Music of Massachusetts - Hardcore

Hardcore

As the hardcore underground hit Boston, a few New Wave bands like Pastische, Lou Miami and the Kosmetix, Human Sexual Response, DMZ—who were to Boston what the New York Dolls were to New York City and who evolved into garage rock revivalists Lyres; The Real Kids, The Neighborhoods, The Turbines, and The Neats played any form of punk. The founder of the Boston hardcore scene was Allan Barile from Lynn, Massachusetts. Barile saw Minor Threat in Washington, D.C. and brought hardcore home with him, intensifying DC's skinhead and straight edge subcultures. Boston also developed an active hardcore zine culture by 1980, most influentially including Forced Exposure.

Barile's first band was SSD (Society System Decontrol). It formed in 1981 and recorded the following year. SSD organized their own shows, not playing at typical venues, such as punk rock mainstay The Rat, because those clubs served alcohol. They rented out Knights of Columbus halls in areas such as Cambridge and Newton, and insisted that the performances be "all ages shows". Violence was common at these concerts and many people felt they made the punk scene violent. Mostly this was felt by older punks on the scene and casual fans. Other bands soon joined. In contrast to Barile's SSD, many of these bands were from suburbs of Boston including best known Gang Green, heralding from Braintree, DYS, The FU's, Jerry's Kids, Siege, The Freeze and Last Rights; Stranglehold, and The Proleteriat from Fall River. Barile's Crew was known for being for the first major group of skinheads in the city of Boston. One of the most notorious of these straight edgers was Choke, who was actually attending Emerson College at the time. Choke played in a series of legendary bands including Negative FX, Slapshot and Last Rights. The Boston crew were a tight group of skinheads who were intensely loyal to one another and very territorial.

Unlike most hardcore bands, Boston's scene included heavy metal fans. Barile himself was a fan of AC/DC, while DYS, SSD and Gang Green all eventually made the switch to speed metal. The death of hardcore in Boston is said to have occurred in 1984, when Jerry's Kids announced at a show that "this is the end of hardcore. We started it and we're ending it here today." However, there are still many bands based out of Massachusetts that play hardcore, such as Righteous Jams and Bane.

The Boston hardcore scene of the 1990s was led by several hard hitting fan favorites, Sam Black Church (band), TREE, Wrecking Crew and Blood for Blood. Other notable Boston area hardcore bands of the 1990s include Honkeyball, Scissorfight, Tapes Don't Skip, Corrin, Converge, Fall From Grace and Brawlpark.

In recent years many hardcore bands have included metalcore elements to their music. These bands have been considered the rebirth of hardcore in Boston and the surrounding areas, and bands include Black My Heart, On Broken Wings, Shere Khan (which features several members of the two previously mentioned bands), Shipwreck A.D., Death Before Dishonor, and Forced Coitus, MOB HIT (with ex-Wargasm drummer Barry Spillberg).