Side C - An Addendum to NYHC

Quickly now, lest the boss know that I am making posts instead of making prints. Hehe...

Side C, it began as the NYHC post, see below. So I made that post, listened to the mix all week, got damn excited about it, wrote about the two areas of NYHC that existed in the end of that particular decade and wrapped it up, succinct, to the point, but as I knew at the time, though happily looked past to make a concise point in an easy way, I overlooked some of the more fringe bands of the NYHC scene that fell in neither the youth crew group or the tough guy group. This was in part due to the fact that I wasnt aware of all the bands that populated this fringe part of the scene. Of course Born Against was the first and foremost of these that I felt deserved their due, but I did not feel right in adding this third sound to this concise little mix I made. Born Against were sort of anomaly of the NYHC scene, even going to far as to create epic beef with some of the heavyweights in the scene.

So it is my intent to bring to light some of the other bands that werent repping the same styles as the Rev crowd or the Schism crowd or the Blackout crowd. And so it goes that I owe a large part of this post to Luciferyellow for sharing with me some of his favorites of that scene. Their is more variation in sounds within this group and I think that makes for not only an interesting mix, but an interesting way to view how varied and broad the NYHC scene really was. Some of these bands were from outlying areas of NYC, such as Rorschach, Merel and Native Nod, coming from Jersey. But if Youth of Today (originally from Connecticut) and Bold (originally from my hometown in Westchester, NY) could be NYHC, then why not the whole goddamn tri-state area?

It is also worth noting the subject matters that these bands tend to cover. Whereas much of the youth crew scene sang about being straight edge, being pure, being true and sticking up for you friends, and much of the tough guy scene (this is NOT an actual scene, I am calling this Tough Guy because of the power of the music and the image of band members looking tough, not because they actually bullied people around and talked all tough, though I wouldnt cross any of them either, but thats just NYC, especially at the time), but much of the tough guy scene sang about not taking shit, revenge, hit me and i'll hit you back, help me and i'll help you back; Where as those bands had those messages, these Side C bands have a much more politically conscious message and/or personal reflective message that colored the output of the hardcore scene well into the nineties.

So, grab this, get a taste. This is side C to the NYHC post. The fringe styles of NYHC.

1. Won't Allow - Citizens Arrest
2. The A-Train - GO!
3. Yellow Journalism - Yuppicide
4. Here Today... - Nausea
5. Crossings - Native Nod
6. Sticks To The Skin - 1.6 Band
7. My Sweet Dull God - Merel
8. Checkmate - Rorschach
9. Nine Years Later - Born Against