In what is sure to reignite controversy in the hardcore scene, Southern Lord has apparently gone all-in by signing Cro-Mags’ co-founder Harley Flanagan to the label for “several upcoming releases.” To quote label owner Greg Anderson:

Through the power of the net and sheer luck I started talking to Harley Flanagan over emails and telephone past year. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the intensity and honesty of his playing also carried through in his personality. Harley is humble, raw, intelligent, driven and focused. To say it is an honor for Southern Lord to be working with Harley Flanagan is a enormous understatement! We’re in shock and CAN NOT WAIT to get this shit going! The first release we will be doing together will be the forthcoming Harley’s War album. The demos of the material he has shared with us for this are fucking phenomenal! The new Harley’s War material has the same feeling as the initial musical impact the Cro-Mags first had in the mid-’80s. Killer songwriting, raw lyrics and Harley Flanagan’s trademark bass playing. As mentioned above this is “other level” shit!

So why do I think this is a brilliant (albeit a tad risky) move on Southern Lord’s part?

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Sai Nam
TBA
Label – Reaper Records
Release date – Winter 2012

Wanting to close out 2011 right, I hit up New York’s Highline Ballroom for the almighty Cro-Mags’ annual end-of-year gig. I arrived at the venue earlier than anticipated, my curiosity piqued over the first act of the night: Sai Nam. A so-unlikely-it-just-had-to-happen collaboration between Mike Dijan (Breakdown, Crown Of Thornz, Skarhead), Lou Medina (Breakdown, All Out War), and Justice Tripp (Trapped Under Ice), the group played its debut show to a receptive if docile audience–save for a little boy who appeared to be Dijan’s son. As this past summer’s sick sick sick teaser track “Comeback” promised, Sai Nam’s set showcased a hard NYHC aesthetic deftly blended with Tripp’s rapid-fire vocals. I have little doubt that once people become familiar with the material, the crowd response will soon reflect the stage-diving pit mania of a TUI gig.

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New York’s Cro-Mags are best known for two arguably unimpeachable hardcore classics, 1986′s seminal The Age of Quarrel and its far more metallic 1989 follow-up Best Wishes. Constantly in conflict, the Krishna-conscious lineup remained in flux so much that the group has never managed to have the same line-up on any album, so much so that when original frontman John Joseph returned for 1992′s Alpha Omega, it was only after guitarist Parris Mayhew left following a falling out with bassist Harley Flanagan.

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INTRO BUST

Everybody knows that Hatebreed is by far the most popular hardcore band in the history of the planet, but not everybody knows that they are beyond a doubt the best hardcore band of all time. I can feel the butthurt starting already, but lettuce be srs, brahs: no other hardcore band has consistently dropped album after album of brutal mosh jams. Don’t believe me? Let’s take a step through history and prove it! In more-or-less chronological order, I will go through the bands who some might say hold the title of “best hardcore band of all times” and illustrate why Hatebreed is #1.

Go!

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Steven Blush’s American Hardcore: A Tribal History is one of the great rock n’ roll history books. And now it’s bigger. Originally published in 2001, the Feral House book nails the golden age of old-school hardcore, from the movement’s inception to the watershed year 1986. The book inspired a documentary, the 2006 film American Hardcore. The movie is a must-see that has inspired as much griping and controversy as the book.

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So as you’re no doubt aware, Halloween is on Sunday, and as you’re hopefully aware, we’re holding a “Heavy Metal Halloween” contest with SPV. The deadline was announced as being on midnight on Halloween, the logic being that people would snap their photos before they went our partying; but Vince wisely pointed out that people might not get to upload those photos right away. So now we’re extending the deadline to midnight on November 1. Hope that helps! If you need a refresher on the rules, go here.

Here’s what else happened this week:

• We debuted a new music video by Nile.
• We also debuted new music by Havok, White Arms of Athena, and Shred Sean and Allan Tecchio.
• Daath’s Eyal Levi talked about trust issues while The Red Chord’s Greg Weeks talked about football.
• We spoke to J. Randall from Agoraphobic Nosebleed and our old pal Eyal from Daath.
• We checked out the latest release from Kylesa, and a new book by the Cro-Mags’ John Joseph.
• We went on a “Reader’s Choice” local scene binge.
• We prayed for the end of karate mosh pits.
• We watched Abigail Williams lob a dildo at Iwrestledabearonce.
• We defended Phil Labonte’s angelic singing voice.
• Sergeant D. taught you about bands you would have hated/ignored in ’95.

And that’s all she wrote this week. Don’t forget that our own Gary Suarez is playing in a Jesus Lizard cover band on Sunday night. Swing by if you can!

-AR

Anyone who has survived a live Cro-Mags show can presume that a health and nutrition book penned by front man John Joseph “Bloodclot” McGowan is not going to be a touchy-feely affair. For the uninitiated, let’s just say Joseph’s motor has but a single setting: Pulverize. And it’s safe to assume that after having this man pound sand up their collective asses for sixty minutes, the corpulent contests on The Biggest Loser would be pleading for comparative nurturing ladled out weekly by Jillian Michaels.

Whoever coined the adage that you can’t judge a book by its cover likely never saw Meat Is For Pussies:A How-To Guide For Dudes Who Want To Get Fit, Kick Ass and Take Names staring out from a shelve at their local Borders. As the title oh-so-delicately suggests, Joseph’s second foray into publishing (his first being 2007’s autobiographical The Evolution of a Cro-Magnon) finds the singer sharing his opinions and insights on a variety of health-related topics, ranging from the health and ethical advantages of a no-meat diet, to the use of unsound food additives, to his favorite legume recipes, to the shadowy role of government, corporations and special-interest groups like the American Medical Association in the existing American food complex.

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Start shopping for a new bandanna (or hit the easy button and buy this), because Suicidal Tendencies kick off a proper five-week U.S. tour this week! Last month, the latest version of the band released No Mercy Fool!/The Suicidal Family, a collection of re-recorded cuts from Join The Army and the No Mercy project–and that’s as good a reason as any to play some fucking shows. Opening acts vary depending on the city, but include Cro-Mags, Death Before Dishonor, D.R.I., (Hed) P.E., High on Fire, Kylesa, and Underdog.

Immediately following the tour, Muir returns to California to play an exclusive Infectious Grooves live gig at the House Of Blues in Hollywood–the side-project’s first U.S. show in over a fucking decade. If all of this doesn’t make up for Muir’s 2008 collaboration with P.O.D. (*shudder*), I don’t know what is. All dates are below.

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I haven’t needlessly lumped self newly-released videos together in awhile, and these three clips were all released pretty much at once, so I figured, “Hey, why not?” After the jump, check out the latest audio-visual offerings from Torche, Helloween, Linkin Park, and Your Demise… plus my usual bullshit commentary, of course.

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If you’re one of those people who read this site every day (God bless you, you fucking masochists!), you may have noticed a lack of premium content from yours truly these past couple of weeks. That’s because I’ve been in Japan soaking in neon, dining on fresh sushi, and recoiling in horror at the perverse underbelly of otaku. I did manage to hit up a few rock bars in Osaka (Rock Rock — check out who else has been there!) and Tokyo (Beat Cafe), but otherwise this was a pretty metal-free trip–and that’s okay with me.

So, shit, man. Quite a bit happened in the wonderful world of hardcore while I was away! Ruiner broke up. This Is Hardcore 2010 finally revealed its drool-inducing lineup and sold out in less than two days. (I wasn’t able to get my tickets in time, sadly.) Unsane announced a series of U.S. dates where they’ll play 1995′s awesome Scattered Smothered & Covered live in its entirety. Notable releases included Ceremony’s Rohnert Park, for which I’ll be posting a review later this week. Some pretty awesome tours were announced as well. Check out the dates for some of these below.

Looking forward to your “Welcome Back” sentiments in the Comments section!

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To celebrate the release of Sick of it All’s awesome new album, Based on a True Story, we asked SOIA vocalist Lou Koller to compile the definitive list of quintessential hardcore albums. Luckily for us and all of you, he agreed! So we’ll be running one entry a day from Lou’s list of the top-ten (+1) hardcore records of all time for the next couple of weeks. You can catch up on previous installments here; the sixth one is after the jump…

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The thorny history of New York hardcore pioneers Cro-Mags can’t be done justice in a pithy blog post, what with myriad lineup changes and squabbles that fortunately haven’t harmed the band’s legacy as much as, say, L.A. Guns. The current incarnation of Cro-Mags now playing gigs features Age Of Quarrel-era vocalist John Joseph and drummer Mackie Jayson, yet excludes guitarist Parris Mayhew and bassist/Best Wishes vocalist Harley Flanagan. In a recent interview with the excellent Double Cross blog, Flanagan–one of the founders of the band–had this to say about the situation:

[I]t’s all for money anyways with all these promoters and shit selling a fake band. They can claim whatever they want, it ain’t really the band, it’s some really fake shit, and all the new kids, well, they dont know any better so I guess they’ll take what they can get. I mean I understand, they’re fans of the music, so, it’s like going to see Ozzy instead of Sabbath or going to see Sabbath without Ozzy – but on a much much much smaller level. Believe me I’m not trying to compare us to Sabbath, trust me – you take what you can get. They just want to hear the songs and have a good time – they didn’t see it back in the day so they take what they can get. They dont know what they’re missing, they didn’t see it back in the day and they never saw the real shit. So they’re happy to see whatever they can and I understand.

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Originally, I had planned on livetweeting this year’s New England Metal and Hardcore Festival for the purposes of turning my pithy comments into some sort of proper show report. Looking back on some of those 140-characters-or-less entries, I realized that there was really no need to do so. Instead, below you’ll find a selection of my most poignant tweets from the two day weekender. Enjoy!

DAY ONE
So nice of @metalsucks to have this limo waiting for me at Union Station. My driver Tito has already taken a shine to me. #nemhf 12:42 PM Apr 23rd

My limo driver Tito and I stopped at Uno’s for a quick bite. I wonder if Rose Funeral refuse to eat here on principle. #nemhf 12:52 PM Apr 23rd

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2010 has already been an eventful year for reunited New York hardcore bands. Favorites like Cro-Mags and Killing Time, the latter of which dropped a great new album a couple months ago, have been playing live gigs. Agnostic Front performed a one-off show with their classic Victim In Pain and United Blood rhythm sections in lieu of their present recording/touring lineups. Recently, Bridge Nine announced the return of Underdog with a forthcoming complete discography and a handful upcoming live shows. Out of nowhere, Supertouch and Yuppicide have both returned to play this weekend’s Black N Blue Bowl. But now, despite my earlier elation, I’m starting to wonder if this trend is getting out of hand.

In the past 24 hours, I’ve learned about several more NYHC reunions. Late-eighties group Inside Out (not to be confused with Zack de la Rocha’s pre-RATM band of the same name) has also apparently reunited and are playing their “first show in 21 years” at Andrew W.K.’s Santos Party Haus. Additionally, BrooklynVegan scribe Black Bubblegum posted recently regarding reunited NYHC band Indecision, who have a show coming up at Knitting Factory in July. He also revealed that current New York resident Moby has regrouped with Vatican Commandos, his long-forgotten Connecticut hardcore act, for a July gig at Mercury Lounge.

So what’s going on?

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Last year, my esteemed colleagues Vince Neilstein and Van Arseface covered the New England Metal & Hardcore Festival for this site, resulting in a plethora of posts about their experience and the bands. Pretty good stuff, I’d say. For the 2010 Worcester, MA event, I volunteered to be the official correspondent in my capacity as the resident “hardcore expert” (not to be confused with the resident “hardcore sexpert“). With big names like Cro Mags and Disembodied playing the second stage, how could I not?

So, yeah, throughout the weekend, you can follow all of my witty, ascerbic livetweets here (that is, if you have a Twitter account and a major credit card). Show reports will appear here on MetalSucks next week, with some interviews with select bands following in the subsequent weeks (because monkeys can only transcribe so fast). To answer your lingering questions:

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Last month when Madball frontman Freddy let slip some of the bands playing this year’s Black N Blue Bowl, it was clear that the highly anticipated New York hardcore event was going to be awesome. BNB Productions subsequently confirmed that Cro-Mags, Madball, Skarhead, Wisdom in Chains, and Trapped Under Ice would all play the May 15th event at Webster Hall (formerly The Ritz, a legendary New York City venue), but as per the flyer above a few more solid acts have been added, including H2O (who blew me away at their show a couple months ago) and Cruel Hand. But perhaps the biggest surprise was that long-dormant hardcore act Yuppicide will reunite at the BNB Bowl for their first show in twelve years. Vocalist Jesse Jones, who years ago dismissed the idea of a reunion, has “eaten his words.”

After 12 years of silence we’ve decided to take a trip down memory lane and play some shows. We’re planning on a few East Coast locations, and a short trip to Europe (tentatively in October). Pete couldn’t join us on drums due to family commitments, so Gringo Star from The Muggs and Caught in a Trap is ferociously learning the set for the next show.

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The organizers behind New York’s annual Black N Blue Bowl / Superbowl of Hardcore have been steadfastly tight-lipped about the lineup at this year’s event. Though apparently something this big can’t stay hidden very long, as Madball frontman Freddy Cricien let a few names slip at a a recent concert in Poughkeepsie, NY–and subsequently that tasty bit of hardcore intel was confirmed.

Thanks Freddy!

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Not to be confused with that crabcore band we can’t stop making fun of here at MetalSucks, The Attack are a Florida-based group that intentionally straddles the line between classic hardcore and old school melodic street punk. Distinct from the toughguy and metallic sounds dominating the hardcore scene, their catchy throwback-style tunes caught the attention of groups like Cro-Mags, H20, and Leatherface, all of whom have included the band on upcoming live dates. But if the tacit endorsement of such key hardcore acts isn’t enough for you, go ahead and download “Prove It,” [this download is longer available] one of the best tracks from their upcoming full length Of Nostalgia And Rebellion, due out February 16th.

Like what you hear? Good! Be sure to buy a copy of the album and catch the band at one of their upcoming dates. The H20 shows are part of the group’s 15th Anniversary Tour, and other openers for the New York and Philly gigs include Maximum Penalty and Trapped Under Ice, two great hardcore bands I’ve profiled here before. The Attack are in very good company. All dates below.

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Late last December, I braved some bitter winter weather to catch NYHC pioneers Cro-Mags play an almost intolerably crowded gig at Andrew W.K.’s Santos Party Haus. And boy, was it worth it! With original vocalist John Joseph and drummer Mackie Jayson, alongside members of Leeway and Sick Of It All, the current incarnation–previously touring as Cro-Mags(Jam)–ripped through so many classic Age Of Quarrel cuts to the evident delight of a flailing, furious crowd of devotees. Thanks to the Intarwebz (and a courageous soul willing risk injury to record it), you can actually watch a full set from a couple days prior in Philadelphia here. But even such great footage isn’t the same as actually experiencing the band live. Well, thankfully, many of you will get the chance now that a number of Cro-Mags gigs have been announced.

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This morning, I received the following e-mail from reader Parker Werley:

“How does a band get to earn the proud badge of having -core in their genre?”

That’s a pretty simple question, but it’s also kind of thought provoking. So I thought maybe we could explore it here a little bit. Because, honestly, I’m not sure that I know what the answer is.

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