It’s not my place to speak on New York Hardcore. It wasn’t technically my scene, though it was happening right next to me. There were bands I wouldn’t miss, but still, there are people more qualified than me to speak on it. This doc does a great job. It’s a lot of familiar faces and places. These guys were my neighbors. A few were friends. I watched them scrapping for years. I watched some of them make it. I saw some of them bomb out horribly and die.

It has to be said though that these guys shaped the whole damn world and created something that’s still going today. Is hardcore dead? Hell no. I want you to consider this:

It started right here on the corner of Avenue A and 7th Street at A7 in the early 80s with a bunch of regular guys from working class backgrounds. Some of them are still touring across four continents. Hardcore music is still going. There are new bands coming up all the time. People grow old and die. New people come in right behind them. Good ideas don’t die.

End of story.

The beginning of the story is important. You need a historical context for New York Hardcore to understand New York Hardcore. You can say nothing is created in a vacuum but there was a vacuum, maybe of the spiritual sort. There was a void. There were people being left behind to salvage what they could from the rubble. If you weren’t there to see what New York looked like back then it’s going to be hard to grasp. When hardcore caught on in the suburbs the wasteland was more metaphorical and that’s all well and good but it was very real here. Hardcore is a survivor story. Fact!

Is it or was it ever a movement? Was/is hardcore a movement? I don’t know about that. I’d say it’s more a path for people to move down… or move up might be more appropriate. It’s a voice for people who don’t want to be full of shit.

Call New York Hardcore Chronicles the story of a group of regular guys who grabbed a piece of the world. Guys who were told the world didn’t belong to them. They took it anyway.

Thumbs up!