimicked it as best as we could.


Youth Of Today at The Living Room, January 1989, Photo: Brian Boog

This Weekends Events

Joe Songco - NYC Hardcore, Thrash, and Hip Hop

Outburst drummer Joe Songco brings us a history lesson that takes us to the streets of NYC in 1986 and drops a ton of knowledge on how a lot of what is going on today in music can be traced back to that era. NYHC. -Gordo DCXX

Most, if not all, great music genres evolve in self-contained fashion. Musicians forming attitudes and ideologies to go along with their songs while loyal fans spread the message and the music, eventually transforming into a full-blown scene. The British Invasion in England. The Motown Explosion in Detroit. Punk again in England. Disco in New York. New Wave once again in England. Grunge in Seattle. To follow the trend and timeline, it was generally "one city, one scene." But in the early to mid 80's, New York City had three great up-and-coming music scenes running alongside each other at the same time. It was an unforgettable time to be a fan of underground music and if you were lucky enough to have been there to tune in to the streets, you will always remember what a magical time it was.

Hip hop, thrash and hardcore. Three musically distinct genres growing and functioning independently at first, destined to be intertwined by the end of the decade, thanks in large part to the unique swagger and undeniable attitude of New Yorkers themselves.


Each scene had their sources to communicate to the masses: When it came to radio, hardcore had shows like WNYU's Hellhole and Crucial Chaos; hip hop had shows put on by DJ's like Red Alert, Mr. Magic and Chuck Chillout; and thrash could be heard on Seton Hall's radio station WSOU 89.5 and every Friday night on WNEW's Metal Shop. Fans of each scene had places to go see their favorite acts all around the city. You went to A7, CBGB or Max's Kansas City if you wanted to dive and slam. You went to Latin Quarter or Union Square if you wanted to do the wop. You went to L' Amour's in Brooklyn if you wanted to headbang.

These were the scenes going in the greater New York area circa 1984 and the going was good. MC's rocked the mic, hardcore kids danced in the pit and headbangers, well, banged their heads. And each scene had their early pioneers getting out there and inspiring many others to listen, join the movement and perhaps try their hand at playing this music that had now captivated them. Kurtis Blow, Fearless Four, Grandmaster Flash, Run-DMC, Urban Waste, Kraut, Agnostic Front, Cro-Mags, Anthrax, Overkill, Manowar, Nuclear Assault - just to name a few…all playing to their respective crowds while existing peacefully in the confines of the bubble that was their scene.


But somewhere along the way, funny things began to happen: Run DMC used Eddie Martinez to play a blistering rock riff and solo in their classic track "Rock Box." The Beastie Boys traded their instruments for microphones, signed with Def Jam and released "Rock Hard" and "She's On It." Anthrax released "Spreading The Disease," with the video for "Madhouse" showing hospitalized patients showing off their best slam dancing moves in a mental ward. Spreading The Disease also featured an inner record sleeve collage containing numerous hardcore images. If you looked closely, you saw skinheads, moshing, diving, Dan Spitz skateboarding, a Circle Jerks t-shirt, the Corrosion of Conformity logo and the biggest pre-cursors to New York crossover movement to that point, Scott Ian wearing an S.O.D. t-shirt and an image of Billy Milano himself. And finally in December of 1985, S.O.D. - which stood for Stormtroopers Of Death - released "Speak English Or Die."

S.O.D. had fans in both the metal and the hardcore scenes buzzing. "It's played by 1/2 of Anthrax so it's probably metal, right?" "But the singer is a huge hardcore skinhead, so it's gotta be hardcore, right?" "But it's on Megaforce and the guitar sound is undeniably metal!" "Yeah, but the speed, power and aggression is completely hardcore!" It was like the old Reese's Peanut Butter Cup commercial slogan: "Two great tastes taste great together." And whatever you may have thought about Speak English Or Die back then, depending on whichever scene you were loyal to, there was no denying that S.O.D. had kicked down a door that had previously separated hardcore and metal. And it wouldn't be long before hip hop would be joining in on the crossover front, setting the stage for unchartered waters in New York City.


"Walk in the door, get on the floor, hard rock, hard hitting hip hop hardcore." - Run DMC "Run's House"

In 1986, amid a slew of destined-to-be-classic NYHC records released by Cro-Mags, Murphy's Law and Crumbsuckers, Ludichrist not only issued their own classic with "Immaculate Deception" but they tipped their caps to the hip hop scene in their song "Green Eggs and Ham" by breaking into a full rendition of Run DMC's "Rock Box" and busting their own funky rhymes. Also released in 1986 was Agnostic Front's "Cause For Alarm", which was a definite turn towards a more metal direction. With the addition of Alex on guitar and Louie on drums, the record was chock full of double bass and guitar solos.

The Los Angeles-based speed thrashers Slayer released Reign In Blood, also in 1986, but what turned heads was that the band had signed to Def Jam, joining a stable of artists such as LL Cool J, Public Enemy and The Beastie Boys. When the Beasties released "Licensed To Ill", Slayer's Kerry King performed the guitar solos on "Fight For Your Right" and "No Sleep Til Brooklyn." When Slayer came to New York City in December of '86, touring in support of Reign In Blood, they selected Agnostic Front to open for them at The Ritz. If you were in attendance that night, you heard "Hiding Inside" and "Victim In Pain" then "Angel of Death" and "Chemical Warfare" on the same night from bands who shared the same stage.

"Well they say rap and metal can never mix, but all of them can suck our...sexual organ located in the lower abdominal area." - Anthrax "I'm The Man"


As 1987 rolled around, Anthrax set out to kick down another door. Following the release of "Among The Living", Anthrax released "I'm The Man" - an EP, featuring the title track - which could only be described as a rap-metal comedy skit. The EP's cover showed the band posing against a wall with the Anthrax logo written in graffiti while decked out in Adidas shelltops, sweat suits and baseball caps. It was a clear salute to their affinity for the now very popular hip hop movement coming out of their hometown. "I'm The Man" contained samples of Run DMC, The Fat Boys and The Beastie Boys.

By the end of 1987, Public Enemy had recorded their now-classic track "Bring The Noise" for the Def Jam soundtrack to the film Less Than Zero. Contained in the back-and-forth lyrics shared between Chuck D and Flavor Flav was this return head nod back to Anthrax: "Beat is for Eric B., LL as well, hell. Wax is for Anthrax, still I can rock bells." It became the leadoff track from their early 1988 Def Jam release "It Takes A Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back", which also contained the song "She Watch Channel Zero?!" - a song built completely around a sample from Slayer's "Angel Of Death."


"And then just maybe you'll realize that it didn't have to be...only as directed." - Ludichrist - "Only As Directed"

By 1988 through into 1989, the three underground scenes weren't so underground anymore. In fact, you could've easily gone into Tower Records in the Village to find your favorite records by artists in all 3 genres. New York Hardcore was feeling the influence on both sides of the coin. Agnostic Front released "Liberty and Justice For…" and Cro-Mags released "Best Wishes." Both records, with songs like "Anthem" and "Death Camps," exhibited the blazing raw power of hardcore while adding certain elements of hard-as-nails thrash metal with rousing success. Taking it even one step further was Leeway, who managed to fuse the hardcore and metal while picking the right spots to add elements like grooves, rhythm and hip-hop style verses. Look no further than "Catholic High School" and "Kingpin" for prime examples of Leeway's ability to merge all three styles together seamlessly.

New growth of unparalleled proportions would follow, since it seemed like it was acceptable to experiment in new sounds. And shining examples of New York City's musical shades of gray would only benefit the fans of their beloved forms of music. Here are just a few:

Underdog's Richie transforming into MC Richie B., spitting verses like a pro during live performances at the break of "Say It To My Face." If you were fortunate enough to see his straight hip hop delivery, you were nodding your head like a b-boy, as we all were.


The emergence of the metal (and some hip hop) influence in a newer breed of NYHC bands that incorporated more "jug-jug" riffs and heavier groove influenced mid-tempo breaks while the front men would choose to express lyrics with more rhythmic throat shouting (more MC than singer) over the traditional aggressive melodic singing. Some examples would include Sick Of It All, Killing Time, Breakdown, Outburst, Rest In Pieces, Judge, and Maximum Penalty.

KRS-1 introduced Sick Of It All at the start of "Blood, Sweat and No Tears." Many NYHC fans were also fans of New York Hip Hop and for the Blastmaster to deliver his patented "fresh for 89…you sucker!" before Sick Of It All began "It's Clobbering Time," well that was just a tremendous show of the unity between the two scenes.

Public Enemy and Anthrax got together to record a new version of "Bring The Noise," complete with a video which showed a mosh pit, stage diving, Scott Ian rhyming on the mic and Joey Belladonna behind the 1's and 2's.

The Beastie Boys sampled Bad Brains' "The Big Takeover" on the first single from their 1992 record "Check Your Head." The Beasties would re-visit their old hardcore instruments on "Sabotage" from their 1994 record "Ill Communication."


The advent of new hybrid acts who further blurred the lines, such as Helmet, Biohazard and Prong while certain NYHC bands evolved into new acts with a new sound and direction, such as Gorilla Biscuits and Underdog spawning Quicksand and Into Another, respectively.

Queens' based Def Jam hip hop group Onyx released their debut effort, "Bacdafucup", which featured slam dancing, mosh pits and crowd surfing in their videos for "Throw Ya Gunz" and "Slam." (Cypress Hill also incorporated the mosh pit and stage diving in their video for "Insane In The Brain").

Yo, was that the beginning to a Stetsasonic jam? Nope. That was "Eyes Of Tomorrow" by the Cro-Mags. Welcome back, LL Cool John!

Collaborations by acts like Biohazard and Onyx on "Judgment Night" from the film of the same name's soundtrack and a re-recording of "Slam." Sick Of It All later got into the studio with hip-hop act (and fellow Queens residents) Mobb Deep to collaborate on a new version of Mobb's 1995 classic "Survival Of The Fittest."

Anthrax covered classic D.R.I hardcore songs "Snap" and "I'd Rather Be Sleeping" on their record "Volume 8: The Threat Is Real".

And if New York set the dominoes up to fall everywhere else, fall they did. Here are some examples of what was going on outside of the Big Apple:

In Texas, D.R.I. followed up their 1985 hardcore classic "Dealing With It" with a record aptly named "Crossover" in 1987. The album cover featured the band's well known "moshing guy" logo cast in (what else?) a shiny metal alloy. There was no turning back for D.R.I. as they followed "Crossover" with straight up thrash records in "Four Of A Kind" and "ThrashZone."


In North Carolina, Corrosion of Conformity followed up their 1985 hardcore classic "Animosity" with their step-in-the-metal-direction 1987 EP "Technocracy" on Metal Blade Records - just a sign of things to come as the C.O.C. hardcore fans used to know and love released the blistering metal classic "Blind" in 1991.

Orange County, California and Revelation artist Inside Out morphed into Rage Against The Machine, taking the hip-hop/hardcore crossover to triple platinum heights with their self titled debut record in 1991.

In Los Angeles, Suicidal Tendencies, followed their self-titled 1984 hardcore classic by embracing the crossover with records like "Join The Army," "How Will I Laugh Tomorrow...?" and "Lights...Camera...Revolution!" Intentional tip-of-the-hat to NYHC or not, Suicidal's "War Inside My Head" contained massive elements of Cro-Mags' "Don't Tread On Me" and Warzone's "We're The Crew." Oh, and former ST bassist Rob Trujillo now plays for Metallica.


Also in L.A., going in the other direction, Slayer released "Undisputed Attitude" - a full length record of covers for some of their favorite hardcore cover tunes from bands like Minor Threat, D.R.I. and Verbal Abuse.

"I give thanks for inspiration. It guides my mind along the way" - Beastie Boys "Pass The Mic"

It's probably a safe bet to say that the kids today don't give a lot of thought to the lineage, the DNA, the why, when and how it all took place. But if you were there back in the day, you know how it all went down. Twenty five years ago, who would've thought that there would be an artist like Kid Rock - a Harley Davidson-riding white MC rapping over a Metallica song? Twenty five years ago, who would've been ready for Limp Bizkit - a white MC rocking a backwards Yankee cap doing his best b-boy, dropping rhymes with a band playing hardcore and metal riffs? System Of A Down, P.O.D. and Korn should be proud to hail from California and Slipknot can call Iowa home. Limp Bizkit & Kid Rock? Florida & Michigan, respectively...and so on and so forth.

But we all know that a large part of their musical heritage is owed to a time in a place where lines were crossed, minds were opened, risks were taken and new styles gave birth to even newer styles. New York. And that's not a boast...well, maybe it is...but that's also a fact. Represent.

Kevin Crowley - The Abused part II

How did The Abused come together? What was the song writing process and what were practices like?

Raf and Dave approached me at A7. They had a three piece with Raf on guitar/vocals, Dave on bass/vocals and Charlie (ex-Reagan Youth) on drums (he was eventually replaced by Brian). They were looking for a front man. So, I joined the band. Rehearsing and song writing was very serious business to us. The majority of our rehearsals were closed door sessions, no one other than band members allowed. We checked our egos at the door. This allowed us to develop a collaborative method to our songwriting. Typically, Raf or Dave would come up with some chord progressions, Bryan would stick a beat to it, I would bring my notebook with lyrics then we would collectively work on the arrangement.

I think the energy that our songs had was due in part to the stake that each one of us took in every song. We truly were a group. That’s why, when we played the A7 reunion it had to be all four of us (Dave flew in from New Mexico to do the show). I don’t think the energy would have been the same if we had done otherwise.

Memories from recording the "Loud and Clear" 7"?

It was a long time ago, but I’ll try. For the recording, we borrowed a Marshall stack from a friend (Francis) who lived out on Long Island. On the drive back it started to snow and turned into a blizzard. We almost got stranded. When we did the vocal track, we made a “box” out of sound proof panels in the middle of the floor. I climbed in and they “sealed it shut”. I don’t think it made a qualitative difference, but it sure made us feel cool.


The Abused, CBGB's NYC 1982, Photo courtesy of: Kevin Crowley

What was a typical Abused gig like? Paint the picture for the younger crowd that never experienced it.

We always tried to put on an audience friendly show. By audience friendly I mean we liked to include the audience in the show as much as possible and encouraged a lot of back & forth banter. When most of your songs don’t run longer than a minute, you need to have a certain amount of “set filler”. Specific things like the “Blow Your Brains Out” sing along became a tradition at our shows. And of course, there was the rage. But, that’s what a hardcore show is about. Isn’t it?

Favorite memories from playing with The Abused?

The older you get, and the farther removed you become from a period of time, the more generalized your memories become. What I remember most from that time in my life is the camaraderie we had. Playing in the Abused was only part of the equation. The early scene was pretty tight. So for me it was really a combined experience of the band and the scene. As testosterone laden some of our lyrics may sound, it’s the way we viewed things back then. Unity, loyalty, friendship and trust were our by-laws. These were all things that seemed to be lacking in mainstream society. It was the feeling of being part of something, of belonging to an underground society. Oh, I forgot to mention, it was a lot of fun. 



Anything you'd change or would have done differently if you had the option?

I’m happy with the choices we made. Although…It would have been a great experience to do some serious touring. It also would have been nice to record the rest of our songs.

What are you up to today?

I’m pretty settled. I’m married and have kids. I currently work in finance (although I’m not 100% certain what I want to be when I grow up). Band wise, we are trying to put together an LP of remasterd songs and some live songs from a CB’s gig that have never been released before. Like most people I know, I’m trying to find that balance between work and play.


Abused construction gloves, Photo: Ben Alvie

Gorilla Biscuits - "New Direction" from Fun Fun Fun Fest

GORILLA BISCUITS - "New Direction" LIVE AT FUN FUN FUN FEST 09 IN AUSTIN, TEXAS from Todd Spoth on Vimeo.

I just came across this GB video today and thought it was well worth sharing with anyone who hasn't seen it already. It was shot by a guy named Todd Spoth at last weekend's Fun Fun Fun fest in Austin, Texas, November 8th, 2009. Twenty years later and the lyrics to this song still get my psyched. Rebirth of hardcore pride 2009… -Tim DCXX

Jay Krakdown

Krakdown at CBGB's, Photo: Boiling Point

Tracking down the ones that no one has heard from in decades was a definite goal for us when we started Double Cross. Although there are still plenty out there that we're in pursuit of, slowly but surely we're making progress. Occasionally we'll have a gem like this that pops out of the wood work and that we can't help but hit up. Right here is a character that has almost taken on a legendary type status when it comes to New York Hardcore, ladies and gentleman… Jay Krakdown.

This is part one of a multiple entry interview with the Krakdown frontman that seems to get better and better as the questions go on. "We need change"… -Tim DCXX


Where exactly did you grow up?

I grew up in Glen Cove, NY in Nassau County on Long Island. GC is sort of a wild place with everything from the wealthy to dirt poor and projects. The area had a number of gangs based on ethnicity and it’s an area where people used to love to drink and fight. I grew up in a poor blue collar area close to the projects so I spent a lot of time hanging out with different races. My neighborhood though wasn’t quite as tolerant, and some of my friends had issues with the Archie Bunker types of the neighborhood.

What was your introduction to punk/HC/metal/underground music and what's the backstory to this?

My first introduction to punk was in 1979. My mother is from England and I was fortunate enough to be able to go there a couple of times in my life. While there in 1979 I had a fight in a park in the town of Cambridge with a punk rocker. Well we hung out for the rest of my stay and he turned me onto the music. I even bought the 45 (that would be a one song 7” for all you youngsters out there) of the Ruts, Babylon is Burning. Anyway when I came back to the states I sort of forgot about punk and hardcore, with the exception of listening to NYU at times. It wasn’t until a few years later that I started getting back into it, and in late '84 I made the complete transition from metal to hardcore and the NYC scene.

Who did you get into punk/HC with?

The bass player of Krakdown, Damon Tillman, is the one who really brought me full force into the scene. Damon and I grew up together but before HS kind of went our separate ways. I hung with him here and there through a couple of mutual friends (Danton, Marcello, and Mario, who were all in the scene at the time). So through him and those guys they kept me in tune with Hardcore and turned me on to AF, Cro Mags, CFA, Reagan Youth, Urban Waste, The Mob, etc. I went to shows here and there back then but didn’t start going to shows regularly until 1985 so I guess I caught the tail end of the Golden years.


What are some stand out memories of going to early shows?

Stand out memories…hmm this is a hard one. I guess since you asked about early shows well let’s see…CFA and Reagan Youth at Central Park…that was some show. Moshing on the concrete, Alexa with a bloody lip, and I can’t remember who was in the cast but holy shit what a show! The Suicidal show at CB’s when the Cro Mags trashed their van…that was a crazy show. 7Seconds at CBs…what can you say…pretty much any AF or Cro Mags show at CBs is filled with fond and crazy memories…or the Murphy's Law shows before the smoke machine, when actual bongs were smoked on stage.

Most of my memories aren’t so much of particular shows but of the people I met and hung out with. I will never forget those days.

I guess my favorite shows were really all the bands I saw that were my close friends…Sick Of It All, Absolution, Raw Deal/Killing Time, GB, NY Hoods, Nausea, Token Entry, and on and on. I know I left some of you out but you all know who you are. I met some of my closest friends down there. I know it sounds stereotypical but that was the only place I really fit in. High School…fuck that! I had few friends and didn’t get along with many people. The people I hung out with weren’t friends but drinking and drugging buddies. That’s why in 1985 I quit it all (alcohol, drugs, and even HS). Now I just have the occasional beer.

So all I did in HS was drink, fight and get arrested. But when I started hanging out on the scene I met people just like me and that is where I met my TRUE friends…so my stand out memories are really of all my brothers and sisters from the NYHC scene. I know that sounds cheesy but the NYHC scene had a profound effect on my life and truly shaped me into the man I am today. I am especially grateful for the closeness I had with some of those that are no longer with us but live now in my memories and I keep their spirit close to my heart!

TO BE CONTINUED...


Raw Deal's first show at CBGB's, Jay Krakdown with the stage antics, November 1987, Photo courtesy of: Anthony Comunale

Mikey Fast Break part III

Chain Of Strength at Fenders, Photo: Mikey Garceau

Do you have any specific photos that you took which you really love?

The Chain of Strength photo from Fender’s with Ryan on his knees and Alex in the air is one. The shot of Judge from Gilman with Randy doing the double hang looses that I used for the cover of the photozine is another.

What band records were you most psyched to see your photos end up on?

I wish I could tell you. Honestly, I can only remember the cover shot from the “Words To Live By” compilation and some photos from the Outspoken discography. I don’t have any records anymore, so I can’t go back and look. Did any of my photos ever make it on a Revelation record?


Randy and Mikey with Drift Again at a hall in the valley, Photo: Dave Sine

You were sort of the New Age in-house photographer - any good New Age Stories?

Most of my memories from that time were just of shows and people that I had met. The first summer that Lifetime came out to California was awesome. I want to say it was 1991 and half the band stayed at my house and the other half up in the valley with the Strife kids. I just wasn’t into hardcore at the time and their bass player Justin Janisch wasn’t either. I had a Ride poster up on my wall and he and I sat around and talked about shoegaze bands in between shows. To this day, I still consider him my best friend and his family my second family.

Getting to meet the Turning Point kids was pretty epic too. Skip and I became pretty tight after that.

What role has photography played for you even after the early 90s?

It’s a love / hate relationship I have. Sometimes I get into shooting stuff and sometimes I don’t pick up a camera for months. Actually, I don’t know where my SLRs are. I guess they’re somewhere in one of my closets. 
 



Mike Hartsfield and Mikey with Drift Again, Photo: Dave Sine

How did Solitude start and what memories do you have form that particular band?

I was able to talk Mike Hartsfield and Dennis Remsing into doing a project band with me singing. Those guys were busy with Outspoken at the time and I wanted to do something that was a little less straight edge and a little darker.

I think we practiced a couple times before going into the studio to record that demo. I had never heard my voice before, so I remember being really surprised at what I sounded like on tape.

We didn’t really have a line-up until we got on a bill to play a show at Loyola Marymount University. There was this one guy, Jason Craze, from Texas that Mike and I had met from somewhere. He played second guitar and my friend from skateboarding, Micah Panzich, played bass.

After that, Micah and Jason left or something, I can’t really remember. We then got Randy to play guitar and Mike moved over to bass. That’s when we changed the name and became Drift Again.


Drift Again at Pitzer College, Riverside CA, Photo: Dave Sine

Same with Drift Again (memories, etc.), did Solitude simply morph into Drift Again and what were the differences?

Drift Again was a slight line-up change and a change of name. I remember someone telling me that there was some metal band from Europe that had the name Solitude, so I told the other guys and we decided to change it.

Randy brought along a certain creativity that I loved. He had this knack for picking up on little stuff on things he had heard that he could apply to hardcore. I’m probably wrong, but I think Dennis appreciated it too. It gave him a chance to play something a little different.

When we decided to record, I was so hell bent on not being a straight edge band that Mike and Dennis decided to create a new label; Network Sound. It was going to be the label for things that they wanted to put out that really didn’t fit on either New Age or Conversion. I think it was only the Drift Again single and the Stone Telling LP that were ever put out on it. I could be wrong though.

As for memories, the show with Rage Against The Machine at Claremont College is pretty fucking hard to beat. They hadn’t been signed yet, but that show was by far the biggest crowd we had ever played in front of.

What are you up to today?

I moved up to San Francisco in 1997. After brief stints in Santa Barbara and Los Angeles, I moved back up North to Oakland in 2001, which is where I’m living now. I work for an elevator company as a Project Manager.

I’m still in contact with Dennis and Randy on a fairly regular basis. Most of my hardcore updates come from my friend Walter Yetman. I’ll occasionally get an email from him with a link to something I might find interesting. That’s how I got to the post on Double Cross about Turning Point.


Mikey with Vic Dicara's guitar after an Inside Out set at the Che Cafe, Photo: Dave Sine

Everybody's Scene outtakes with Ray Cappo

Ray Cappo spreading Youth Crew across America with Youth Of Today at The Anthrax, Photo: Eric Blomquist

I would consider Tim and myself to be probably two of the absolute biggest YOT fans on the face of the earth. I think I speak for Tim when I say that YOT is the best band ever, Ray Cappo is the best frontman ever, and songs like Thinking Straight, Together, and We Just Might are the best hardcore songs ever written. All of that said, I don't think we've really had an overwhelming amount of Cappo content on DCXX considering our obsession.

Luckily for us, Chris Daily has hooked us up with all the outtake material from his interview with Ray that was done for the Everybody's Scene book (which I again urge everyone to ORDER NOW).

Here's part one, expect plenty more very soon. -Gordo DCXX

Before I ever went to The Anthrax, I first went to a benefit for The Anthrax. The benefit was at Pogo’s.

To go back before that...as far as my my own story about the Connecticut scene, well, originally, I didn't know a Connecticut scene even existed. I just thought a New York scene existed because I had discovered New York hardcore before Connecticut hardcore. So I always would go to shows at CBGBs and then Daryl Orht, who we know and love, had Adventure Jukebox, which was a late night radio station in my hometown. So I remember Dave Rinelli saying "Hey there's a late night radio station that plays punk music."

It was always me and Fudd and Dave and all the guys from Violent Children who used to scan the radio stations late at night, cuz that’s the only way to listen to hardcore...you'd listen to obscure stations. And we were I think 15 or 16, so when you're a kid you never have a car; I never left Danbury pretty much. I'd be picking up some distant signal from a college radio station in Bridgeport or New Haven at eleven o’clock or midnight. Hearing some bands I had never heard. We'd get some NYU station and we'd be listening to hardcore shows.

We started learning about hardcore just from hearing on the radio and then we found that WXCI was playing it. The guy from WXCI, you could tell he was trying to get into hardcore but he was playing a strange mixture of Black Flag meets Spandau Ballet. We were like "Okay we need to save this guy."


Ray on the Stamford Anthrax dance floor, Photo: Jamie Keever

Back then we were going through this phase, and the guy from WXCI was too, where we wanted to be punk, but...what do you get into, Duran Duran? Black Flag? Where do you go from here? That’s where punk split from that 80s dance rock stuff to hardcore and stuff like that. At least that's how I remember it. So we came down to WXCI with our punk and disorderly records. It's 11 o'clock at night, and we are at the West Conn campus throwing rocks at the window to try to get his attention to let us in the doors. We were like "Hey! We hear your show all the time! We brought a bunch of records for you to play!" We brought a bunch of hardcore records and he'd play them. We'd become his friends.

He was a lot older than us, in retrospect he was 19, and we were like, 15. We were like "This old guy runs this show..." After a while we were always calling up, making requests, "Play Jerry's Kids! Play Urban Waste!" and we just became friends with Daryl... Adventure Jukebox was great in the mix of Men Without Hats and the Circle Jerks and Urban Waste.

So then, we decided to start a band. We were already in a band...let me clarify this by saying, none of us could play any instruments at all. We had no talent at any of the instruments. We went to see The Young And The Useless at CBGBs, we were so inspired about playing thrash music. Because they were all little kids on stage, they were the guys from the Beastie Boys. We were just like, we can do this. Let’s just start a band...this was winter of '81, early 1982. So seeing The Young And The Useless play, like, this is what we want to do.


Ray with Youth Of Today at the Stamford Anthrax, Photo: Chris Schneider

So it became..."what do you guys want to play?" There was no punks in Danbury at all. I went back years later and there's Youth Of Today and all these other bands, and Danbury became the mecca of hardcore. It was unbelievable because when we were there, there was nobody at all. And it was desolate. It was just me and Rinelli, Chris Getz, and Fudd and Daryl. We just dreamed of putting on a show in Danbury. We actually wrote to the Dead Kennedys to play and hoping that they would play in Chris's Garage, but they never replied.

So, ok, no scene in Danbury, we just figured we'd go to these shows in New York. There must not be anyone in Connecticut except us. Daryl had said "Hey if you ever make a tape of your band, we'll play it!" We were like, "WHAT? You’ll play our tape on the radio!? Let's make a tape!" Our chords were like, one finger chords. I just got random pieces of a drum set and we didn't know how to play any of our instruments, and there was no one to show us. We just made up these crazy songs. We made a demo tape that we recorded with a boom box in my garage. We brought it in for Daryl, "We've got our demo tape, and will you play it?" He said "Yeah, I’ll play it." We were all waiting up all night listening. Daryl was so cool, He would say "Coming up next, Violent Children, Danbury Connecticut's own Violent Children. Danbury Connecticut's very own hardcore band. If you want hardcore, here's Violent Children. It's Danbury Connecticut's own..." He announced us so much. We were like "Oh my god I can't believe it!" You gotta understand we had no talent at all. The demo was a piece of crap. It was recorded like crap.

But it was incredible. We couldn't believe it. And to make matters worse, there are all these other friends of mine that had bands in high school. Just all cover bands. Playing all Rush songs, incredible musicians. Flawless players, working really hard to be in the variety show. And we come along and all of a sudden are getting played on the radio. They couldn't believe it. "You guys can't even play your instruments! How are you getting played on the radio? We’ve been trying to get played on the radio for years!" And we're just like "I don’t know. We met this DJ and we did this tape..."

As soon as they played us on the radio, we get this call from Darryl. He says, "These guys from this club in Stamford want you to play." We’re like "What? We’re gonna play a gig in Stamford Connecticut?" And then there's this guy from New York who got us this gig at A7 who wanted us to play. We couldn't believe it. Brian Sheridan called me from The Anthrax and I guess they all listened to the Adventure Jukebox. "Yeah, yeah we've got a big benefit for this club I own called the Anthrax," it used to be some club, some art gallery, but it got shut down. Whoa!


Cappo with Violent Children at the Stamford Anthrax, Photo: Jamie Keever

So Brian says how they didn't have any money, would we like to play a benefit show? And I was like, who’s playing? He's like "Agnostic Front, Cause For Alarm, The Abused, Shock, Hose (which was Rick Rubin's band), Vatican Commandos, CIA." He sent us this flyer and it was so awe inspiring. If you're in a band and the first time you see your name appear on a flyer, it's like "Oh my god I can't believe we got a gig!" We were like “We would love to play!"

So we are set to play. Before the show we played, we went to another show at Pogo's, it was Urban Waste, Reagan Youth, The Abused...something like that. I met Brian Sheridan and Shaun Sheridan and Johnny Stiff. I'm like, "Yeah this is where we're going to play. You guys have a whole scene here!" Truthfully, it was like, the whole New York scene showed up for that show and of course there was a whole lot of fights. But the whole time, I'm like, "This is so cool there's like a whole scene here. So Great. We're gonna play here soon! Wow!"

So we came back and played. I remember we played second. They didn't even make us open the show. Hours Of Torture played. They all went to Chote which is this very prestigious private school. But they were all really cool. And they could actually play their instruments. So they played first and Violent Children played second. And you know, for a band that couldn't play our instruments, we got on stage...50, 70, 100 people in there...it was like, ahhhh this is great! It was like, "This is the best thing in the world!" We had never experienced anything like it. We had never played, we had just screwed around. It was incredible.

After us, I think the Vatican Commandos came on and all of a sudden the police busted in and they raided the club and everyone was like "It's a raid!" I’m like "A RAID!?!?!? This is something right out of a MOVIE!" Everyone is saying, "Hide under the stage! Quick!" So all of the young kids were hiding under the stage because it was an over 18, 21 and over bar. We spent, I think, Agnostic Front's set, and a few other sets under that stage. The most exciting night of my life was spent under a stage.


Youth Of Today at the Norwalk Anthrax, Photo: Eric Blomquist

Steve Yu of Death Before Dishonor on "Victim In Pain"

Steve Yu with Death Before Dishonor at CBGB's, Photo courtesy of: Mark Ryan

I am very happy to hear my Hardcore Brothers - Agnostic Front, are re-releasing "Victim In Pain" next month. When people talk about NYHC in conversation or on the web, automatically Agnostic Front is a topic. They put their stamp on Hardcore back in the late 1970's. I remember the first time meeting with Vinnie at CBGB's - he would always say hello to all the kids, it did not matter the way you looked, or the color of your skin.

Eventually we (Death Before Dishonor) become friends and started opening for AF. I will always remember Vinnie and Roger being great people and helping all the Hardcore kids in the past and now. It's my honor to say: "CONGRATULATIONS TO MY BROTHERS AGNOSTIC FRONT ON THE NEW RECORD AND HARDCORE FOR LIFE."

Best Regards
Steven Yu


Ken Wagner, Roger Miret and Steve Yu at the benefit for Jimmy Gestapo's legal fund, Photo: Laura Zeitlin

Kevin Crowley - The Abused

The Abused, a NYHC original, and one of the very best early 80s EPs. Appropriate coverage has been on the DCXX checklist since day one, finally we catch up with singer Kevin Crowley. We need a drug free youth... -Gordo DCXX

Where did you grow up?

New York City for the most part, but I “did time” in Lansford, PA; Streamwood, IL; Woodbridge, CT & Netanya, Israel.

What was your early music exposure?

I have a sister who is eight years older than me and very musically inclined (hi Radha). When she was in her teens she played drums in an all girl rock band. They used to rehearse in her bedroom (it was the coolest thing in the world to a six year old). There was always music blaring in our house. So while my friends were humming the theme songs to Speed Racer & Ultra Man, I was being weaned on the likes of Black Sabbath, Deep Purple & Led Zeppelin.


Youngblood, Kerry Kraker and Kevin Crowley, Photo courtesy of: Kevin Crowley

How did you get into punk and early HC?

I moved back to the city just as I was about to enter tenth grade (fall of 1980?). I got accepted to Music & Art HS which at the time was up in Harlem near City College. I remember standing outside of the school on the first day, seeing a group of kids who were punk rockers and being in awe of them. They looked and dressed so different from everyone else. They were an obvious minority, yet they were oblivious to all the kids around them who were staring or making comments. I instantly identified with them. I ended up becoming very good friends with a kid named Kerry Kraker, who turned me on to a lot of really great music. We started hanging out on Avenue A and eventually progressed from “punks” to “Hardcore Punks”. 


What were some stand out early NYHC shows you attended?

The first shows I went to were at A7 and were probably the most influential. Bands like Kraut, Heart Attack & The Mob always put on great shows there. Seeing the Bad Brains play at Irving Plaza and seeing the Dead Kennedys play in Staten Island also stand out in my memory. I don’t think I went to a show that didn’t stand out in one way or another. It was a really great time to be into the scene.


Who were your favorite punk/HC bands of the time?

For such a simple question, I’m having a hard time coming up with an answer. So many bands were so good. Most bands’ records don’t do justice to the live shows they put on. But, if I have to name names…the Bad Brains would probably top the list followed by (in no order of importance): Minor Threat, Kraut, The Mob, Heart Attack, SSD, Urban Waste, Cause For Alarm, Antidote, Reagan Youth…etc (this list is pre Murphy’s Law / Agnostic Front / Cro Mags). I also listened to a lot of Discharge & GBH, although I never got to see them play live.

When did you start doing artwork and stuff for bands/venues?

The first flyer I drew was a “coming soon” flyer for The Abused (we wanted to build some hype once I started singing with them). So I guess you could say we had the flyer before the gig. In retrospect, it would have been pretty funny if we never played a show after I made that flyer. I pretty much stuck to flyers for our own shows. The pointillism technique that I used was really labor intensive and the flyers took a long time to complete.

How did you get to know the other guys in The Abused? What did you do before the band musically?

I met the other guys at A-7, Raf & Dave basically came up & introduced themselves to me. I really didn’t get to know them until we started playing together. We ended up becoming great friends. Pre-Abused I wasn’t doing anything musically except for pretending to play guitar. I wasn’t very good. Let’s just say it’s a good thing I stuck to vocals.

To be continued...

The photography of Mikey Fast Break

A monster stage dive during Outspoken, 3-1-1991 at Moorpark High School, Photo: Mikey Garceau

It's been a fairly text heavy week here at DCXX, so we thought we'd hit you with a handful of selected photos from the lens of Mikey Fast Break. There's still at least one more entry coming from our interview with Mikey, so hang tight for that. In the meantime we take you back to the late 80's/early 90's Southern California hardcore scene... Animal Style. -Tim DCXX


Rob and Mark Haworth with Hard Stance at the Whiskey, Photo: Mikey Garceau


Mark Haworth Zack De La Rocha and Eric Ernst with Hard Stance at the Whiskey, Photo: Mikey Garceau


Mike Hartsfield with Freewill, Photo: Mikey Garceau


A Freewill sing along with Dan O, Joe Nelson and crew, Photo: Mikey Garceau


An off the drum riser jump by Pushed Aside guitarist, Jeff Carlyle, Photo: Mikey Garceau


Another Jeff Carlyle, Pushed Aside jump at the Whiskey, Photo: Mikey Garceau


Outspoken's first show in Jim Lavern's garage, Photo: Mikey Garceau


John Coyle with Outspoken, Moorpark high school gym, 3-1-1991, Photo: Mikey Garceau

Everybody's Scene outtakes with Gavin Van Vlack

Gavin with Absolution at the Anthrax, Photo: Joe Snow

In our ongoing posting of outtakes from Chris Daily's upcoming book, Everybody's Scene, we bring you some great content from Gavin that was caught on tape. Be sure to grab Everybody's Scene for much, much more -Gordo DCXX

The Anthrax, it was a total grab bag of music...you had no idea what you were going to get. You were going to see your friends' band, you knew what they sounded like, but you didn't know who else was opening or closing or what last minute add ons were playing. You'd see some stuff and be like, "Wow, DRI? What? What is this?" Seeing stuff like that, JFA...stuff that just shaped me musically. DRI invented the metal scene as far as I’m concerned. There would be no Slayer if there was no DRI. There would be no me, musically speaking, if there wasn't The Anthrax. I would not have had a platform to tinker around with music and play with ideas and do weird stuff if it wasn't for that club.

So many things that came out of that club, and influenced not only punk rock and hardcore but rock 'n roll in general.

We don't have that underground anymore. The media is so massive now it's just an expansive web that covers everything. The second a band has a million friends on MySpace or Facebook, they're overnight pop sensations. We didn't have that back then. It was like, "Wow, I found this really awesome little diamond of a thing, that's so incredible. And I’m going to share it with my friends and hopefully it's going to blow up into this really great thing." Well, I remember seeing the Cro-Mags in '84 at CBs and being like, "Oh my God... if the real world knew of this it would be horrible." And the problem was, the real world found out and it became horrible. It wrecked the Cro-Mags. That band is such a part of my heart. Those guys, Agnostic Front, bands like, all that stuff...Underdog - you want a New York freedom fighter - Richie Birkenhead, there you go. If people were getting into fights at Underdog shows or Youth Of Today shows...I always tried to take the right side of the fight.


Gavin hits the Norwalk dancefloor, Photo: Jeff Coleman

I would hear "Well Gavin's a violent person" so on and so forth. I can't say that what I did was right, but I can't say that I would have just honestly stood by and watched some of the shit that I saw get validated and not have something to say about it and not act on it.

I’m kind of built like a manhole cover with feet...and that was before I started fighting competitively. Which is funny. I take a good shot. I don't really roll out, I’ve been hit a couple times by some people where they're sure of it being a knockout shot and it just doesn’t happen. Being that young you have this invincibility. At this point I’m 41 years old, I think competitive fighting took that out of me, knowing that anyone can get hurt any time, it’s not a game anymore. It's something I was doing at hardcore shows, getting into fights, to where, brought into a competitive aspect, I’ve been hurt in training more than I’ve been hurt in fights at hardcore shows... I mean, I’ve been hit with skateboards!

There was a good amount of fighting that went on...I had a big reputation for being a big violent thug. I’m not saying some of it may have been deserved. I tried my best to take the good side of things. My only weakness is that if I'm seeing a guy getting beat up by three other guys, I’m going to jump in on it. I’m going to even it up just a little bit. That’s what was happening a lot. This pack mentality. Oh he's not one of us. Some kid's wearing an Exploited shirt! These guys are wearing Warzone shirts. He’s a punk. We’re skins. That’s the stupidest shit ever. It’s so ridiculous.

Early on, it was an amazing, fun and goofy thing, and it became this juggernaut, this Frankenstein...that was the sad evolution.

The puppy stopped being cute at a point. I think I walked away from the concept of hardcore in '86. I grew up around music. All music was good. Then it became this exclusionary thing where, "You can't like this if you like that." It just didn't appeal. As a musician it's stifling..."You’re only allowed to eat bacon...forever...that's it." Well, it's like 2 o’clock in the morning. I don't wanna eat bacon. Not to offend any vegetarians. I listen to so many genres. I don't listen to anything that I’ve listened to before. Either I hate it, or I learn something from it musically.

The Norwalk Anthrax was a really weird time for me. I loved going to CT because I got to see all my old friends, the Sheridan brothers, etc. It was weird because the scene became something I didn't want anything to do with. When we would play we would bring up a band we loved, like when I was in Absolution, we brought up Nausea, and the kids didn't get it. They just didn't get it...that’s what hurt me, when kids thought, “I have to get it.” They couldn't just accept stuff. That to me was kind of indefinite. I played in Burn after that and we still played at the Anthrax. It’s a typical Gavin thing to drive things into the ground. Even with Burn I was trying to do something different. I was trying to get away from doing the normal hardcore.


Gavin with Absolution, Photo: Dave Rabenold

I think the end of it for me was one of the last shows we played there at The Anthrax. I had become really...we were living in Williamsburg, way before hipsters were living in Williamsburg, this was like 1989, I had become a recluse, I didn't even really talk to the guys in the band anymore. I remember we were playing at the Anthrax and this young skater kid came up to me and said, "You're the guitarist form Burn, right?" And I was just sitting there like, "What the hell do you want from me?" And he goes "You made me want to play guitar" He grabbed my hand, basically forced me to shake it and was like "Thanks." At that point I realized how much of a jackass I was.

I was really really angry. That kind of killed things for me. I realized I can't do this anymore. I quit Burn. I had gone back to living in abandoned buildings. I was living in between Avenues C and D. I actually still live in on 6th St. I mean, it's really nice. I hooked it up. But back then, when I moved back, I stayed inside for the rest of the week, ordering food from Chinese restaurants. I was like, I can't do this kind of music any more. It’s just killing me. I just hated everything. This kid came up to me with the biggest compliment I had ever heard in a really sorry existence, I was the reason this kid wanted to do music. And I had the nerve to feel spite for him...just to see what I was turning in to...and that was at the Anthrax, it was sad. That was the club that had made music so amazing for me, but at the end of it, it was the death of all things for me. I didn't want anything to do with it. It had become a Frankenstein.

Another thing was that the friends that I had couldn't come to Burn shows or they would get beat up. I have a lot of friends from the gay and lesbian community, from different walks...there's a lot of violence going on there, and they can't come to my shows. That's what hurt...I remember when I first started going to shows...it was a lot of kids who, honestly didn't know their place in high school, a lot of them were gay and lesbian or just didn't fit in, and then it became this place where you had to fit in, you had to fit this mold. That was the death of it for me, because I had become so resistant to anything, to anybody. I mean, this kid who gave me the biggest compliment, inspiring him to play guitar, and all I could feel was contempt. My attitude was just, “How dare you talk to me?” I could have just taken him aside and said, "Go buy this record, this record, this record, here's a thousand better reasons to play guitar." I couldn't even be that constructive.

So I stopped playing music for probably 6 months, just did a lot of drugs...and then started this band called DIE 116 which was a whole different change all together. We never got to play the Anthrax; I don't think we would have been accepted. We were ballistic way beyond anything I ever wanted to do. That record was my favorite record I had ever done in my life. That includes the Burn stuff.


An X'ed up Gavin with some Stamford Anthrax follies, Photo: Chris Schneider

Chain recording memories from Ryan Hoffman

Ryan Hoffman and Alex Pain with Chain at City Gardens, Trenton NJ, Photo: Ken Salerno

Which is your favorite Chain 7", "True Till Death" or "What Holds Us Apart" and why?

I like them both for different reasons, but overall, "What Holds Us Apart" is my favorite.

Any stand out memories from recording the "True Till Death" 7"?

Writing the songs was a great experience but the recording process sucked! You would have to clear it with Bratton, but from the best of my knowledge it was recorded for under $500. So it wasn't fun at all, we just rushed through our set and most of the music and vocals were first takes. That was the one really great thing about Curt, he would nail it on the first take.


More Ryan and Alex from City Gardens, Photo: Unknown

Any stand out memories from recording the "What Holds Us Apart" 7"?

It was right about the time when Dag Nasty's "Field Day" was released and Bratton and I really like the sound quality of the record, and heard from Brian Baker it was inexpensive to record. Again we were on a very strict budget and rushed through it but this experience seemed more relaxed. I can remember the recording engineer telling us stories about Dag Nasty bringing skanky girls to their sessions which was hilarious. Also, there were stories about the studio's claim to fame, the 80's metal band Dokken. But what really helped make it a fun experience was bringing everyone in for backing vocals: Trevor (Foundation Records), Porcell, Steve from Turning Point, Dennis Boiling Point, Randy Pushed Aside and many others. That helped make it super fun.


Ryan with Chain Of Strength at the Country Club, Reseda CA, Photo: Dave Sine

Arthur Smilios on "Victim In Pain"

Arthur with GB at the Anthrax, Photo: Brian Boog

"Victim in Pain" is undoubtedly, one of my top five hardcore records, ever; pure hardcore, before they started doing metal. How long is it? 25 minutes? It's a quick sonic bludgeoning; a raid on your village and it's over before you know it happened, yet, for some reason, you're grateful. You want it, again and again.

I would listen to that record, constantly. It was the whole package: Civ and I have discussed how we'd stare at the gatefold for an eternity, wishing we could be as cool as Roger, with his tattoos and the chain around his waist. Agnostic Front, quite simply, WAS New York Hardcore; still is.

Is there a better opening track than "Victim In Pain?" ("We Gotta Know," from "Age of Quarrel" is the only one that compares.)


Late 80's GB era Arthur, Photo: Jen Buck Knies

The lyric, "Remember we're a minority and every one of us counts," still gives me chills, to this day; or,

"Society's rules have made me cruel,
I'm just the opposite, ain't no fool.
The way I act, the way I dress,
Doesn't make me strong or best.
Soon they'll find the reasons why
I'm open-minded and not blind."

That was downright anthemic to a 16-year old misfit, rebel-in-training. I had finally found my people: other disaffected freaks, seething with anger and youthful energy. They were blatantly anti-establishmentarian; the entire package; a perfect confluence of music, lyrics and personalities.

I know it sounds trite, but it's true: Punk/Hardcore saved my life. "Victim in Pain" was a major part of that process.

Remember, "There's no justice, it's just us. Blind justice has screwed all of us." Truer words have rarely been spoken, Roger.

For a Better World,
Arthur (Still in awe of Roger, Vinnie and the boys).


Arthur and that YOT Youth Crew 88 longsleeve at the Anthrax with GB, Photo: Brian Boog

Poll results for favorite track off of Brotherhood's - "No Tolernence" EP

Brotherhood… not a band that's been talked about much here on DCXX, so what better time to start than now? Hopefully at some point we'll track down some members for something more substantial, but we'll kick it off here with a few random memories.


Brotherhood - Seattle Straight Edge, Photo courtesy of: Brotherhood

- For some reason I remember ordering the Brotherhood 7" directly from Ron, their singer. I think there was some sort of hold up on shipping it, maybe something about Ron waiting on a shipment of 7"s from Skate Edge Records. I remember Ron writing me and apologizing for the hold up and then soon after receiving the actual 7". About a week later I received another copy of the 7", only this time from Kiersten, Ron's then girlfriend who helped him with mail order. I guess there were a few mix ups and some how or another I ended up with 2 copies of the 7". No Tolerance… No Complaints.

- Brotherhood toured with The Accused in 1989 and played a show in Philadelphia on that tour. A few days before the show I remember getting a post card flyer in the mail and up until that point I had no idea the show was even happening. I scrambled trying to figure out how I could get to the show, but ultimately never succeeded in securing a ride. Unfortunately 1989 was pre-driver license days for me and like many out of town shows, if no ride was secured, no show was attended. Total bummer. I do know that Greg, the bassist of Release, went and scored himself a royal blue Brotherhood "Fuck Racism" shirt which I saw him wear quite a bit. That shirt and those maroon suede Pumas were often Greg's outfit of choice.


- In July of 1989 Ron Guardipee (Brotherhood singer) and his friend Brian (Pea Body) made a trip out to the east coast. Off hand I don't recall why they were out here, but I do know that they ended up at the Bold / Gorilla Biscuits show at City Gardens here in Trenton. The weekend of that show Ron and Brian crashed at my friend Tony's house and we all spent that weekend hanging out. I remember getting one of those SSD "Kids Will Have Their Say" Ex-Claim boots from Brian and a weird one-off screened Inside Out shirt from Ron. I also remember Ron introducing all of us Jersey kids to putting Parmesan cheese on our pizza. We've never looked back.

- During that weekend of hanging out with Ron and Brian, we all took a ride into Princeton. Of course we went to the Princeton Record Exchange (which everyone should do when visiting Princeton), but we also engaged in some straight edge shenanigans. Ron walked up to a couple of dudes, one which was smoking a cigarette and asked if he could bum a smoke. The dude happily pulled out his pack and handed Ron a cig, which Ron immediately snapped in half and dropped on the side walk. Ron says, "Oh damn man… sorry, can I get another?" The dude reluctantly pulls out another, which again Ron takes with his fingers, snaps in half and drops on the sidewalk. Ciggy dude was bummed and considering Ron was a bit of a menacing looking fella, nothing was said and ciggy dude walks away with his head hanging low. Ron says something about Straight Edge Revenge, we all laughed and that was that.


A Brotherhood sing along with Greg leaving his guitar behind and joining in on the fun, Photo courtesy of: Brotherhood

- Later on, the same night as the Princeton incident, we were driving around my town and pulled up on a high school party crowd that was gathering in front of someone's house. We saw a girl that went to our high school and Ron yells, "Stop the car!" We stop, Ron rolls down the window and says, "Hey, are you the singer for Hateful Youth?" The girl looks at Ron like he's crazy and says, "Hateful Youth… I don't know what you're talking about, sorry." Ron says, "You can't fool me, you're the singer for Hateful Youth, you're fucking awesome!" The girl shakes her head and walks away. We later find out that Hateful Youth was a band that Ron sung for. From there on that girl that went to our high school was always referred to as "Hateful Youth chick."

- A couple of years after first meeting Ron, I ended up in Seattle with my band Mouthpiece. We were doing some shows with Seattle's Undertow and of course we ended up hanging out with Ron. I remember going out to eat with Ron and a couple of the Undertow guys and Ron telling me and the Undertow guys that the torch had been passed to us and bands like Mouthpiece and Undertow were the future of straight edge hardcore. I was stoked to hear that considering I was a definite Brotherhood fan and had a lot of respect for Ron. After eating Ron drove me to the Seattle overlook where the cover shot for the Brotherhood "Words Run As Thick A Blood" photo was taken. I was stoked to say the least, unfortunately I had no camera to capture the moment.


Brotherhood - "Words Run As Thick As Blood" Seattle overlook shot


An outtake shot from the "Words Run As Thick As Blood" cover shoot

As for the 7", classic east coast style straight edge hardcore played by a band from Seattle with a singer that sounded as close to Springa from SSD as you could get. I loved the entire 7", but my vote for favorite track went to "The Deal". Why… because of these lyrics:

Litter our streets, with your poison
No concern, for the deadly consequence

We are coming on strong
The deal, you'll pay a price

Step on whatevers in your way
Push and shove, selfish heart
And you will pay

This pain, that you've caused
Like our attack, it's coming back

-Tim DCXX


Greg Anderson with Brotherhood way before his Southern Lord/Sunn O)) days, Photo courtesy of: Brotherhood

The Deal - 82
Til' Death Do Us Part - 63
No Tolerance - 21
Won't Turn Our Backs - 12
Courage - 7
Gain - 5


Here's a video of Ron's post-Brotherhood band, Resolution doing a cover of Brotherhood's "Breaking The Ice". In this video Ron's friend Brian (as previously mentioned) is accompanying him on stage with Resolution. This was filmed by Cedar Bristol at Washington Hall, 12-2-1989 Seattle Washington.

Happy Halloween from DCXX

"It's Halloween, everyone's entitled to one good scare."

Outtakes from the soon to be released "Everybody's Scene" book

Circle Storm at the Anthrax, Norwalk CT, Photo: Jeff Ladd

In case you haven't heard, Chris Daily's tell-all book on the Anthrax, "Everybody's Scene" is going to be out in no time, and is something you don't want to miss. We've been fortunate enough to not only get a glimpse of the book, but to get access to some of the outtake material from this monster project. We'll be running some of this outtake material here as the release approaches. Let me stress again - you do not want to miss this book! -Gordo DCXX

Shaun Sheridan

I was 22 in '82. April of '82 was when we actually started looking for a place. I just called up every realtor in the yellow pages. Just said “I’m looking for a store front, set it up as a studio/art gallery" - but studio mainly, because that's a much broader term. Somebody wound up calling me back; they had 400 square feet, Main Street in Stamford. Went and looked at the place, steel roll down gate in the front, had this small basement, to us which doubled the space. Okay, $400 a month, we were both living at home, home from college from the summer. We were both working; it was kind of like having a club house. All we had to do was paint it, put it in shape.

We didn't think we'd be able to like, do anything. We'd be down there just working on the place, sitting in the basement because it was cooler, having a beer, talking about things. "Wouldn't it be so cool if we had a band playing down here?" And eventually that happened. Two bands played, we were having a gallery opening upstairs. Crypt Tease, a couple of girls Brian had gone to college with, played like, a Cramps style. And then the Moberly’s which were from Seattle Washington, the drummer had been in The Farts. Jim BASS? Had this band the Moberly’s who wrote these great pop rock sorts of tunes more than anything else. He lived in the apartment building that Brian was living in down in Brooklyn, they were subletting. So I got to know them, so they were like, “Hey we'll come play your art opening.” It was like August 1982.

That was a great thing. A whole bunch of artists showed up. It was very well received. It went til like 6 in the morning. It was this really cool opening night/day thing that gave you the idea something could really happen there


The Stamford Anthrax, photo from Everybody's Scene courtesy of: Chris Daily

Brian Sheridan

As far as bigger bands that came through...After the Dickies, probably 7 Seconds, DOA, The Asexuals, Stretch Marks...New York bands like No Control, Dr. Know, Suicidal Tendencies, Circle Jerks, Adolescents, just about anybody that was anybody at that time. I think the only bands that we didn’t get were somebody like Red Hot Chili Peppers - they were supposed to play Norwalk on a Sunday early on and something happened where they double-booked or something so we couldn't do them on a Sunday. I think they played up at Toad’s Place instead. Let's see, what were some of the other bands...Detox, Clipboards, that was a band I was telling you about. Well of course, Black Flag, they shut us down.

Black Flag was supposed to be a surprise, unannounced show. Henry had gone on tour, his Spoken Word tour, and really liked what we were doing at the Gallery, so he says ok, next time we're coming through Black Flag, we're going to play at the club. And I was like, well, ok, it’s an unannounced show, let's sell some tickets...it was supposed to be like a surprise show. Well, the word got out and all of a sudden people are...500 people are showing up to an underground club and Black Flag and Gone and Painted Willie I believe, they show up in their vans. We're setting up, they go downstairs with their equipment and their PA and just go into the breaker box, huge huge clamps with the electrical for their PA. Their PA took up the whole stage for crying out loud. So as the night wore on, I think Gone played then Painted Willie played, Black Flag was supposed to go on and we got raided. The police came and said, "Listen Brian and Shaun, you're getting too popular here" you know. They shut us down...and they kicked everybody out and said you guys gotta leave the neighborhood pretty much.


Moby

Musically, I liked everything especially in the early 80s there was never, at least among myself and my friends, there was never this idea that you had to choose one genre of music to the exclusion of anything else. Danceteria was this club in Manhattan. It was the perfect example of an eclectic club. The Bad Brains would be playing on the ground floor, Mission of Burma would be playing in the basement. There would be a Gay Disco on the second floor. New Wave video lounge on the third floor. Hip Hop on the fourth floor. And everything really benignly co-existed. The Beastie Boys are also a perfect example of that. They started out as a hardcore band then became a hip hop band, and everybody, at least my friends, were into everything. I never liked that idea of picking and choosing. Like if you're into hardcore you can't be into this. As much as I liked Black Flag Damaged, if it's Sunday Morning at 8 o'clock, I want to listen to something pretty.

So yeah, when I started making my own music, I was making electronic music but also making acoustic music that just wasn't being released. I was playing drums with some friends, we started a band called the Pork Guys. We made one seven inch in like 1991. We made 100 copies for our friends. So it wasn't like transitioning from one type of music into another, it was, my musical tastes, and maybe this just means I'm a stunted adolescent, that my musical tastes when I was fifteen are basically the same as they are now. I liked everything back then, and for better or worse I still like everything.


Ray Cappo

Stamford was sort of like the weird little ghetto area. I think one of the coolest things that happened was one day the entire city of New Haven showed up. And New Haven had like this whole scene of themselves. They like doubled our scene in one show. Like we never knew they existed, they never knew we existed. They were all younger than me even. And they just showed up one day. It was like when Youth Of Today was, you know, all those kids we saw in that picture like Becky and Tayo and man they were all really punk rock looking, like right off the cover of the Punk And Disorderly record. They all had like, leather jackets and mohawks and girls with shaven heads and it was just, holy crap! New Haven! We were like, where are you guys from? They were like, we're from New Haven, and there were like 30 of them. Like, This is great! There's a whole new scene!

It was a really interesting mix also, because like, Connecticut is a notoriously super wealthy state. And you have people who look incredibly punk, incredibly from the streets. They were always rich, really rich kids, from these really rich families that were punks, and they were all cool, we were all friends and I didn't know if any of them were rich or not. We just all met there. Just, we didn't drink so we didn't do much, just hung out and skateboarded around. I think drinking makes your stories much more exciting, ridiculous, and dangerous. We're just like, "yeah we saw the band and moshed, and that was it. Went home."


Chris Daily interviewing Ray Cappo for Everybody's Scene, Photo: Sue Snow

Gavin Van Vlack on Agnostic Front - "Victim In Pain"

Gavin with Burn at Middlesex County College, Photo: Adam Tanner

At DCXX, we always welcome suggestions from the readers on what they'd like to see here. Yesterday I got a great suggestion from Geoff TDT to do a running piece on Agnostic Front's classic New York Hardcore album, "Victim In Pain". The idea is that since Bridge 9 Records will be releasing an official re-release of "Victim In Pain" next month, it would be interesting to hear what some NYHC veterans have to say about this album. The question was simple, "What does Victim In Pain mean to you?". First at bat is Absolution/Burn/Die 116, NYHC heavy hitter guitarist, Gavin Van Vlack. -Tim DCXX

Victim In Pain was a voice out of the darkness of old New York summoning hardcore kids everywhere that they were not alone.

In a time when we weren't of the numbers that we have attained today with hardcore's current popularity, it told hardcore and punk kids that they could make a change in the world that was scaring us to death...and we did. - Gavin Van Vlack

Jon Biv part IV - The beginning of Supertouch

Supertouch, Pyramid Club, NYC 1990, Photo by: Glenn Maryansky

It's difficult for me to really explain what happened with Mark, Mike Judge and Youth Of Today mainly because I was an outsider to it all. Most people know that Ray Cappo and Mark Ryan were living in the same apartment in NYC for a brief time. To me, what looked like a pretty respectful friendship seemed to sour quickly. And of course, once YOT asked Mike to join and play drums, the friendship just ended.

We played two gigs as Supertouch, in spring 1987, with Mike drumming and Walter Schreifels on bass. We lost Carl to his other commitments, and now we were losing Mike. Make no mistake about it; Mark and I were pissed. A lot of crazy and angry words were being thrown around in the NY Hardcore scene. It never erupted into physical confrontation, but a lot of garbage-talk piled up. It was all really silly because it worked out for the better for Supertouch in the end.

On one of those gigs in '87, we played with a band called Altercation. Mark was very impressed with their drummer. When he heard that Altercation had broken up, he went about trying to find the drummer. This is how we met Andy.

Andy had issues with the scene which were in tune with our own. His band ended because two of the members quit to join another much bigger band. He was perfect for us because he was so talented, loved all different kinds of music, and was fueled by the same anger as Mark and myself.


Supertouch, Pyramid Club, NYC 1990, Photo by: Glenn Maryansky

The first practice with Andy was amazing. We got more done in two hours than we ever got done with Mike in two years. We had also found a new bass player, Mike Bitton. We were ready to start playing shows by September of 1987.

With this new line-up, we were officially Supertouch. No more being confused with Death Before Dishonor. Our practices also changed. We would do a lot of writing and practicing what we already had, but we also did a lot of improvisation. Ok, we weren't Funkadelic or the Bad Brains, but working out crazy spaced out jams with no boundaries really opened up so many possibilities. Hundreds of ideas started coming out of us, and a lot would eventually be used. A song like 'What Did We Learn' started out being inspired by a certain drum beat (taken from an Abused song). It then worked its way into a quiet groove where Mark starts singing, and ends on a high note purely influenced by the Cro-Mags.

The creativity of the band escalated. We weren't afraid to add in quiet parts. They would make the loud and heavy parts around them so much more dynamic. Personally, I started using some chords that most guitar players wouldn't go near. Adding in some major chords in a scene which would only tolerate minor chords and crunch was risky. But who cares? Andy and Mark loved what I was coming up with.


Joe with Supertouch at Fenders, 1989, Photo: Mikey Garceau

With Mike Judge drumming, I wrote Searching, Struggling To Communicate, and our Intro. There were three others which had been dropped. With Andy, the first songs to come out of us were What Did We Learn, How Do You Feel, On 3, Grabbing Hold, and The Day After. Much different from the first efforts, and much different from the other bands we were playing with. We would get a lot of blank stares when we played, but we were also winning over new people all the time.

By mid 1988, we had to replace Mike Bitton. Things just weren't going well with him. We still got gigs and were able to get replacement bass players. We did two gigs with Eddie Cohen (Altercation, Leeway, Both Worlds), and two gigs with Tom Capone (Beyond, Quicksand). We couldn't keep these guys due to their prior commitments so we put an add in the Village Voice. The first call came from Joe Graz.

Andy met up with him and gave him a cassette of a demo we had done, and the WNYU show. There were 10 songs on the tape. When Joe came to try out, it was more like a practice. He knew all the songs, and it wasn't a try out at all. We found our man. Or he found us.

Mikey Fast Break part II

Tell us about your East Coast trip in '89, how that came about, who you hung with, what shows you saw and whatever memories come to mind.

That thing was a whirlwind. I had corresponded with Jeff Terranova for a bit before they came out to California that summer in 1989. Those guys and Supertouch stayed at my (parents') house for a night or two before the show. Up Front was either lined up to play or were able to jump on the show at Fender’s, so we went over there and just had the best time. That show just happened to be on my 16th birthday.

Anyway, Up Front was set-up to play at Gilman up in Berkeley the next day and I had my drivers’ license test the day after. So, I talked my folks into letting me make the trip to Berkeley the next day; with the precondition that I would be home for my drivers test. Somehow I was also able to get my folks to agree with letting me tag along with Up Front across the lower half of the US back to NY. So, Up Front plays the show (with Judge, BOLD, and Supertouch, I think) and then we head back down to Huntington Beach. We end up at my parents’ house with a couple hours to spare. I get myself sorted, head over to the DMV, and pass my test. My Dad hands me like $200.00 and tells everyone in the van that I am not allowed to drive under any circumstances. It was Jeff, Jon, Ari, Roger, this kid Frankie from Cleveland, and myself.


Mikey moshes it up to Inside Out at the Che Cafe, Photo: Dave Sine

We set off and somewhere along the way we met up with Release. The bands played a few shows along the way back to NY / NJ. If I’m not mistaken, that trip produced my first visit to City Gardens. It was here that I ran into the Turning Point kids outside the club. That’s where Skip and I started talking.
So, after about a week staying at Jeff’s, I flew home about a week before my sophomore year of High School.

How did Fast Break Fanzine / Photozine come to life? Take us through each issues and your memories of each?

I felt like I wanted to contribute something, so Fast Break was my way of doing it. It just kinda became something from taking photos.

I was tight with Against The Wall, so that was a pretty easy first interview. I didn’t know about halftones or anything like that, so it was just xeroxed black and white photos laid up. The text was written up on my Brother typewriter. That machine was great because it had cartridges you could change out for different fonts.


The photozine was something I wanted to do because it was different. No interviews, hardly any text, just plain and raw. Looking back at it, I wish I produced it better. The photos are all washed out and the overall print job was shitty. The design aesthetic was heavily influenced by a couple issues of Boiling Point I had. That zine was just awesome.

Being behind the lens, how did the HC scene change over time to you?

Other than the style of clothing that kids were wearing, I didn’t really notice too many changes. With the exception of Inside Out, I don’t think it really started to change very much musically until I stopped doing the zine and got in Drift Again.

I remember sitting in Madrid’s room one day and hearing the Quicksand EP for the first time. Listening to the way Walter sang, it gave me the feeling that the style of music we were used to listening to was in for a little change. For me, that record was really revolutionary. That might sound a bit hyperbolic, but between them and Inside Out, I can’t remember any other records from that time that I heard and felt that other bands were going to mimic them.