Punk Rock Rip Van Winkle

Photo by Evgeniy Smersh on Unsplash

In the original story, Rip Van Winkle slept for twenty years, which is somehow shorter than the time I’ve been away from punk rock and its metallic sibling hardcore. I’ve recently checked in with the scene, and while I can’t say my realizations have been quite as startling as Rip Van Winkle’s, they have been illuminating.

I was young when I attended my first show—13 or so (I believe it was ’97 with VOD, Crown of Thornz, and One King Down). For the next few years, I went to an average of one show per week and systematically worked through every major subgenre of extreme music.

After a few years, my interest lost steam as I came to feel like I was retreading much of the same ground. Now and then I might put on The Age of Quarrel around the house, but I didn’t think much about hardcore/punk for a long time.

Over the last year or so, I’ve returned to hardcore with much interest. However, it’s not so much the music itself that I’ve picked up on. Through podcasts and the like, I’ve slowly pieced together the stories of where the culture and its participants’ lives have gone over the last quarter of a century. A few insights stand out.

Expected

In some cases, things have gone exactly as an informed observer in 1999 might have predicted.

There’s a grim side to this: people who were particularly unhinged, violent, or reckless often ended up meeting unfortunate fates. That probably sounds obvious, but I was a little taken aback as an adult when I realized quite how damaged many of us were. I would rather not dwell on specific cases, but considerable talent and charisma were wasted.

Yet, there’s a more hopeful slant to this as well. I grew up in Connecticut, and by the time I came along, Jamey Jasta of Hatebreed was already a key architect of the scene (my New England accent gets hilariously thick after I watch interviews with him). It's a little striking for me to see quite how famous he’s gotten, but I’m far from shocked.

Even in the ‘90s, he had a reputation for hard work. What stood out to me then and still stands out to me now is how deftly he’s been able to balance ambition with artistic integrity and taste. The result? Underground credibility combined with opportunities to host MTV shows, be nominated for Grammies, and collaborate with legendary rapper Ice-T. All this from a guy I remember passing out fliers for his band in the parking lot.

Habits and lifestyle choices matter—particularly when navigating the puzzle of how to move up without losing your way, to borrow the brilliant philosopher Jennifer Morton’s phrasing. Those things can be done both well and poorly, and it doesn’t take long for how you choose to handle them to register in your life.

Unexpected

Alas, if only things were so simple. It hasn’t all been predictable.

As above, we’ll start with the darker side of things. In some cases, bands I was sure were right on the cusp of something great didn’t last more than a few years. Candiria stands out as one of the sadder examples. Their stuff still sounds fresh now, but back then they were truly at the cutting edge of extreme music, blending hardcore, death metal, jazz, rap, and atmospheric sound design. I was sure they would end up in something resembling Jasta’s shoes today.

And I don’t think I was wrong. But, apparently, the band experienced a terrible car accident while on tour. It seems that for a variety of reasons, they never quite got their footing again after that. I’m convinced that without that tragic and unexpected turn of events, things would be very different for them as artists and for us as music fans today.

Fortunately, it’s not all so bleak. Some deserving groups have blown up in ways I never would have imagined. I still only half-believe some of that and had to double-check a lot of these developments as I wrote this.

For example, in the ‘90s, I never in a million years would have believed that The Refused would headline Coachella or At the Gates would spawn entire subgenres. Seriously? This isn’t to take anything away from those talented groups, but even at what seemed like their relative peak following the release of their signature records, I remember them playing to crowds of 150 people with half the audience going outside to smoke during their sets. How could anyone at the time ever have guessed the success those groups had ahead of them?

Habits and perspective matter, but they have their limits. We make history, but we don’t do so in conditions of our making. This fact can be as disheartening as heartening: it might take a bit of time, but forward-thinking work can find its audience.

Who knows—maybe your Medium post with ten views will inspire entire subgenres in twenty years. I’ve seen roughly comparable things happen.

Values

I thought Finn McKenty did a great video capturing what stood out to me about hardcore in the ‘90s (and I’m sure is still true now). For all its ostensible thuggery, punk/hardcore was (is) a potent setting for the exchange of ideas.

Perspectives that seemed new or unorthodox at the time but were central to hardcore have worked their way into the mainstream. McKenty rightly points out a variety of examples. Veganism was seen as a fringe lifestyle for weirdos in 1998. Now it’s mainstream to the point of being trendy (as Karl from the militant vegan/straight edge group Earth Crisissaid in a recent interview: “Somehow, we won”). I would argue even some version of modern productivity discourse has a lot in common with punk’s idea of a positive mental attitude or PMA (just check out some of the guests on Toby from H2O’s podcast to see what I’m talking about).

On the one hand, as an adult, I almost have a greater appreciation for the importance of the DIY ethic and the sacrifices it entails. The exchange of unconventional perspectives that McKenty points out wouldn’t have been possible without the obstinance of a culture that insisted on its members sleeping on floors and living in vans so they could produce magazines on xerox machines, organize concerts in VFW halls, and run record labels out of bedrooms. It took sacrifice and a certain amount of stubbornness for that to come together.

On the other hand, I see this from a more nuanced standpoint now as an adult. As one example, as a kid, I thought the Misfits’s gimmicky marketing of plastic tchotchkes, diet drinks, or whatever was eye-roll worthy. It looks a little different to me now. While it’s true some of their peers might have aged a little more gracefully, just as many if not more completely fell apart. From the perspective of creeping middle age, I can see what’s valuable about people making a living from their campy punk art. Dying from an overdose in some squat somewhere or never reaching an audience beyond a few dozen angry adolescents is hardly preferable.

Without a certain amount of pigheadedness, the culture wouldn’t have been so fresh and vital. At the same time, wisely chosen compromises can ensure that both the innovators and their innovative ideas will have and continue to have an impact.

Conclusion

Will hardcore become much a part of my life going forward? I doubt it, but my impression is that it’s a little less rigid these days, which is a welcome change. The music can be a bit much for me to digest comfortably after years of more sedate fare.

Regardless of whether I retreat to another Rip Van Winkle slumber, I’ll be curious to check in with hardcore over the next twenty or even forty years. We’ll see what geriatric punk rock truths there are to wake to in 2060.