Dive
Dive were an awesome hardcore band occupying space and time around the Boston area in the early to mid 90's.
I know very little of this band. Supposedly members went on to perform in bands Get High, Overcast and the Dropkick Murphys. The only band I know out of those three is Overcast, and they were some seriously awesome early metal core. Dive is way more old school hardcore oriented. I wouldnt go so far as to label them an old school band by any means as they also share alot in common with some ebullitions early stuff, like the Downcast and Struggle 7"s, but they have a fast hardcore sound that is undeniably awesome and somewhat influenced by bands like Boston counterparts DYS and Slapshot. So you kinda take that mentality and then throw in a breakdown like the one in Hate Comes Easy from the Downcast 7" and maybe add in some melody that might take you over to an area like Burn once occupied around the same time, and come to think of it, I think of Burn often while listening to Dive. Especially the Force Five 7" from Moo Cow records. Like maybe Burn if they came from Boston.
Yeah, whatever, you should listen to it. It rules. This is the Moo Cow Records 7", the Figure Four Records 7" which shows a lot more of a melodic tendency and a song from the Over The Edge Compilation which came out on Endless Fight Records, which is the only song I had heard from them until more recent years. For some reason I found myself listening to Force Five in particular a lot lately and thought others might appreciate hearing them again. You can still buy that 7" from Moo Cow Distro for $3.50, so dont go getting any crazy ideas to spend tons of money on one.
On a side note, I am pretty tired of hardcore in general. Of course I still like the music, but the whole hardcore thing is really fucking lame. The way people treat each other, the way people play know it all, the elitism of young people who feel that this is their punk rock. Its just stupid. I like the little community we have here, and its been awesome talking with you guys and meeting some of you. Frankly, the biggest issue is I am running out of records to post. I have this awesome Barritt 7" I want to rip somehow, and a few more posts, but this page may be nearing the end.
We all knew it couldnt last forever.
more news to come...
posted by blend77 at 2:40 PM
11 Comments:
tim, while i agree with you the elitism of the younger generation is a little disheartening, but you have to ask yourself, what have they done to contribute besides buying records and ridiculous merchandise that seems to be the cornerstone of modern hardcore? i kind of addressed the subject the other day in a post, but in a nutshell, hardcore is something beyond physical limitations, elitism breeds contempt and contempt breeds ideas. While the young may be identifying themselves with an image or a sound, until they get past the superficial aspects of this culture they will never truly understand what it is and means to be truly hardcore. it's not something you can read in a book or hear in a song. wendell berry said it best "...when nothing is valued for what it is, everything is destined to be wasted."
We weren't born into hardcore, but hardcore as an essence, as a belief, and as a way of life is something that took us over and taught us how to be people in a world full of robots and sheep. We are those that follow our dreams damned the consequences and by and large we are the last true culture america produced. while it may seem like an uphill battle as we get older to still hold claim to the reigns of something so intense and personal, the rewards are greater than you can imagine. I will be thirty next month, in the sixteen years since i first embraced hardcore, no matter how i feel, no matter what the situation, there is a community out there sympathetic and understanding who have been there before if not struggling with it as well. The blogsphere represents where we are today, embracing the digital age to use it for our own ends, to help bridge a gap of communication for a worldwide network of like-minded souls. Without your presence on the internet i may never have found others who felt as strongly as i do about this culture and the bands that represent it.
I may not make a lot of relevant comments on here, but by god brother, what you do is important, and no matter the ups and downs that come with viewing a scene in constant flux, remember that the struggle never ends, and it's that aspect that makes us stronger.
one of the first real punk songs I ever really got into was Pennywise 'Badge of Pride' on Punk O Rama #5 - i.e. 8 years ago, so half of sbj's time served! - which has the lyric "It is my badge of pride/Hardcore 'til the day I die". Not making any grand claims for the quality or depth of Pennywise, but just using it as an example. At the time, I didn't have a clue what being "hardcore" really meant - and I still don't really have much or any direct personal experience of it - but somehow the message sticks with me.
I think, even for myself, I've begun to grow tired of ordinary punk; but I'm still very much aware of the music that has been built on it - post-hardcore, post-punk, various questionable sub-genres of emo (!) and even post-rock. My music listening is an inseparable whole, and a gestalt, and an ever-evolving, emergent journey.
If you read my recent (second) Han Shan post, you might have seen that I am having a similar problem with my blog - I am literally running out of quintessential 'hardcore for nerds' emo stuff to post. But I'm happy to continue blogging Irish indie bands, live shows and other post-hardcore/post-rock stuff I happen to dig; indeed, over the last 9 months or so of blogging I have been motivated to immerse myself in a whole range of music I hadn't reached the stage of appreciating before.
it's not necessarily so much the hardcore (especially not the old-school/heavy stuff like, uh, this!) that I come here for. I've discovered plenty of post-rock/screamo/post-hardcore/whatever as well. So if that's of any consideration...
I can't really think of any stirring, idealistic expressions of encouragement like jay above, but all I will say is: keep it Zen!
also, btw, I will be reposting your up of the Ampere/Sinaloa Split Recording on HfN shortly. Even that record, which introduced me to two absolutely amazing bands (plus two more, incl. Wolves + BFOT as well), which I bought the physical CD of, and passed my own burnt copy (w/ homemade sleeve!) on to a good friend, is achievement enough for your blog.
man, that took most of side 2 of Loveless to write...
1) thanks for the Dive 7". I've got that record and no turntable so it's nice to hear this stuff once more.
2) I am Mr Adult Crash personified. I live in the suburbs, I'm no longer straight edge or even vegetarian, I've got one kid with a second on the way and Inever go to shows. I sometimes go into the hardcore record shop in the city on a work lunch break and they all look at me like I must be buying a present for someone. But fuck it - I still love HC music (including a lot of new stuff) but I just don't take at seriously at all. The secret is to disengage - take what you want from hardcore don't let it take shit from you.
like the Youth of Today song? We gotta disengage.
ha! true though.
Jay, I cant tell you how much those words mean to me. I read it yesterday and was fairly speechless and then read it again at home. I wasnt sure how to respond and today the most proper thing I think i could do is say thanks and give you the credibility of knowing you are right. You are an awesome guy. Thanks so much. I get down sometimes, but I get back up again, every single time. Words like those help to refocus and it is with that focus that I decided to post Quicksand and tell a story of the love of hardcore. For myself to remember and for others to read. It cant go anywhere. Its here to stay. Its not my choice anymore. Its too ingrained in me.
^_^
Thanks for this, never heard this one before.
I wanted to say "don't sweat the scene" or whatever, but looks like everyone else said it already.
Hardcore can still be good, and who cares about the scene anyways? Right?
Great stuff around here (as always).
yes, who cares. ive never been much a scenester, but it still gets to me when i see things reduced to nothing but bitching and elitism. I think its a big problem in general, but its also something thats out of my hands, so theres no use letting it get to me.
Hi, this is somewhat after the fact because clearly your Quicksand, Seaweed and Sparkmarker posts since then have already proven a "return to form" if you will. However, when I read the Dive post where you hinted at packing it in I felt like some expression of gratitude and moral support might be warranted. Also, I find the question of elitism in the younger generation quite interesting, so I’ll throw in some random thoughts on that, too.
In the past I have praised your blog at several occasions, but mostly just for good musical selection, which is of course the main draw to any music blog I guess. However, I also really like your write-ups and I very much enjoy seeing the parallels in our “musical journeys”. I guess I am a couple of years older than you (37 yrs) and the soundtrack to my youth (or rather my introduction to punk and hardcore) involved some other albums, but I guess in essence the experiences were often the same.
By now I am similar to Nick (above) in that on paper I live a very bourgeois life (I have a wife and 2 kids and I live in a real middle class neighborhood). I also still love HC music and I still like to wear my old band t-shirts (at least the ones that have survived this long), but for various reasons I also haven’t been to a show in ages. I guess that’s just the way it goes sometimes.
When I was a young punk in Germany in the late 80s and early 90s I went to a ton of hardcore gigs all over Germany and the Netherlands. Oftentimes, particularly at shows in youth centers or squatted houses, you would have these 40 year old Anarcho Punks that already had been around when Discharge and GBH roamed the earth. These hardened veterans would often criticize bands that I loved because they weren’t political enough or capitalist sell-outs (probably because they sold t-shirts for 10 bucks after the show or some other ridiculous reason). Clearly, I don’t want to be that like that type of old fuck who just says “everything was better in the past”, but the commercialization of HC with bands like Sick of it All, Madball and Biohazard who all of a sudden all played the same radio-friendly Metalcore really annoyed me and that was part of the reason why I stopped caring for new HC bands sometime in the mid 90s. So there is your elitism of the old generation, the flipside to the arrogance of youth if you will (I take off my monocle and top-hat and put it on the side table…). However, I also agree with Nick’s very pragmatic approach - take what you like and fuck the rest.
Now in the last 3 years I have rediscovered my love for HC and I am finding all these bands that are not so new anymore, but which I missed the first time around. And obviously that’s where you and your blog come in. Sure there are a lot of sites out there where you can dl almost anything, but it is really nice if it gets put into a context (even if that context is just a good “sounds like X…” description). My impression is that people here trust your taste and they come back because they get hardly ever disappointed (I know I do).
Well I hope that is enough ointment for your blogger soul for now ;-) Keep up the good work.
Keep it up, never mind the know-it-alls. In my experience they are only in it because they want to "drop knowledge" not for the love of it. I haven't been in the scene for going on 10 years and I can tell you I ma more pumped about my own personal love affair with hardcore and music in general than I ever was when I was going to shows. It's all in your heart, fuck the fly by night big mouths!
Hi, cool blog. A buddy brought this to my attention, good schtuff. I was the drummer for DIVE. The 7" you have up is the re-pressing of the original Force Five 7" that was on Evolution Records(the logo had an upside-down star with an "E" in the middle a la Rev, like a fuck you to a label gone astray), one-thousand copies made. The original cover was completely different and I believe the insert wasn't the same, either. This stuff was recorded in West Boylston, MA in late '91. Oddly enough, DIVE did a reunion of sorts this past January or so to very good reception.
You sorta nailed it on the head as to the influences: we dug Burn, Inside Out, AF, SOIA, Eye For An Eye, Quicksand, as well as bands like Rorschach, Born Against, etc. Didn't really dig shit like Downcast and that pretentious shit-- we always thought Kent McClard was an uptight douche and were more into the "fun" aspect of the 'core.
Anyways, if you dig the stuff on the blog, check out our Myspace site. There're some live songs from the Jan '07 reunion as well as stuff from this 7" and a split tape with Opposition. I'm not trying to advertise per se; I doubt we'll play again... if you dig the songs, though, the site is http://www.myspace.com/divehardcore . Thanks for caring enough to do a cool blog spedine.
Does anyone still have this Dive discography of sorts? I've been after their music for so long and was disappointed when the download link had been deleted. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks
Boom, here's the whole enchilada.
http://www.mediafire.com/downlod/8tnawkm1tl2txpy/dive-320.zip
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