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Parade Brigade #1

By admin on Aug. 2, 2005.

This is our personal pages from Parade Brigade #1. Nothing much to say here. The Spazz interview was actually in #1 (but the H-Street interview we mention later on wasn’t, huh?). The Kill Your Idols, Speak 714, Purpose, and Nerve Agents interviews are still unreleased to this day. We never got around to interviewing In My Eyes.

Parade Brigade #1
Well, well, a new zine. John and I have combined forces and are now doing a zine together. ITBOAE is dead; not that anyone gives a fuck, but hey why not mention it? I figure fuck, I am the negative one usually so I will let John do all the positive bullshit. I hope that since we are now a *team* that we will be able to bust this shit out more often. I would like, ideally, to do one of these every two to three months. However, John is even more of a nerd than I am, so school always comes first. This issue has Floorpunch, DRI, Arms Reach, The Judas Iscariot, Ensign, and 97a. Look for the next issue to hit trendy bookstores and Camelot’s near you in a few months with Spazz, Kill Your Idols, H-Street, Speak 714, The Purpose, In My Eyes, The Nerve Agents, and Unit Pride.

Playlist-Beyond, Neurosis, Quicksand, Samiam, Floorpunch, Raw Power, SSD, DYS, Impact Unit, Negative Approach, 411, Arms Reach, Negative FX, Full Speed Ahead, Fit For Abuse, 97a, Deadguy, Token Entry, Mainstrike, Anti-Heroes, One Sided War, Killing Time

Thank You List-

Jay Fisher, OAYC, Mickey, D-Tox, Joe OZ, The MPC, Jenn West, Aaron L, Clay, Dan and Melissa Scheme, No Contest, Tears of Frustration, Chris Oliver and The Purpose, The Disturbed, Tim and Traci, David K, Floorpunch, Geoff TDT, Scooter, Brett, SOV, Sue Stormshadow, Greg Miller, Chris Alpino, Adrienne, Gordo and The Parting Shot, Fred Hammer, XClaim! and all of Australia, Crucial Response Records, Highscore, H-Street, Clevo Kids, Susan Wills, Cynthia, Spike and DRI, Sweet Pete and all of Boston, 97a, Reach The Sky, Amanda Cajano, Kill Your Idols, Full Speed Ahead, Fired Up! and all the others…

John
Welcome to the first issue of Parade Brigade Fanzine. This is my first “real attempt” at doing a fanzine, but putting out a fanzine is something I’ve always wanted to do. In 11th grade my friend Justin and I started up a fanzine called We’re Not Gonna Take It. We did interviews with Rain On The Parade and No Redeeming Social Value, but that was about as far as we went. Usually, we would spend too much time skating and hanging out at the shore, and not enough time cutting and pasting. We’re Not Gonna Take It was eventually buried in the illustrious heap of unfinished hardcore fanzines.

Although my initial effort fell flat, putting out a zine remained an unfulfilled dream. Recently, I had the inspiration to start a new fanzine in hopes of bolstering the somewhat anemic Jersey hardcore scene. I wanted to give recognition to the bands I love and construct something that represents my ideas and opinions. Unfortunately, I would have probably just wasted paper on something that I would never finish.

Bill, on the other hand, is an experienced and successful zinester. He began by doing a zine called Assimilation or Oblivion (whose only memory is preserved by Ocean County diehards and of all people Rick Healey). After A or O, Bill worked on What Was Said, In The Blink Of An Eye, and Broken Behind This Wall. Each of these zines delivered Bill’s caustic indictments of the hardcore community and each one included a title stolen from a classic NJHC record. Just when Bill was ready to kick off his next project, Going To AC On A Saturday Night Fanzine, he realized the joke was over and it was time to move on. Therefore, Bill and I teamed up to present you Parade Brigade Fanzine – a clever ploy to cash in on the success of Rain On The Parade and The Bad Brains.

Bill
and I have discussed our goals for the zine at length. Bill and I differ in a few respects, but we share the same idea of what a good hardcore fanzine is supposed to be. We especially want each to be released within a specified period. In other words, we do not want there to be huge gaps between release dates; so we intend to stay on the ball. Consistency is also very important to us. Too many zines gradually decline after the first issue. The following scenario is all too typical: the first issue of the zine includes interviews with Floorpunch and Mainstrike, but by the time the third issue surfaces they are interviewing Morrissey and Gravity Records. I know that many zine editors want their zines to be diverse and open minded, but hardcore means one thing to us. To some people that may seem narrow minded, but perhaps the kids today are too permissive. A hardcore fanzine should have hardcore bands in it.

Lastly, I want our zine to be honest and real. Parade Brigade Fanzine will never contain artsy backgrounds or lugubrious prose. We will never overload our zines with pretensions or skirt away from unpopular statements. Parade Brigade Fanzine will never be about “softened commitments designed to please the crowds.” If there is something that needs to be said, I will say it, in the face of laughter or resentment. I would never go out of my way to offend anyone, but I will never dilute my statements to avoid offending our audience. It seems very odd that I’m making all of these qualifying remarks when Bill is at least a hundred times more sarcastic and critical than me, but I just want people to know what we stand for. There is only one thing left to say: here’s your warning…

Reach The Sky

By admin on Jul. 25, 2005.

I did this interview with Ian from the band Reach The Sky via email in December of 1998.

  1. So let’s put the rumors to rest: Are you signing with Victory or Indecision?

We signed to Victory Records. Indecision was interested earlier and we talked, but Victory is where we wanted to go. It’s definitely the best fit for us.

  1. Why did you sign to Victory and what are you putting out with them?

Well, we are releasing a seven inch in March of 1999 to lay the groundwork for a full length in the early summer. The seven inch will be limited and it’s mostly to get the name out there beyond the folks we have already played for. Then we will spring the full length on the world. Victory has the most incredible distribution of any hardcore label, so people all over the world will be able to find our shit. This is why we want to be on a label like Victory. It is professional, well thought out, sincere, and gets things done. Just how we like to carry ourselves. We work hard, we plan, and make sure that what we are doing is the best possible thing we can do for ourselves. So when Victory approached us and said “here, let’s plan this out” we were immediately attracted to their ideas. They didn’t just want to put out a record, they wanted to get it done right. That right there is what makes them who they are. Plus, all of the people there are wonderful folks as well. I’m not going to lie, but when you are on Victory people at least know your name and that’s important as well, you know? Hell, no there are a whole group of bands on there that are friends away from hardcore too. Blood For Blood, All Out War, Hatebreed, Buried Alive, etc. Victory has a good vibe. We are super excited to be a part of the Victory family.

  1. Reach The Sky doesn’t really sing about the same things that others bands I associate you with (Floorpunch, In My Eyes, etc). Was that a conscious decision?

I don’t know if it was on purpose or not, but I think it’s just personality differences. They sing about what is important to them and I do the same in this band. Sweet Pete and Mark Porter are two of my better friends, so I know that nothing they sing about is contrived but for me it would be. Just as much as they think I am a chump for singing the wimpy shit I write about. Plus, we aren’t Straight Edge nor was I raised on the youth crew. I just sing about what is in my heart or, more specifically, what is on my mind at that point in time. You know, the more I think about this question, the stuff that they sing about and I sing about really isn’t that dissimilar. I mean, it’s about dreams, hopes, life experiences, goals. Maybe the setting or the style is different, but essentially we are all singing from the heart about what makes us tick and what moves us to be in hardcore bands. Another interesting point: have you every wondered why a great majority of the singers in hardcore bands are the older guys? I think it is because the passion to express, the emotional release of being in hardcore, never ever fades when you are the person screaming from your heart. Maybe I am wrong. Maybe we are just old and socially unable to join our peers.

  1. A lot of your lyrics seem to be, at least to me, about relationships such as The Miles Before Us and As The Sun Feel On Summer. Have you had a lot of heartbreak in your life?

Ok, I confess. Only two songs are specifically about past relationships. Lying In Sand Again and As The Sun Fell On Summer. Hell, they are about the same girl. No, I haven’t had an inordinate amount of heartbreak in my life. Like I said before, that shit was on my mind at the time and I was able to express it through the song. See, I think it’s wonderful that you can relate to them in ways that I didn’t intend for them. That is the beauty of interpretation. These are real life experiences and natural human emotions, but they are just written so that anyone can relate. I think that is awesome.

  1. Who is your new drummer?

I assume you mean the kid who played the Floorpunch release show with us? That was Dana, a New Jersey native, who used to play in Bound before moving to Boston for college. Anyway she recently quit so she could focus on school. That was her last show with us. This kid Bob is our man right now. A good kid who I have known for a while and was in a band with Brendan for many years. We go through drummers like they are going out of style. Hopefully, we will find one who gets as much enjoyment as the rest of us do being in this band.

One Up

By admin on Jul. 18, 2005.

Anthony did this interview for the never released Fuck Rock Fanzine in 2002.
1. Who is in the band?  How did you guys start out?

One Up is Greg Polard on vocals, Jude Miller on guitar, Donny Mutt on guitar (that’s me), Ryan Rayburn on drums and Brian Cavanaugh on bass. The band started one day when Greg Polard realized that GO TIME was pretty much all but broken up. They just got a new drummer and after playing about 3 shows into a 7 day tour he decided he didn’t want to do the band anymore. A month or so later is when I got the IM from Greg asking if I wanted to start a band with him. We both have pretty similar tastes when it comes to the “core” so it wasn’t a hard decision for me to make starting a band with Greg. The only problem I could think of was I don’t know ANY drummers. He said don’t worry about it he has someone in mind but he had to talk to him. The next day I got an IM from Greg saying “yo dude, practice this Thursday.”  Apparently, in one day he managed to get a drummer, 2nd guitarist and a bassist for the band. We jammed one night and played To Lose by Turning Point and wrote one original song. We have been going strong ever since that first practice and the lineup has been solid also.  

2. How important is crowd reaction to you guys? Honestly, it is a real toss if you ask me.

On one side of the coin, of course I would want people going off for our music. There is nothing more satisfying than seeing people you don’t even know yelling the words to your songs, moshing and stage diving all to music you write. Now, the other side of the coin, we play a good amount of shows where people seem to have their feet nailed to the floor but that does not discourage me at all. Hardcore is very tame nowadays and at shows like that it doesn’t matter much as long as we are playing tight and are giving the show 110% then I am fine with no one moshing or diving.  

3. What is the worst show you guys have played and the best show you’ve played?

Well, in my opinion NO SHOW is a bad show. As long as we are playing a show to kids that care then it will never be a bad show. My favorite thing in the world is to be playing in a band, so as long as ONE UP is together and having fun playing, NO SHOW will ever be a bad show to us. As far as my favorite show goes, I would also have to say that every show is my favorite show. Playing with friends bands and meeting new people is one of the best parts of hardcore so every show we play we either see our friends or meet new friends.

4. What does your name mean / where does it come from?

ONE UP comes from the Spanish word Uno Up meaning ONE UP. There is no real meaning behind the name. Greg and this guy Pat thought it would be funny as a joke to name the band ONE UP because of Super Mario Brothers for Nintendo since they both know I LOVE old school Nintendo so much. Then, Greg wrote the lyrics to the song ONE UP which is about being Straight Edge. If you want to get technical this is the line from the song. “We’ve got the ONE UP on them, for having the courage to turn our backs (*on societies poisons).” The *on societies poisons part was taken out because it didn’t fit into the song cause the music wasn’t long enough. Just a hardcore fun fact for ya.

5. Since Philadelphia seems to be making a comeback lately, what do you guys think of all the other Philly bands?

I don’t know about Philadelphia making a come back because there are NO venues for shows really aside from the bar/club type venues that hardcore shows don’t usually get booked at. There is definitely a bunch of bands popping up which is rad. Some of these bands are Damage II, Risk, At Fault, No Rights, Go! For The Throat, Ice Age & Frostbite. All the bands are friends so it is like one big family really which is my favorite part.

6. If you guys could relocate to anywhere in the world, where would it be and why?

I wouldn’t move anywhere. I would stay in Philadelphia because this is home. Sure, I would love to go somewhere for a couple months or a year just to get away but this is the place I love. Now, if you ask almost any hardcore kid this exact question I am 98% positive they would say Boston, which I think, is funny. I think Sheryl Crow said it best “It’s not getting what you want; it’s wanting what you’ve got!”

7. What are your future plans with One Up?

As far as my future plans for ONE UP I would say we are recording December 6th to the 8th at Atomic Recording Company in Brooklyn, NY for our brand new eight song CD out on Dead By 23 Records. After that, we are going to try and play lots of weekends till summer then attempt to do a half assed U.S. Tour. I am really bummed that we can’t go to California this winter so we are making up for it and hitting the West Coast this summer.

8. What happened with the tour to CaliforniaWhy was it cancelled?

In a nutshell, we all decided that it would be in our own best interest as a band to go to California in the summer. One of the main reasons we decided not to tour in January is because our new record won’t be out. It just makes more sense to have your music out first, then conquer the world ya know. Really, how often to you go see a band that you have never heard of especially if they are from the other side of the country? Another big reason was a couple of the members couldn’t afford to record and tour since we have to pay for both out of our pockets.

9. What songs do you cover live?

We seriously cover a laundry list of covers. I will probably forget a few but here is an attempt at listing them. Turning Point “To Lose,” Judge “Fed Up,” Uniform Choice “My Own Mind,” Insted “We’ll Make The Difference,” Chain of Strength “Never Understand” and Youth Of Today “Make a Change” we have played on a regular basis pretty much. Here are a few that were one show covers. Carry On “Off My Chest” & “Roll With The Punches,” In My Eyes “My Reply,” and Floorpunch “Clear.” 

10. How was the benefit show?

Pretty sweet. We got to play with our friends Risk, The Survivors and A New Enemy. At the end of the night, after we paid the bands we raised $200 towards recording and 50 kids paid for the show. It was a small show in a basement and we were very happy with the turn out. We played almost all of our new songs at that show to give everyone a taste of what’s in store.  

11. When are you going into the studio to record at Atomic?

We head up to Brooklyn on Friday, December 6th and we are scheduled to record till Sunday, December 8th with Dean. It should be an amazing time and hopefully the record will turn out amazing also.

12. Where do you guys practice? How often?

We practice at Jude’s house every Thursday except for holidays that fall on Thursdays like Thanksgiving this year.

13. In terms of money, hardcore kids often revolve around a “Fake economy” – would you say One Up has made money or lost money in the past 6 months?

Haha, I would definitely say that ONE UP has made money ever since the band started. Now, granted it is not a lot of money but we have never left a show in the negative dollars so far. Part of that is the fact that I am a merch nazi. NOTHING is given away for free or with out who ever wants to give it away for free to someone paying for it. We use band money to get us to and from shows, record, finance our merchandise which I print up and things like that.

14. What is the weirdest thing someone has said to you guys after playing a show?

This is not necessarily about a show. The weirdest thing I have ever heard about ONE UP was this girl I know told me she let a friend hear the demo and her friend said “damn, this band is a blatant rip off of The Misfits.”  Now, that is funny because we sound NOTHING like The Misfits at all and to be honest I am not even that big of a Misfits fan. I write 96% of the music for ONE UP and when I write the music The Misfits are the last thing I would think of to inspire me in writing a song on guitar.

Ensign

By admin on Jun. 26, 2005.

We did this interview at Princeton Arts Council in May of 1998. I believe this show was with Speak 714, Rain On The Parade, and Automatic. I can’t really tell you about what they are doing these days, but at the time we all really liked Ensign. A lot of my memories of that era have been soured over the years, but we used to have a lot of fun whenever Ensign played. Their first 7” has held up pretty well over the years.

Justin and I handled most of the questions. When I went to type this up I was pleasantly surprised by how Justin takes over for a good portion of the interview. There are also the usual patented silly questions from John and Justin, this time about the sexual orientation of characters on Scooby Doo. I had this strange fixation about the logo on The Direction Of Things To Come for some reason.

We also got some grief because of John’s comment about Jordan Cooper. Certain parties asked us to edit that out in future pressings (not Jordan; actually, I don’t think I’ve ever even spoken to him now that I think about it) and when we said “uh, no” those parties got really bummed. Oh well. All Ages had just came out and the asinine answers a lot of people give in that book really pissed us off. In the car on the way to the show I had been reading it and was really angry by the time we got to the show. This was the beginning of all three of us really souring on the youth crew and, in general, Straight Edge scene.

Anyhow, Tim Shaw handles this interview on Ensign’s end. This was day two of a big weekend of shows. I had just finished flunking out of my first year of college and to “celebrate” we hit up shows for the next three days. Friday evening was Breakdown/Fastbreak/In My Eyes/Floorpunch/Full Speed Ahead/Ensign. Saturday was Ensign/Automatic/Speak 714/Rain On The Parade and then Sunday was Ten Yard Fight/Speak 714/Fastbreak/Automatic. I busted my hand up really bad on Saturday I remember. Explaining that to my co-workers the next week was, as usual, rather aggravating. It’s pretty funny reading this back and remembering Victory’s brief flirtation with bands like Murphy’s Law and a time when Mackenzie was just the kid from Prospect who I never heard talk.

Bill-I guess we will start this out and ask who is in the band.

Tim-Me, my name is Tim, Nate on bass, Ryan on drums, and our newest member Mackenzie on guitar.

Justin-Tied Down

Bill-X Mob, man

Tim-Prospect…X Prospect X

Bill-Okay so I have three questions and then we can go from there…is Underdog really back together or were you just fucking with us?

Tim-It’s a rumor. I heard it from somebody at Revelation, but I don’t believe any of the rumors anymore. Ryan, if there is a chance a band might get back together, he won’t play the song which I kind of agree with; it’s kind of cheesy

Bill-When you mentioned it last night…people are already posting it on the internet….

Tim-I don’t know you can call Revelation because Ritchie works there, but to be on the safe side we stopped covering it

Bill-Into Another is broken up I think

Justin-Really? That sucks!

Tim-He is running art direction at Revelation

Bill-Okay, now for the internet question: Talk shit, Tim

Tim-I have very mixed feelings about the internet. I think it could be a very useful tool but there are too many little children who want to use it to talk shit and start fights. It is useless right now. The only thing I use it for is to email back and forth with people.

Bill-If it wasn’t for the internet I wouldn’t be doing the compilation I am doing with Craig from Talk Is Cheap Fanzine. I’ve met so many cool people, especially the Australian hardcore kids…they fucking rule, so that’s why I tried hooking you guys up to get you down there

Tim-For that stuff it’s awesome and I think you could go into a chat room and be like “here is the show, it starts at ____” but you get into the chat room and it’s “Tim Shaw was talking shit about this band” and then someone from the band logs on and is like “Yo we are going to show up at the show tonight and beat him up” it’s ridiculous. I don’t think half the shit talking that is said goes on really goes on, I don’t think the bands care that much. If that much shit talking went on in hardcore there would be fights at every show.

Bill-I get the feeling that when people talk shit about me that it’s the same kid over and over again. When I go to shows everybody is always cool but there is always those one or two who give you dumb looks, but I always have this feeling it’s the same few people. It’s not 50,000 people like it’s sometimes made out to be.

Tim-It’s somebody with a grudge. Like I said tonight, if I hear it I talk to the kid to his face because nine out of ten times they’ll deny it.

Bill-They never post under their real name

Tim-Oh no, never, it’s all a big game

Justin-It’s good in theory

Tim-Yeah I think it has good applications but it can’t be used right now

Bill-Jeff Perlin used to post on the Rev Board until a week ago when all these assholes were posting racist shit. I mean, they are probably “joking” or whatever, but Jeff was like, yo, that’s fucked up!

    * Various muttering about Breakdown ruling *

Bill-Okay so my third question-What’s up with Ensign stealing the Mariner’s logo?

Tim-Not intentionally.

Bill-Okay. When the record came out I was like “what the fuck?”

Justin-I just thought it looked really glossy

Bill-(still harping on this like it was an important issue) Did Ryan pick it because he is from Seattle?

Tim-Dave Mandel came up with it

Justin-It looks really slick

Bill-Baseballcore

Tim-Yeah that’s gonna be the new thing in hardcore. We took it because it was a compass with the whole direction…

Justin-Do you think Freddie from Scooby Doo is gay?

Tim-I’m not stereotyping people, but I don’t see many people wearing assocs. But, then again, it was the sixties.

Justin-Doesn’t Austin Powers wear one? He is pretty hetro.

Tim-Maybe he is…but then you could say the girl with the glasses would be a lesbian.

Justin-Emo chick

Tim-He was a free spirit

Justin-But he always ended up with the girl

Tim-Yeah he always ended up alone with the girl. He might have been a real femme guy who gets tons of girls

Bill-He could have been a model when he wasn’t solving capers

Justin-Do you think that bands that get back together push the attention away from the good things we have now?

Tim-There is one band in particular, I’m not gonna talk shit, but they come back with ex-members and their first show they are headlining over Floorpunch, over Ensign, over In My Eyes…bands that work really hard in 1998 to be an active part of the hardcore scene.

Justin-I thought Speak 714 was cool because they didn’t headline.

Tim-Yeah when Speak 714 booked their tour they said they didn’t want to headline which is cool. Like certain bands get back together and…

Bill-I’ll talk shit: Better Than A Thousand. They played their first show and headlined.

Tim-I know there is a lot of bands out there that work hard and because Mark Porter isn’t a scene star, Ronny Little, Tim Shaw…the band with the scene star is the band everyone is going to be there to see. It sucks because bands work really hard.

Justin-It’s a given when you have Civ or Ray or someone like that people are going to be psyched.

Tim-I know Ray and Civ have paid their dues but when you start over you gotta start at the bottom.

Bill-It’s a new beginning. A good example of that is Mouthpiece and Hands Tied. Mouthpiece headlined shows and now Hands Tied started from the bottom and is working their way up.

Justin-If Underdog does get back together people will say “oh wow, Ensign is playing!” but in the back of their minds…

Bill-Like the Cro Mags show

Justin-But that’s the Cro Mags!

Tim-Yeah, that’s the Cro Mags. I think the difference is when some former straight edge all star comes back and everyone is like “oh my god, it’s Ray/Dan O or whatever I think there is a big difference between that and the Cro Mags or Breakdown getting back together. It would be cool if say…Lou Kollar had a side band but when it is someone who hasn’t had anything to do with the scene for years they are like “oh wow hardcore is pretty popular now.”

Bill-Bold.

Tim-Yeah, Matt, Ray, what about the bands that are here today?

Bill-How about bands that have always been here like Murphy’s Law?

Justin-Hogan’s Heroes, they’ve been around and now they are on Victory….

Bill-What do you think of the new “old school” Victory Records?

Tim-I think Tony needed some bands. I’m not Victory’s biggest fan, I make no bones about it. Strife are friends of mine but they’re broken up now. Snapcase are friends of mine but I don’t think they are on the label anymore. I think the Hatebreed record is really awesome. You can’t really say anything bad about Tony, he’s just trying to get bands to keep his label alive. They asked us but we turned it down. Too much politics, too much stuff, goes along with it.

Bill-I think, and it goes the same with Equal Vision and Revelation, they go in these cycles of whatever is cool. Victory went from Even Score and Inner Strength and all these horrible bands or even worse stuff like Earth Crisis. It’s just weird they went from Firestorm to signing Murphy’s Law.

Tim-Tony is a businessman, he is just looking out.

John-Jordan Cooper is an asshole.

Bill-I read All Ages in the van today and I was really bummed out by some of the things he said.

Tim-Well he’s done a lot for hardcore. There were a few years there where I thought Revelation was the worst label on the earth. Now I can’t say that because they have In My Eyes. Now we are kind of connected to Indecision which is an exclusive part of Revelation. We might as well be on Revelation. I’m all for labels getting bands, but there was a period of time when the Victory empire…if you weren’t a Victory band no one gave a shit. That’s fucking ridiculous.

Justin-Colored vinyl pisses me off.

Tim-I collect but I’m not obsessive about it. But Ensign is all guilty as anyone else because we did limited presses for Europe. I do it because I think “wow, that’s a cool idea.” If I can get it, I get it, If I can’t, I can’t. You know what though, if you really listen to your records, colored vinyl does not sound as good. It’s a technical fact. My Floorpunch on Gold, it’s unlistenable, but my black one is.

Bill-Well if it’s a remastered you should buy it on CD; Mickey and I were just talking about that.

Tim-I love to collect records but I don’t live a lifestyle where I can shell out $150 for a four song seven inch.

Bill-Have you ever seen that auction Revelation does?

Tim-Yeah, it’s sick.

Bill-I went on there a couple days ago; the first press for Speak Out with no matrix, the gate fold cover, and all that stuff went for $270. That was the first bid, it’s not even like it went up!

Justin-The thing that gets me is sometimes getting the record means more than listening to the record.

Bill-The kids on the trade board just post all their cool records for scene points.

*At this point we bullshit about various New Jersey bands. For some reason I never transcribed this stuff. Somehow we segway into discussing European youth crew kids. *

Bill-European hardcore kids seem to be really obsessed with, well, New Jersey hardcore. They find out you are from New Jersey and you get put up on a pedestal. I guess because Floorpunch, or Ensign, or whoever isn’t there everyday they get so hyped up.

Justin-We take it for granted so much.

John-We do the same with a band like Underdog or Antidote who we haven’t seen.

Tim-Going over there I don’t think there was really a lot of hero worship. As soon as we were done everyone would be upfront asking questions and hanging out. When we finished, if we didn’t play long enough, you fucking bet we heard about it. Every so often a kid will relate me to Sick Of It All, but I’m not Lou or Pete, so…For awhile we played every weekend in New Jersey but after awhile you get sick of us.

Bill-I’m ready for another set right now. Are there still a lot of nazi skinheads in Germany?

Tim-They don’t go to shows over there; it’s always been very political here they came to hardcore shows, got the shit beat out of them and never came back. In Europe it’s purely political.

Justin-Doesn’t it suck now that when Sick Of It All plays they don’t play many old songs?

Tim-They play old songs!? They’ve got so many records now. There isn’t a Sick Of It All record I don’t like.

Justin-(Clearly not convinced) Yeah, I guess…

*At this point we get interrupted a few times by various people. I think the show was wrapping up and they were really trying to get people out of the place.*

Justin-Is there any particular person that song Hold is about?

Tim-Just a general thing. Nate actually wrote the lyrics and I had a long discussion with him about it. When someone else in the band write lyrics I have to sit down and talk to them to see if it is something that I agree with. There is an aspect of that, it’s supposed to be a positive thing to that, says there is always going to be people who walk away, but there is always going to be people who stick with you. It’s a fact of life, it’s not even just a hardcore thing.

Bill-Okay I think we need to shut up now.

Abusive Action-Demo

By admin on Jun. 17, 2005.

Abusive Action
Demo

The Abusive Action demo came highly recommended to me by a couple of friends. This demo is excellent “97” style hardcore in the vein of bands like Floorpunch and In My Eyes. Actually, I would have to say it is more like In My Eyes if anything. Fast, to the point, straight edge hardcore clocking in at less than ten minutes. The only thing that is annoying is the same old bland straight edge lyrics; but for the music, it fits. Definitely check this one out.

Also, look into Abusive Action at their label, Crucial Response’s, website. CR says the new Abusive Action 12” will “truly redefine the meaning of hardcore.” Yeah, sure it will.

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