New York hardcore (also known asNYHC) is both thehardcore punk music created inNew York City and thesubculture andlifestyle associated with that music. The scene established many aspects that are fixtures of hardcore punk today, including its simplified name "hardcore", itshardcore skinhead andyouth crew subcultures, the moshing stylehardcore dancing, its association withstreet gangs and its prominent influence ofheavy metal.
The scene experienced many distinct waves and deviations in style: early 1980s bands who directly outgrew the earlier punk scene includingAgnostic Front,Reagan Youth andKraut began the scene. In the mid–1980s, theCro-Mags,Leeway andStormtroopers of Death embraced the influence of the nascentthrash metal genre, helping to pioneercrossover thrash. In the mid-to-late 1980s, a reaction against this metal influence sawYouth of Today,Gorilla Biscuits andBold established the youth crew subculture, which revived hardcore's punk–based roots. However, by the end of the decade, thrash metal's influence permeated the scene again establishing a new form,tough guy hardcore, played bySick of It All,Breakdown,Madball andKilling Time. During the 1990s, the sound of New York hardcore largely diversified:Helmet,Quicksand andLife of Agony helped to establish thealternative metal genre, whileBulldoze and25 ta Life pioneeredbeatdown hardcore andMerauder,All Out War andVision of Disorder becoming prominent forces inmetalcore. FurthermoreBiohazard,Cro-Mags andSkarhead embracing influences from hip hop andH2O andCIV creating music indebted topop music.
The origins of New York's punk rock scene can be traced back to such sources as late 1960strash culture and an early 1970sunderground rock movement centered on theMercer Arts Center inGreenwich Village, where theNew York Dolls performed.[1] In early 1974, this early punk scene began to develop around theCBGB club, also inlower Manhattan, featuring groups and musicians likeTelevision,[2]Richard Hell,[3]Patti Smith,[4] theRamones,[5]the Heartbreakers[6] andJayne County[7] The New York hardcore scene particularly grew of out of the section of this punk scene that was documented on the 1982New York Thrash compilation, with groups likethe Stimulators, the Eliminators and the Mad.[8]
After the breakup of the Eliminators, the band's bass player Vinnie Stigma formedAgnostic Front.[9] The band soon became the godfathers of New York Hardcore and one of the scene's most crucial bands.[10] Around the same time the term "hardcore" started being used instead of "punk rock".Roger Miret of Agnostic Front asserts that "We started using the term 'hardcore' because we wanted to separate ourselves from the punk scene that was happening in New York at the time ... We were rougher kids living in the streets. It had a rougher edge".[11] The scene emerged around 1981, when members of Agnostic Front, Cause for Alarm,Kraut,Murphy's Law and Antidote began to spend time together onAvenue A and performing atA7 inManhattan.[12] Rock clubs likeMax's Kansas City,the Ritz and CBGB's also quickly became crucial spots for this newly formed scene.[8][12]
Early in the decade, many bands were inspired by the Britishanarcho-punk scene. Beginning as a part of the larger New York hardcore scene, bands likeReagan Youth,False Prophets andHeart Attack[13] made use of a similar musical style and mentality to their British counterparts.[14] This scene split from New York hardcore as the decade progressed.[13]Nausea were a key figure in the scene during this period, helping to cultivate a new scene in the city based around politics and squatting.[15]
After the release ofMetallica's 1983 debut albumKill 'Em All, New York hardcore bands began embracing elements ofheavy metal music, especiallythrash metal. This event caused the scene to expand, with the average attendance at shows jumping from around 100 to over 400.[16] One of the earliest New York hardcore bands to embrace heavy metal influences wasNYC Mayhem.[17] In the following years, manycrossover thrash bands began to form within the scene, notablyLeeway,Crumbsuckers,Nuclear Assault[18] andLudichrist.[19] New York metal bands likeAnthrax andCarnivore began attending and performing at hardcore shows,[20] and many original NYHC bands became increasingly heavier and harder in sound as the metal influences grew stronger, consequently some NYHC bands who were previously skinheads started growing their hair and adopting metal looks. Agnostic Front released the crossover albumCause for Alarm in 1986, which led many in the scene to deride them assell outs.[16] Writer Freddie Alva stated in a 2014 article that "[Cause for Alarm's] combination of heavy metal precision and hardcore energy created a landmark for the crossover sound".[18]
The Cro-Mags released the crossover album,Best Wishes in 1989, which also heavily impacted the scene. The album was cited as a major influence by much of the 1990s New York hardcore scene, particularlyBiohazard,Merauder andCandiria.[20]
Youth crew was a movement that began in the mid-to-late 1980s as a reaction against the metal influences being embraced in New York hardcore. Youth crew bands began playing a sound that called back to earlierpunk rock–leaning hardcore acts.[21] The movement was fronted byYouth of Today, who coined the name on their 1985 song "Youth Crew".Gorilla Biscuits andBold were also prominent bands in the style.[22]Straight edge andvegetarianism were also defining features of this movement,[21] however this led to many older members of the scene rejecting the movement. Because of this, New York youth crew became an isolated entity separate from the wider hardcore scene. From within the youth crew scene, emerged bands likeSick of It All andWarzone, who did not necessarily adhere to all of its elements but would prove influential to many subsequent hardcore bands.[23] Later youth crew bands, namelyJudge, began to take heavily from metal, helping to lead to the development ofheavy hardcore.[21] New York youth crew began to decline in popularity and prominence following the1988 Tompkins Square Park riot and 1990 departure of Ray Cappo from Youth of Today.[23]
As the scene progressed many bands began to emerge that took significant influence fromheavy metal and hip hop. Some musicians in the New York hardcore scene cultivated a "tough guy ethos" through use of aggression, criminal violence and gang mentatilites.[24]
Over time, many of these bands began to develop a unique style that was based more around rhythm and less around the influence of punk. Thepalm muting guitar technique was a key aspect of this sound,[24] as well asgang vocals, heavyguitar riffs and heavybreakdowns.[25] According to writer Tony Rettman, in his bookNYHC (2015),Yonkers, New York bandBreakdown, formed in 1987, were one of the first bands to define tough guy hardcore. The same yearJudge released their debut EPNew York Crew, whichCrack magazine described as the record that took New York's "tough guy mentality to new heights".[26] Other bands pushing this sound at the time includedSick of It All,Sheer Terror andKilling Time.[27][28]Madball, formed in 1988, were credited byRiverfront Times as the band that defined tough guy hardcore,[29] and byStereogum as "an archetypal tough-guy hardcore band".[30] During the 1990s, they become of the most prominent bands in New York hardcore.[31][32]
Gradually, tough guy hardcore became so ubiquitous of the New York hardcore that the style became popularly known as simply "New York hardcore".[33] Through the 1990s and 2000s, the sound was expanded upon by groups from outside of New York, includingBlood for Blood,Death Before Dishonor,Terror andTrapped Under Ice. Ultimately, tough guy hardcore became a more dominant sound in the hardcore scene than its original punk-based sound, becoming what is thought of "when you say 'hardcore'".[34] It influenced the development ofbeatdown hardcore,[35]brutal death metal,[36]slam death metal[37] anddeathcore.[38][39]
During the 1990s, the sound of New York hardcore bands diversified, with the influence of thrash metal anddeath metal becoming increasingly common groups likeBiohazard, Madball,Skarhead and25 Ta Life were became influenced byhip-hop music, an influence which permeated through most of the mid to late 1990s NYHC scene.[40][41] Biohazard's merger of hip hop and tough guy hardcore, in particularly, was widely successful,[42] with their 1992 single "Punishment" gaining significant airplay onMTV. The band's 1993 collaboration with rap groupOnyx on the remix of "Slam" was certified platinum[43] and the band would go on to be cited as an influence bynu metal pioneersKorn.[44]
At this time, members of New York hardcore bands began to form new bands which playedalternative metal includingShelter,Quicksand,[45]Orange 9mm[46] andHelmet.[47] The Cro-Mags third albumAlpha Omega (1992) saw the band lean further into their metal influence, while incorporating conventional singing and experimenting withrap metal on "Eyes Of Tomorrow".[48]Life of Agony were one of the most prominent,[49] the vinyl edition of their debut albumRiver Runs Red (1993) peaking at number 11 on theBillboard Vinyl Albums chart.[50] In May 2005, the album inducted into theDecibel Magazine Hall of Fame; it was fourth album overall to be featured.[51] Furthermore, many New York hardcore musicians began to pursue morepop–influenced styles, including.H2O,[52]CIV and nearbyLifetime.[53] Concurrently, the scene was primarily based around the Bond Street Café onBond Street, Manhattan. By 1993, Brownies, Coney Island High and theWetlands Preserve became frequented venues, and CBGB recommended hosting Sunday matinees.[12]
In the mid-1990s, the New York hardcore scene expanded outward into much of theNew York metropolitan area andNew York state, which gave rise toVision of Disorder,Crown of Thornz andNo Redeeming Social Value.[12]Bulldoze, whose members were from bothIrvington, New Jersey and New York City, pioneered thebeatdown hardcore subgenre. Their 1996 albumThe Final Beatdown giving the style its name.[54][55] Originating from the earlier tough guy hardcore sound,[56] Bulldoze, along with Terror Zone, created the genre bu merging the sound with lyrics of gang activity and heavy breakdowns to set the template for the genre.[57] In their wake followed groups like Neglect, Confusion[58] and 25 Ta Life.[59]
New York City'sMerauder released their debut albumMaster Killer in 1996, merging the sounds of metalcore, earlier New York hardcore and the newly emerged beatdown hardcore style. Of the album,Revolver writer Elis Enis stated "any self-proclaimed 'metallic hardcore' band of the last 25 years is indebted toMaster Killer's steel-toed stomp."[60] Along withAll Out War, Darkside NYC and Confusion, Merauder were a part of a wave of bands defining a newer, increasingly metallic style of hardcore in New York that had long been one of the epicentres of metalcore.[61] Long Island'sVision of Disorder were also a prevalent band in the scene, being one of the first bands to incorporate clean singing into metalcore, which would soon become a staple, as well as incorporating elements ofnu metal.[62] In a 2005 article byBillboard magazine, writer Greg Pato stated that "with seemingly every local teen waving the VOD banner circa the mid/late '90s, it seemed as though it was only a matter of time before VOD would become the band to take 'metalcore' to a massive audience".[63]
New York originated "hardcore crews". Sociology academic Edgar M. Peralta defined crews as being people involved in hardcore scene who unify "based on reciprocal ties and varying interests, including non-criminal elements such as music or sports, but also including some criminal elements, which often include violence and graffiti", specifically originating as a means to oppose thewhite supremacist currents in their scenes.[64]
The most prominent crew in New York City is DMS (Doc Marten Skinheads) from theLower East Side.[65] Formed in the early 1980s by Jere DMS, the crew's embrace of elements of hardcore, hip-hop, graffiti,motorcycle,skinhead and skateboarding culture, and multi-ethnic membership led to it including members who would go on to form bands including Bulldoze,Madball andSkarhead.[64]
The Sunset Skins were a New York hardcore crew established inSunset Park, Brooklyn in 1987. Largely made up ofStateside Puerto Ricans, it included members who played inMerauder,All Out War, Direct Approach and Brute Force. It had largely disbanded by 1993, by which time the members of Merauder had joined DMS as their Brooklyn chapter.[66]
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Beginning withCro-Mags and inspired by the spirituality of theBad Brains,[67] many New York hardcore musicians are followers of theGaudiya Vaishnavism religious organisation theInternational Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON). Although some hardcore punk bands had already made references to Krishna Consciousness in the 1980s, the religion was most prominent through bands established in the early 1990s by the bandsShelter and108.[68] One of the first members of its scene to adopt Krishna Consciousness wasJohn Joseph of theCro-Mags.[69] New York bands Antidote and Cause for Alarm were among the first that began to explore Krishna Consciousness in both their creative and personal lives,[70][71] The main influence to on many musicians to embrace ISKCON was the Washington D.C.'s hardcore band the Bad Brains which, despite beingRastas, they "grafted fervent spirituality onto an otherwisenihilistic and antitranscendental genre."[72]
The "New York hardcore logo" is a symbol attached to the scene which features the letters "NYHC" within the quadrants of an X shape. The symbol was created by the Abused vocalist Kevin Crowley.[73] According toHarley Flanagan, the use of the X was inspired by the crossed hammers on the logo of the English Football firm theInter City Firm, which he witnessed when in London in the late 1970s.[74]
Since its early stages, New York hardcore has been heavily associated withhardcore skinhead culture (unrelated toneo-Nazi skinheads),gang ideology andtattoo culture as well assquatting. In the mid to late 1980s, youth crew ideology andgraffiti culture started to make an impact on the scene and had a long-lasting influence on the genre. Critics and observers have also noted an inspiration and influence from gritty, urban and/or dystopian films such asDeath Wish,Taxi Driver,The Warriors, andEscape from New York.[67] Historically, political stances in New York Hardcore have been varied and sometimes controversial.
New York hardcore developed earlyslam dancing into what is now understood as moshing. In their distinction, participants may stay in one position on their own or collide with others, while executing a more exaggerated version of the arm and leg swinging of California slam dancing.[75]
As fans of heavy metal began to attend New York hardcore performances, they developed their own style of dancing based on New York hardcore's style of slam dancing. Beginning around 1983, metalheads began to refer to the slower sections of hardcore songs as "mosh parts", while hardcore musicians had called them "skank parts".[76] It was this group, particularlyScott Ian andBilly Milano who popularised the word "moshing".[77] Ian and Milano's band Stormtroopers of Death released their debut albumSpeak English or Die in 1985, which included the track "Milano Mosh". This led to the term being applied to the style of dance. The same year, moshing began to incorporate itself into live performances by heavy metal bands, with one early example being duringAnthrax's 1985 set atthe Ritz.[78] The term was then further popularised byAnthrax's 1987 song "Caught in a Mosh".[79]
With the popularity of tough guy hardcore came increased violence during performance.[28] To the extent that in the late-1980s, many clubs, namely CBGB began to refuse to book hardcore bands to perform, due to the increasing violence and gang behavior that was present at them. This also led many long time members of the scene to depart.[12]
Some of the mid-1980s NYHC groups were aligned withright-wing ideology and had strong stances on immigration and patriotism, all the while openly condemningracism andnazism. Similarly, leftist groups associated with the scene such asBorn Against andNausea also exist within the scene.[67] Naturally, conflict can sometimes arise between the two groups.
Sam McPheeters argues that:
What early New York Hardcore bands lacked in distinctive output, however, they more than compensated for in sheer menace. As the scene coalesced inReagan's first term, the New York Hardcore scene—known in the shorthand of graffiti and knuckle tattoos as NYHC—injected class into the subculture in a way that no other city could. It was a world marinating in poverty and violence.[67]
Steve Wishnia: At some point there was a split between what would be considered the peace punks - us, Reagan Youth, Heart Attack, No Thanks, A.P.P.L.E - and the skinhead bands like Cro-Mags and Agnostic Front.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)Todd Youth: The whole peace-punk political thing didn't have anything to do with our world. They were all trying to be British peace-punk bands and do the Crass-type thing.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)Nausea was definitely a catalyst in 1985 for forging an alternative to the CBGB hardcore matinees. Their brand of highly politically charged punk had antecedents in NYC with documented groups like False Prophets and Reagan Youth, and the unknown ones like Sacrilege and Counterforce. But Nausea had a connection to the squatter movement that spoke to people who felt disconnected from the NYHC scene of the day.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)Tough guy hardcore has been around as long as I have. An impressive act here and there have combined circle pits and gang vocals with elements of Metallica-type thrash, but none in recent years have pushed that hybrid to the brink quite like Dallas, Texas' Power Trip.
Breakdown is considered one of the first "tough guy" bands to come out of New York. When Breakdown started playing, the Sick of It All demo had just come out a few months earlier. Sheer Terror was still slogging it out with demos, trying to make a name for themselves. The Krakdown demo had just come out, along with Leeway'sEnforcer demo, plus Rest in Pieces and stuff like that. Some of the original NYHC bands were slowly disappearing, like Major Conflict, Reagan Youth, and Antidote. Around 1986 and 1987 a whole new wave of bands emerged that were influenced by the original New York bands but added something different.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)I really soured on hard New York hardcore bands. I started avoiding shows with bands like Killing Time, Burn and Sick of It All, bands that I really liked. As the tough guy sound got more and more popular in the 1990s, the violence just got worse.
For anyone who wishes modern tough-guy hardcore music had more to offer than suburban chest-beating, look no further than Sunami. This band brings beatdown hardcore back to its source
Thought deathcore may cause purists to cringe, multiple listens should convince doubters that a band can find a middle ground between tough guy hardcore and destructive death metal.
{{cite book}}:|website= ignored (help)Ein besonderes Subgenre des Metallic Hardcores oder New School Hardcores ist der "Mosh Style", überwiegend auch als "Beatdown" bezeichnet und von Gruppen wie Insurgence und Undertow vertreten. Mosh-Core zeichnet sich durch einen langsameren Tempo Beat, Groove- Orientierung und harte Breakdowns mit Tempowechseln aus, die die Menschenmenge vor der Bühne zum "Moshen" animieren sollen. Als die Begründer des Beatdown Hardcore wird häufig die New Yorker Band Bulldoze genannt. Einige moderne Beatdown-Gruppen fügen ihrer Musik mittlerweile auch Rap-Parts hinzu.
Als Begründer oder zumindest als Namensgeber gilt die New Yorker Hardcore-Band Bulldoze mit ihrem Song "Beatdown" von ihrem 1998 veröffentlichten AlbumThe Final Beatdown.
For anyone who wishes modern tough-guy hardcore music had more to offer than suburban chest-beating, look no further than Sunami. This band brings beatdown hardcore back to its source
Heavy hardcore: Throughout the following couple decades the newer style became just as predominant as its faster cousin. Prominent bands include 25 ta Life, Vision Of Disorder, 100 Demons, All Out War, Neglect, Shattered Realm, Death Threat, Next Step Up, E-Town Concrete, Hoods, Subzero, Sworn Enemy, Breakdown, Knuckledust, Mushmouth, Settle The Score, Angel Crew, and The Bad Luck 13 Riot Extravaganza who became infamous for their unpredictable and chaotic live sets.
Actors within the field may often refer to the crew scene as 'beatdown hardcore', 'thugcore', or 'tough guy hardcore'. The third and most common of these phrases is often taken to be demeaning by those involved with the scene. By employing 'crew scene hardcore' as a descriptor, this study aims to avoid imposing what may be considered a demeaning phrase upon actors in the scene...DMS formed in the early 1980s around New York's Lower East Side as 'Doc Martin Skins', which is a reference to a type of boot popular amongst skinheads at the time. Skinheads in punk and hardcore scenes, despite popular connotation, are not a unified faction of racists. The complex racial ideology that has accompanied hardcore, especially in its early days, exceeds the limits of this paper and deserves further research. The DMS crew, as one member informed, does not adhere to racist ideology and has dropped allusions to the skinhead scene. Now the acronym is more likely to mean 'Dirty Money Syndicate', or 'Drugs Money Sex'. The FSU crew started as 'Friends Stand United', and has been also referred to as 'Fuck Shit Up', or 'Forever Society's Underdogs'. The pliability of crew names will be addressed later in the article.
It's [been] rumoured that Harley from one of America's top Hardcore bands that's an American heavy punk sound not unlike British Oi! – 'nicked' the crossed-hammers I.C.F. logo he saw on a visit to London back in the late Seventies to invent the now world-famous New York Hardcore cross. Steve Whale from The Business recently asked Harley if this was true... and he confirmed.
Much like slamdancing was a modification of the pogo, moshing emerged in the mid-1980s as a variation on slamdancing...
In contrast to slamdancing, moshing lacks the elements, such as circular pit motion, which promote unity in the pit. The development of moshing in New York City in the 1980s even saw the partial breakdown of the convention of picking up fallen dancers, as pit violence increased. New York City straight edge shows became legendary for their brutality...
Moshers keep their bodies more bent over and compacted, and they swing either both arms or just one (usually the right) arm around across the body in a move that one of my interviewees called 'the death swing'. This swinging of the arm(s) in moshing is far more theatrical and exaggerated than in slamdancing. If a mosher swings only one arm, the non-swinging arm is kept ready to provide some guard against collisions with other moshers. The dancers often stand in a stationary position while performing these moves, but sometimes they run into other people inside and on the edge of the pit. To do so, dancers generally just move to where there are other dancers clustered and colliding with each other and join in the collision. This run-and-collide style of moshing can be distinguished from the style of slamdancing which also involves running and colliding by the more exaggerated body movements in moshing. Moshers do not move in counter-clockwise group motion...
Compared with slamming, the fundamental body movements of moshing, such as the more violent swinging of the arms, the more violent body contact, and the lack of group motion place even greater emphasis on individual territoriality over community. Whereas the bodily motion of swinging arms and high-stepping legs has remained the traditional motion of slamdancing since it first emerged, moshing has seen the introduction of new moves such as jumping karate kicks.
Mike Schnapp (NYHC scene): In 1985, I started hearing a new word: Moshing. It was a Metal word from Billy Milano and Scott Ian of S.O.D., and was a new term for a similar thing I knew as slamdancing in the Punk world. Some of the Metal kids showing up at the Hardcore shows didn't understand the nuances of the scene. They saw kids banging into each other and just joined in. So some of the Hardcore crew didn't like the Metal crowd at "their" shows. You took your life in your hands if you were one of the lone longhairs at a CBGB's matinee. That's when things got rough, and the violence really messed things up. People lost focus. It used to be about the bands and the music. It started one way and ended another"
Then," says Martin, "the metal clowns started calling them 'mosh pits', the slow parts where everybody would dance harder in hardcore songs. When I was playing in Agnostic Front and I would write a slow part or whatever, those guys would be like, Oh, that's a good skank part. And then the metal people started calling them mosh parts." The word emerged into common New York parlance around '83/'84.
Alternatively the term may have been coined by Anthrax or SOD (Stormtroopers Of Death), an Anthrax affiliated project whose 'Milano Mosh' was an influential track. New York rock publicist Trevor Silmser recalls: "What made the word popular was in '85 this group SOD put out a record and had a song called 'Milano Mosh' and that was a pretty big crossover record, basically getting tons of metal kids into hardcore." Billy Milano from SOD says that although there was a certain period during which people stopped calling it slamming and started calling it moshing, it was SOD and not Anthrax that actually started it.
Scott Ian of Anthrax, who also plays in SOD with Milano, gives the credit to the more commercial of his two bands: "The first time I saw moshing at a metal show was when Anthrax played the old Ritz in early '85 and a pit opened up. So yeah I can definitely say, as far as I know, we definitely brought it out into the world of heavy metal. Sadly I would have to take some responsibility for that.