It's been a while. I apologize. Lots and lots of updates! But first: I was inspired to write because I was re-reading some older posts and feeling fairly humiliated and thinking adding some new content might take some of the shame away. If I said something especially stupid, I am sorry. I tend to do that.

Life for the past few weeks has been really excellent. I hear it's always this way -- that it's only at the very end when you start to feel like your normal self and understand what it is that you don't want to lose when you leave.

Here is a quick run down in LINKED photos.

Mom and Dad came to visit. I showed them around the city and we took a side trip to beautiful Colonia and Montevideo, Uruguay. They made my friends an awesome brunch. Mostly, though, it was great not really doing anything with them. I miss them.

The week after that Danielle came to visit. It was really amazing having her here, much more than I think we both had anticipated, and an incredible capstone to our getting close again phase.

First, it meant that we were able to do things that we were insanely stoked on that no one else would be able to appreciate. Case in point: Krishna Veggie Lunch dinner -- and our waiter who knew Shelter.

Second, she is much cooler and more fun than I am. I'm still not sure when the tables switched and I became the shy one of the two of us... In any event, everyone loved having her as much as I did. It was, as we've been saying, MUCHO BUENO.

Third, everyone loving her so much meant that I got to hang out with everyone much more than usual. MUCHO MUCHO BUENO. Trips (paseando and to La Plata) ensued, especially those in search of vegan eats. She was sent-off by an unfortunate early arrival of my unhappy host mother -- a snippet "SHEEEEILLLAAAA! se van a tener que retirar! y espero que no me falte nada!!" -- after some uncharacteristically bad cooking on my part. At least the company was wonderful.

After Danielle left, hangouts continued at Danie's super fun bday party. I laughed a lot, even more than usual. Here is why.

This weekend Natalie, Jasmine, and I saw Juana Molina at a touristy city event. On Satuday it was Shipwreck and Have Heart (videos from the show linked) in BA. It was pretty epic. Plus Pat opened their set with "this song goes out to the only person in this room who has been with us from the beginning" before breaking into the Intro and Lionheart. While that was pretty awesome, just getting to talk with him is really what made my week. ...that and hearing JD's Boston accent. It made me miss Meffid! (Disclaimer: I apologize that this blog has recently turned into a forum for my fandom. Consider it wrapped up as of now.)

In other news:

1. A week ago from yesterday I booked my flight home. I leave BA July 3 and will be home with plenty of time for fireworks!

2. I was sick last week, got better, and now I think I might be coming down with something again. That's a big problem considering that I am WAY BEHIND on schoolwork and can't seem to finish -- or, more to the point, ever take a genuine interest in -- this monografia for UBA and thus be able to start working on other things. Uh oh.

3. I walked past Hooters tonight on the way home from UCA and they were playing Boys Don't Cry. What?

On a final note, I was marking the end of my stay by the date of the Have Heart show as it seemed like a logical point in the distance from long ago. That I am leaving soon when I feel like I am just starting to feel totally comfortable being myself has just begun to sink in and it's a big bummer.

no words

We all met at Axel's tattoo parlor and went 22 strong to Gerli for the show last night on the same city bus and train to the province. I thought that was absurd but I didn't know what was coming... Afterwards about half of the kids from the show piled in to the same post-show Line 37 bus back to the city. There are no words.  Imagine a literally completely full city bus -- no two people were more than three inches apart from one another -- filled with stage-dive high hardcore kids screaming and laughing. 

The forty-five minute ride consisted of soccer chants, Diego crowd surfing a good third of the way through the bus, and repeated screams for Oso to come to the back. Oso probably earned his nickname, which translates to bear, due to his large frame. The pleas continued until he finally yelled back "I can't, I'm too wide" to the hysterical laughter of literally everyone there. 

As Dag Nasty asked, "What can I say?" 

A related aside: Pauly Ramirez deserves a gold medal in the patience Olympics for her relentless kindness. 

this is hardcore

Trial at Burning Fight this weekend. Hat tip to Kris Mission at WMF for the photo. EPIC video of the whole set is here.

PS I know that this is supposed to be a post about Trial but I have to add something. At about 28/30 min into this video I noticed in the bottom front of my screen a kid that looked pretty familar, then I heard a voice I know: Patrick fucking Flynn. It's kind of an embarassing thing for me to be such a big fan of this dude, mostly because at this point I'd say that we're at the very least acquaintances, but it's what it is. It's not often you see the singer of what is essentially the biggest band in hardcore being as stoked and into it as the next kid. We all like to pretend that's how it goes, but it's not. Pat, on the other hand, still comes out to small shows like when he was going hard for Rival Mob at Oxfam and is apparently going all out for Trial when he could have a cushy spot wherever the hell he wanted in that place. Not to nerd out or anything but the amount of respect I have for that kid is literally limitless and I couldn't be happier for him the HH dudes for all they've accomplished. They're the hardest working band in hardcore (they're in the fucking Philippines next week and are touring officially from now until forever) and deserve everything they've been able to achieve plus much much more.

EDIT: They posted a flyer for the schedule of this out with a bang world tour: 98 shows in 104 days over 39 countries.


Oof. I get tired just reading it.


EDIT: I think I just caught another PF stage dive about 21 minutes into the incredible Bane set during my favorite of all post OG hardcore jamz: COUNT ME OUT. I don't know how to explain this but I am absolutely bugging out watching this Bane set. Seriously, like BUGGING OUT. Everytime I see them, everytime I listen to them it's the same fucking rush of emotions I felt when I heard Count Me Out for the first time and it absolutely changed my life. I listened to Holding this Moment pretty much every single day on the bus ride to school sophomore year until I switched to Give Blood, which might be only slightly edged out by The Argument by Fugazi as my most-listened album of all time. No matter how many times I hear the lyric "I'll be here tomorrow, I'll be here next year. Just like this X on the back of my hand [I'm] not going nowhere...." it will cause a wrenching, visceral reaction in me. I literally have goosebumps watching Can We Start Again right now.

I just opted not to go out tonight so I can continue to think about how I "will not let clean shaven boys that all look the same toss hand grenades into this my faith" while I keep watching Burning Fight sets.

EDIT again: Approx 28:30 into this set Aaron's speech is just dead on. No one speaks like that dude does. Chills, literally.

q descansen en paz

This fall the 24-year-old singer of a MA hardcore band, Dominic Mallory, passed away. His band Last Lights had just played a set at BU. Dom was helping the band pack up the van when he started to feel dizzy. He developed tunnel vision. He couldn’t feel his legs. He collapsed against a wall and his friends called an ambulance. Apparently he impacted a nerve during a fairly routine stage stunt in which he wrapped the mic cord around his neck and ultimately caused the aneurysm from which he died just a few hours later.

Although we have a fair number of people in common, I’d never met Dom. I liked his band’s demo and 7” a lot but never got a chance to see them. However, although I hardly ever cry, while reading his obit in the Worcester Telegram-Gazette in my kitchen at Fairmount, I broke down and began weeping. (I’m not sure I could ever describe another experience as one in which I’ve wept.) I felt so intimately connected to him, to his friends, to his family… It was so tragic that a 24 year old kid could just up and die like that, and perhaps even more affecting because he could have been any one of many kids that I know. Perhaps this isn’t unfair. In some ways I guess we were connected. Bobby and I had helped put on a show at Oxfam that was converted at the last minute to a fundraiser for Dom’s family. I spent that day, maybe two days after his death, with many of his closest friends, singing along to the cover of his favorite song. And that’s how it was. Beyond simple acts of solidarity like changing band’s profile pictures on myspace or sending notes of support, people really came together to help Dom’s family to pay his hospital bills and funeral costs. I heard that when all was said and told, donations and benefit shows and merchandise – the support of the hardcore scene – raised about fifteen thousand dollars. It was certainly Dom’s friends and family’s tragedy but it was, in its way, our tragedy – all of us.

This weekend a participant in the BA hardcore scene killed himself. From what I’ve been told, he had a girlfriend of a higher social class. Her family pressured her to break up with him. He tried to hold it together and distract himself all weekend but Sunday night he saw that she had removed all of the photos of them from myspace and listed herself as single. Some time after sending text messages to friends with the words “true till death” (the name of a famous straight edge song), he was hit by an oncoming train.

It’s an eerie thing to see photos of Matute, as he was called, with my new Argentine friends. I don’t really know if I should do anything, say anything to them. I found out about what happened in an indirect way, putting together pieces of the story deposited in different outlets. But I can’t help but experience some of the same feelings that I felt when Dom died. I am not a true member of the BAHC. I’m not sure I had ever seen him before and we certainly had not met; yet I feel connected to this kid and the wounds he inflicted not only to himself but to those that loved him. And while I wish I could communicate all of this simply – enough to explain that I am not a tourist to your emotions in the most meaningful of ways – there’s nothing I could say anyway to the grief my friends are feeling.

RIP Dom and Matute

¿qué es Santiago? -- Beth's not too bright homestay mother

I know I am a bit behind schedule about this, apologize.

Disclaimer: Santiago was where I wanted to go in the first place but Tufts only accepts transferred credits from its program there so I opted for Buenos Aires. On paper (and I think in reality), Santiago is a better fit for me. It’s not all about partying. It has a killer straight edge hardcore scene. People don’t speak as much English. I am much more familiar with its political history. Etc. So just sayin' I was pretty predisposed to be into it.

Chile was incredible. Kara and I arrived Wednesday morning. We did have to pay an entrance fee (bummer) but the flight was worth it both in terms of time (25 hour bus ride vs. 2ish on the plane) and in terms of the incredible view of the Andes from the plane. In that moment I understood so much of Gabriela Mistral!

After sorting out how to get to the city from the airport and getting really ripped off changing AR pesos to CL pesos, we arrived at our beautiful hostel in the boho neighborhood of Bellavista. We walked around all morning, saw a huge produce market and drank some sweeeet agua fresca type juice and shopped a bit, then slept most of the afternoon (panicked preparations meant that I arrived at the airport on seven hours of slept in the proceeding two days) and got some decent Mexican food as an excuse to see more of the city.

On Thursday, after a sweet maxikiosko bfast, we headed out to Valparaiso. Again, there was some confusion upon arrival at the bus station but finally we figured out how to take a bus to the hostel. However we arrived only to discover that the hostel we were planning to stay in was full. Whoops. We quickly found a new one – a hostel owned by a French immigrant to Chile hahaha – and I spent much the rest of the day worrying about how our friends Jasmine and Beth would meet up with us after the changed plans. (I was already nervous because they were flying into Stgo and had to meet us in Valpo. I didn’t know if they knew how to do that, where do go in Valpo, etc. And our cell phones didn’t work in Chile. We couldn’t contact them about the changed hostel using another method until we had arrived at the new hostel and after their flight from BA had taken off… I was nervous!) To wrap up this story and leave my Jewish mother anxiety at the door, everything worked out fine with the girls who arrived in our room at about 9:30 that evening. Phew.

Valpo is so cool! It’s the hub of Chile’s most active port and a beach destination in the summer but neither of those things are why it’s so cool. Valpo is awesome because it’s a small city of brightly painted houses built into the mountains.

To get to said houses in the mountains, one rides in a giant box up the side of the mountain called an ascensor or an elevator. They were built in the beginning of the 20th century which renders them somewhere between frightening and totally amazing. For the ascensores, Valpo is a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Skipping some boring details, Kara and I went for lunch and ended up sitting next to a table with two Chilean dudes who looked about our age. Kara – being both pretty and outgoing – skillfully initiated conversation. We learned that they were engineering students our age and that they were absurdly nice. We waited out the end of the Colo-Colo game wit them (Colo-Colo won obviously) and they took us around the city, up and down the best ascensores, giving us an excellent tour. Best of all, even though I could tell they both spoke English, they continued to speak to us in Spanish the whole day. (This does not happen in BA where I have to fight to use Spanish some days.) Eduardo and Oscar were SO GREAT!

Our group was rounded out in full on Friday. The four of us went to Pablo Neruda’s beautiful house.

and to the National Congress which took up residence in Valpo after the dictatorship relegated it to Valpo to reduce its influence.

We had some lunch of seafood and chorrillana (aka French fry onion meat heart attack dish of death) at the Central Market, which was awesome.

On the bus back that night we met some Israeli travelers – yes, this is officially the South American stereotypical experience – who we later had dinner with. Fun night!

Saturday was a boom and bust day. Jasmine and I tried to go to the Salvador Allende Museum of Solidarity (socialism and 70’s pop art? yes please!) but we discovered that it had moved and didn’t have enough time to meet Beth and Kara for lunch if we went to its new location. It wasn’t a total bust – Jasmine is awesome and we had some great discussions through the streets of beautiful Barrio Brazil. After more chorrillana Jasmine and I headed over to Palacio de la Moneda, Chile’s executive office building and where Allende killed himself during Pinochet’s siege. You can’t take a tour but at 4:30 they let tourists enter the plaza within the building’s walls. All of government center Santiago was incredibly beautiful in a Washington kind of way, with lots of beautiful architecture. I was pretty much in love.

After our foray through downtown Stgo, Jamine came with me to a hardcore show back in Barrio Brazil. How lucky was I, really, that there would be a show the one day I decide to look in a safe/easy to find place?? Okay, first, I saw three Chilean bands and they were all good. My favorite, easily, was the opener REMISSION. I had listened to each of these three bands before but they were just as good / even better when I saw them. The Arg bands I’ve seen, on the other hand, haven’t generally provoked similar compliments… More than Remission being a great band, their singer Philippe was an amazingly nice dude and he ended up chatting with us the entire time Jasmine and I were at the show. (Philippe spoke perfect Americanized English, they only time I used it in abundance with an actual Chilean.) He asked what I was doing the next day (which, oh yeah, was Easter Sunday!) and met up with me to talk about hardcore and show me around Santiago. We were SUCH NERDS, in the best way. Our hangout commenced with the question (from him) “top five favorites, go!” He was an encyclopedia of hardcore knowledge (which I don’t say lightly) and isn't every day I get to have intense conversations about Turning Point and Dag Nasty, I was so grateful! Plus he showed me so many beautiful areas of Santiago, especially Cerro Santa Lucia which is the giant hill where the Conquistadores beat the natives and around which the rest of the city has been constructed since its birth.

Plus it's just crazy how small the world is. Philippe's band is on a label called Amendment Records that is doing a split between a Chilean band called Against All Fears (super 90’s) and Maintain who exist in my mind occupying a space somewhere between a real hardcore band and my being my friend Amanda Ferres’s housemates in Somerville…. Plus Philippe chats irregularly with my friend Keith from Springfield. Weird, right! I'll be really stoked if Remission makes it to the States to tour next year as is tentatively planned.

To wrap up some loose ends worthy of note: Saturday night we ate tradition Chilean food. Our waiter was hilariously condescending, oh man, but the pastel de choclo was fortunately worth it. Before Philippe hangout time Sunday was of the highest quality. After a trip up the ascensor (the furnicular) at San Cristobol, we visited Santiago’s insanely high statue of the Virgin Mary and saw an amazing vista of sprawling Stgo.

Afterwards we ate incredible sandwiches at TOP SANDWICH (mmmmm), all drowned Kara in now-permissible formerly Lent-forbidden sweets and saw Beth and Jasmine off. Fast forward a few hours: Kara too had a Chilean friend hangout and when I was wandering through Barrio Bellavista in search of a phone card with which say hi to the padres, I ran into the only two remaining Tufts-in-Chile students. Again, smallest world.

On Monday I wanted to show Kara Cerro Santa Lucia, then we enjoyed more Top Sandwich, and then (unfortunately) had to say goodbye to Chile, its vastly more understandable and patient Spanish speakers, the awesome tomato bruschetta they serve at every table that puts tasteless porteno food to shame, and to Chile’s awesome people. Big bummer. It was a great trip! Not the most traditional of Easters but worth it.

Also I bought postcards but after struggling to find a post office, then after it was closed twice, I still haven’t sent them. I suck.

ON THAT NOTE, if you want a postcard HOLLA. I am slowly but surely working on it.

All in all, after all of that panicking about finances and meeting up with the girls and about the lack of proper planning, trip was totally incredible. If you enjoyed this post, donating to the Shana Hurley Poverty Fund will ensure that similar travel diaries follow.

speaking of hardcore......

I know I should be writing more about things that aren't hardcore and, for that, I apologize. However, esto vale la pena. I wrote this piece for Melisma, the Tufts magazine of music/alt culture, about straightedge (in a word: my decision to abstain from drinking, drugs, and permiscuous sex as tied to my participation in the DIY community of punk/hardcore). Since Melisma came out last month, I don't feel bad publishing it here too. If you're on campus and you didn't pick up a copy, please do!

When I was fifteen and a sophomore in high school, I wrote a zine about straightedge, the decision “live on the edge” – by being involved in the punk rock subculture, for example – while abstaining from drinking, doing drugs, or having promiscuous sex. For the zine, I interviewed the singer of one of the most hardline active bands. Hardline, or the militant strain of straightedge, had dominated in the 1990’s but fell out of fashion; however, certain kids and bands perpetuated that anachronistic spirit. Clean Steve, of Massachusetts’ Embrace Today, was one of those kids.

Steve was a fascinating interviewee. We ended up talking for upwards of 3 hours. (In fact, I ran out of tape on which to record.) I asked wide-eyed questions and he answered without skipping a beat. Steve, a long eight years my senior and associated with the gang-like Courage Crew, debated me intellectually and answered my questions sincerely. At age 15, it was one of the most meaningful demonstrations of adult respect I had experienced.

Steve was emblematic of why sophomore year of high school was possibly the most transformative year of my life. I remember it as a montage of highway: Exit 10 for the Depot in Darien, 46 for the Wallingford K of C, and 83 for New London’s El’N’Gee. There were close calls when sing-alongs almost met road dividers, when a turn in the road was barely edged out ahead of a crucial steering wheel finger point, and when several wrong turns on scenic back streets never really reached destinations at all. There were trips to Long Island, New York City, Poughkeepsie, and Providence filled with throats screamed raw. And best of all, there were packed house shows in Stamford and all over in which kids bumped up against each other, the shelves, the walls after sharing potluck rice and beans with not-quite-strangers in the kitchen.

Ascribing words to these memories doesn’t do justice to the sense of community. Occasionally those feelings come back to me and I long for those times, that sense of ownership in something bigger than I. Hardcore immensely changed my perception of where I grew up – for the first time in Connecticut I met kids who identified as middle class instead of my upper middle class hometown counterparts whose lifestyles were often out my reach. It provided an immediate sense of kinship, as personified by a one-in-the-morning sing-along on the subway with a total and complete stranger, a South Korean who had been in the States for only two days but who was a friend of a friend and, therefore, a friend of mine. It works both ways, too. This summer, when my friend Fred’s band toured Guatemala, a random kid asked in broken English if he knew someone from Connecticut named Shana. The kid was Andres, whose email correspondence had allowed me to practice Spanish and learn about the community and culture in Guatemala, all in the context of the impossibly small world that is hardcore.

At this point, my participation in the community has ebbed. Instead of attending Food Not Bombs benefit shows, I cloak my righteous indignation in talk about fiduciary responsibility and campaign for Democratic candidates. I no longer wear band shirts and scribbled-on Chuck Taylors but collared shirts and cardigan sweaters. I attend Tufts University, an institution antithetical to my inclusionary values in its stringent admissions process and prohibitive costs. However, although I’ve changed in other ways and have considered letting go, I have held fast to my straightedge identity. The last strong link within my sometimes tenuous connection to the hardcore community, straightedge sometimes feels like all I have left.

When people meaningfully ask me why I don’t drink, I usually give them intellectualized answers. I talk about the link between sexual violence and blood alcohol levels. I mention boycotting massive corporations whose politics I reject. Occasionally, I’ll even get personal and talk about my Irish Catholic family’s long history with self-destructive alcoholism. Only to a select audience will I mention the community that I respect and, in other ways, have abandoned.

So, Tufts, I will out myself: I am straightedge. I don’t X my fists, I don’t wear X watches, and I wouldn’t be caught dead with a straightedge tattoo. But I am as strongly attached to my edge now as I was when my South Korean friend Ki Seok and I sang “Thinking Straight” on the Broadway local after seeing straightedge legends Insted reunite at CBGB’s in July of 2004. It means as much to me as it did when I sang along to Bane’s “I’ll be here tomorrow and I'll be here next year" two weeks before my sixteenth birthday, truly faithful that "just like this X on the back of my hand, I’m not going anywhere." I believe in it now like I did when Clean Steve and I occupied the back room of a Cromwell church basement, sitting on Fisher Price furniture and feeling like two adults nonetheless. I may not continue to identify as straightedge in two years – or even two months – but it will still be one of the most important factors shaping who I have become today.

Perhaps my refusal to let go of straightedge (such a curious remnant of my relationship with hardcore!) reflects a certain immaturity. It is possible, of course, to have merely a glass of wine or two with dinner. Clearly an after-dinner drink does not immediately result in alcoholism. The vast majority of alcohol consumption does not result in sexual violence and one can easily avoid supplementing the Anheuser-Bush family’s right-wing war chest by supporting other fine microbrewers. As for me, there are other options than straightedge. I could connect with the community in other ways. What if I went to more shows? Wrote another zine? Finally picked up my dusty bass guitar and started playing in a band? Even by hanging out at the right places at the right time I could seamlessly reconnect to the community that I have distanced from. But nothing makes me feel more sincerely connected than truly sharing Have Heart’s “Something More than Ink” as the voices of the kids – our voices – overpower the amplifiers: “In the core of heart, this is something more than ink.”

According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism only 12% of college students don’t drink. Very few of my friends also abstain from drugs and alcohol. Indeed, even most of my straightedge friends have taken different paths. Despite the alone-in-a-crowd feeling that occasionally hits me at parties on campus, I know that my straightedge identity will continue until I can truly divorce my feelings for straightedge and for hardcore as a whole. I will sustain this somewhat anachronistic token until I can find another way to satisfy my longing for the community to which I identify. In the meantime, I’ll carry seminal hardcore band Youth of Today’s torch when I say that “my flame will keep on burning strong” and “I will continue to sing this song.” What’s keeping me going, as singer Ray Cappo wrote 21 years ago, is that “I know I’m not singing this song alone.”

desde stgo, con pasión

I am having a really satisfying email exchange with the kid who runs Amendment Records in Santiago de Chile. I thought I might post it here for those of you who might be interested in a true window into my relationship with hardcore down here, the scene, and the ties between the scene here and in the eeuu. I suggest running it through Google Translate. 

The italicized text is from Pablo. The regular text is my response. This is email #5 in our exchange. 

Yo ire probablemente al ultimo show de Verse en RI en mayo, asi que quizas ahi nos veamos. Estare un tiempo en los Estados Unidos, pero mayormente en la costa oeste (Portland, OR).

El show será bueno – el espacio (AS220) es muuuy chico. Vi algo de mis shows favoritos allá – la comienza de las dos giras más grandes del verano 07 con have heart, verse, down to nothing, ceremony, sinking ships, allegiance, soul control, y I rise. Cuando Have Heart tocó, porque era tarde, llegó la policía para terminar el show. La gente cantó Watch Me Rise sin los altavoces y la banda…. ¡Re bueno/divertido! Aunque quiero, no voy. Cuando estarás en los EEUU, todavía estaré acá. No regresaré a los EEUU de Buenos Aires hasta julio y viviré y trabajaré en Washington en vez de Boston hasta septiembre. Y si tú estás en la costa oeste (¡e inferior!), pienso que es muy improbable que nos veamos.

Me parece muy interesante, y a la vez, comprensible el tema de que hayan investigado sobre el hardcore en Argentina y Chile. Aca el hardcore lleva casi 20 años y jamas, creo, se ha sabido algo de eso alla en Estados Unidos sobre todo. La escena es muy elitista y la gente solo escucha lo que esta de moda, la prueba de ello es que en Sudamerica, Europa hay muchas bandas increibles, pero nadie las pesca porque no son cool o porque no son de Boston, hahaha. Aca cuesta 5 veces mas hacer las cosas, las bandas nunca obtienen dinero y todo funciona con el dinero que obtenemos de nuestros trabajos. De todas formas, agradezco que te des cuenta y que digamos, apoyes el hardcore de aca, porque aca no hay duda que esta hecho de corazon, y lo mejor, es que tiene un mensaje importante, muchas veces ligado a lo politico o social. cosas que nos afectan a todos.

Es raro porque allá mi vida diaria es bastante separada de hardcore. Voy a una universidad donde no hay más de dos personas (incluyo yo) que les interesa hardcore como a mi me gusta. Pero porque estoy en un lugar distinta con una idioma que no es mía, me siento más los sentimientos que influenciaron mi interés inicial en hardcore. Tengo un interés nuevo y estoy averiguando grupos viejos que son nuevos para mí etc. La simpatía que he recibido de la comunidad de hardcore me muestra todo lo bueno de esa escena y me da mucha entusiasma.

Estoy de acuerdo contigo. Para mi parece que hardcore de acá nunca llegó a los EEUU. Yo no sabía que lo existía acá por 20 años, pensé que es más nuevo… Allá la escena es muy separada -- en Boston no hay mucho intercambio entre, por ejemplo, Kris Mission y los grupos más ignorant que tocan en Brockton (cerca de Boston) como Death Before Dishonor o Colin of Arabia, los más punk como Positive Reinforcement, y los más vieja escuela como cuando Stephen de The First Step vivió cerca de Boston. Es una pobreza de riqueza, quizás. Lo que quiero decir es que es bastante difícil ser una banda nueva de Boston y ganar la atención de la comunidad, aparte de ser de un país diferente. New Lows y Rival Mob, por ejemplo, son muy populares pero también son amigos de Lockin Out y tiene vínculos con ellos que son los influénciales. No es suficiente ser de Boston – se necesita ser cool de los que hacen los decisiones también. Que sé yo. 

Cuando vino Have Heart, digamos, fueron las unicas personas, sobre todo Pat, que se intereso en la escena de aca. Fue muy bueno experimentar eso.

Al final, el hecho de que uds trabajan mucho más para tener la escena es la razón porque grupos como Have Heart disfrutan mucho estar por gira acá. Especialmente para los grupos de los EEUU que no tienen el reconocimiento que merecen allá (no como los graaaandísimas como Have Heart), es mejor ir a Europa (o Sudamerica) para que experimente gente de bienvenido. Fue el mismo Pat de Have Heart que me aseguró que yo pueda hacer amigos de la comunidad amable de Santiago y Buenos Aires porque eso pasó a él. Ellos disfrutaron mucho la experiencia de ir a Sudamerica. Pero sí, espero que nosotros podamos dar apoyo a uds y asistamos en popularizarles en los EEUU. (Por lo menos yo quería darte una gira de Boston – con toda la historia de la revolución norteamericana, soy una nerd/empollona – alguna vez.)  

Con respecto a los vinilos, pues, los amo hahaha. Esa es la unica razon porque hago los discos en vinilo y no en cd por ejemplo. Tambien a las bandas que he sacado, les gusta el formato vinilo, asi que por ahora no he tenido problemas con eso. El sello es una de las pocas cosas con la que yo puedo hacer lo que me gusta y lo que yo quiera, asi que lo administro a mi modo. Si a la banda le gusta, los saco, sino, se puede negociar algo, pero asi funciona basicamente esto. Ahora recien saque un LP de Against All My Fears que es una banda que toco el sabado pasado, y ahora se viene el debut LP de Remission, y un split 7" de Against All My Fears con Maintain de Boston, quizas a estos los conozcas. Yo hablo mucho con Enrique, el bateriasta y son Chris, el guitarra.

hahahaa dicho como un hardcore kid verdadero. Me gustaba Against All My Fears (re de la decáda 90). Será difícil esperar para el LP de Remission – a ellos me encantan. Y sobre AAMF/Maintain, ¡q chistoso! Mi querida amiga (quien la extraño mucho) Amanda vive con Sean, el cantante de Maintain. En la universidad, mis amigos Bobby y Geoff y yo arreglamos dos shows con ellos. Además de eso, no conozco a Enrique o Chris jajaja.

Bueno Shana, ojala nos veamos en los Estados Unidos para cuando vaya, y te reitero las gracias por apoyar lo nuestro. :D

Mil gracias por los mails. Me gustaba mucho el intercambio. Con hardcore, es como tengo un pedazo de mi vida de allá pero también en una forma sudamericana y es el mejor. Y te agradezco por aguantar la escena y tener Amendment y (lo más egoísta) darme Remains to be Seen, que son reeeeeee buenos.

un abrazo!

*Note for those who speak Spanish: "re" is bsas slang for "very" and demonstrates the ways in which bad porteña castellano is invading my vocabulary.

battery says it best: i spend half my time with friends (friends!) hoping it never ends (ends!)

Sometimes I feel just so very lucky to have hardcore in my life. In many ways, it’s been a gift that just keeps on giving. I’ve always seen it as a refuge for kids who felt different. Lately, perhaps as a consequence of feeling the alienation of being someplace new, I've been thinking about hardcore all of the time. After neglecting the habit, I’ve been reading hardcore blogs (oh doublecross is too good) and discovering new (to me) music, listening to a crop of stuff that I’ve always wanted to listen to but am just now really getting into for the first time really (see: BATTERY, bt1k, early shelter, common cause, remains to be seen, and CIV). And just as I’ve always felt about it – this asylum for kids who feel somehow a step apart – hardcore has been embracing me. 

Wednesday I had some extra time after a visa appointment so I stopped into Axel’s tattoo shop, which was later followed by a conversation about the Disengage EP and how hardcore might not have recovered from the awesomeness if YOT had made a full length of Disengage quality. Then Friday night I literally ran into Axel and his friend as I was walking to meet up with a friend and her parents. I was majorly running on Argentine time (aka late) but it was just so great to run into a friend like that. Stressing that is important; it’s not uncommon for me to run into American kids from my program around town because we all tend to hang out in more or less the same places, but it was a sublime thing to find myself cheek-kissing with a real porteño before hitting a series of subjects about which I have something substantive to say. 

Yesterday I was cared for (babysat?) by the kids down here. When I didn’t hear from the kid who was supposed to take me to the show, his bandmate answered my call for help. I met up with him and friends and they brought me to the show, even paying for my bus fare. At the show, I received a steady stream of hellos, introductions, and unbelievable warmth. Most of the kids I met last week were there and it was super exciting to see them and to see how excited they were to see me. As they say here, it was baaaaarbaro. After the show Fedex brought me back to house, no invitation truly stated, with his friends. I listened to them and their friends and tried so hard to understand (through the slang and speed) to their talk about dudes/bands and then we played a game of charades against the Rosario kids which I totally sucked at even though I didn’t really need Spanish. It was probably the most normal night I’ve had here except that it was all in castellano! 

On the one hand, it was super amazing. I had a fun night Friday night going out with some American friends and their two British friends but it was really nice not to be made to feel like the boring/awkward person because I don’t drink. It was incredible to have a night that was just so very perfectly normal, about hanging out for hanging out’s sake. I’m so absurdly grateful for how much they went out of their way for me. On the other hand, it was bittersweet. Nothing makes you miss your friends quite like being happy and hanging out in the same way with new friends, you know? 

On a final note, it occurs to me that I haven’t used this blog to talk much about Argentina but mostly to talk about me and occasionally to use that as a prism through which to talk about Argentina. In large part that’s been because I’ve been struggling to find my place and to encounter truly authentic experiences on which to reflect. I will post more very soon – last night gave me much ammo. 

hardcorelyrics.com ctrl-c ctrl-v

I had probably my favorite conversational exchange last night. It went like this:

Shana: ¿No hablás ingles? ¿Pero escribís tus letras en ingles? (You don’t speak English? But you write your lyrics in Engish? NOTE: Check out that castellano riplatense in action!)

Frederico: No, seriously. Hardcorelyrics.com. Ctrl-C. Ctrl-V. That’s it.

Jajajajajajajajaja says me.

 

Hat trick to Marie on this one: When I talked to her this week in my generally down state, she encouraged me to put myself out there in order to make Argentine friends. After a fierce internal debate and an extremely lucky venue change from the province to 8 blocks from my apartment, I made the incredibly wise decision to go to my first Argentine hardcore show by myself. Because I went by myself, I didn’t have the luxury of withdrawing into myself. I was forced to be friendly as fuck. It paid off.

The strategy: Take pictures of random kids waiting for the show to start. Successful? Yeah! Because it’s pretty awkward to just snap photos of some dudes, I told them that I was American and taking some photos for my friends to document the scene here. Okay that’s probably equally awkward… but it was also true and it worked on two separate occasions to strike up conversations, one of which was extremely successful. Marcelo, Axel, Ryan, and Paula -- featured below in their Verse shirts har har – were super friendly and nice and patient about my Spanish and helpful.

From BAxHC

Marcelo gave me the lowdown on some of the who’s who – pointing out the 674 crew with neck tattoos and DB4D shirts and Red Sox hats (so much like I never left!), the kids in important bands I hadn’t heard of, and the kids I wanted to meet – while also listening with some degree of really adorable awe about Boston. We talked about bands we all liked and the hilarious National Geographic doc about Edge Day and straightedge. The best part was that none of those dudes really spoke English and for the first time in way too long I was forced to speak Spanish to execute a conversation. (!!!) They also introduced me to their awesome friends Carlos and Magalí, who I especially loved and with whom I spent most of the rest of the show.

From BAxHC

In addition, Marcelo pointed out Kiko, the amazing kid who runs Varsity Records whom I emailed my first week of being down here and with whom I’ve been doing some MSN chatting. OKAY Kiko is seriously one of the nicest people I have ever met in my whole life. He immediately was super warm to me, asking me lots of questions about how I’m doing, how I got to the show, etc etc. He introduced me to his friend and bandmate Frederico, of the infamous Ctrl-C Ctrl-V quote, who also went out of his way to be super friendly and who also knew way too much about American college sports and that Tufts was good at crew (uh?). Frederico introduced me to his gf (I think) Pauly who was super adorable and with whom I waited after the show ended because Kiko had asked me to stay. He promised to meet me in the city and literally take me to the show next Sunday, which is just amazing considering he doesn't even live in the city. And when I parted ways with them, he gave me a sincere “cuidate.” 

Check out their band Reconcile on myspace or in youtube video.

From BAxHC

As for the show itself: The opening band was terrible. They were followed by a hard, New York influenced band and their singer, of course, was the dude with neck tattoos. Reconcile was legitimately really good and it was great to see a hometown band that hometown kids were into. No Turning Back (Holland) was just hilarious. Their singer was a Dutch version of Scott Vogel in Greg Mental's oddly proportioned body. I took some video which I am stoked to show Bobby in the fall. Only about half of the kids knew enough English to laugh at his jokes and participate in his requests for call and response. I laughed throughout the whole set, pretty much. Plus they played covers of Negative Approach and Alone in a Crowd, which allowed me to participate a bit thank goodness.

Although I feel a little bit embarrassed admitting it to folks, especially when they don’t really understand hardcore at all, last night demonstrated the success of my logic: I picked BsAs in large part because there is a hardcore scene. With all of those kids I met last night, I spoke Spanish, exchanged contact information, and just generally had a meaningful experience over which to bond. For the first time, although I obviously felt like an outsider to some degree, I didn’t feel like such a tourist or such an American. I felt like a hardcore kid. And with the greatness of the smallness of the hardcore scene (¿hardcore es un panuelo?) I had more than just interests in common but also some friends as well. It was pretty incredible to explain where I live in the States by proximity to the Anthrax Club, to discuss kids I know from Boston, and to be able to share in a way I hadn’t yet been able.

All in all, an extremely awesome experience on which to build! Already super stoked for the 28^th in Gerli (which I can now finally pronounce).

VERSE BROKE UP

Verse broke up. This band has been boring for at least two lps and two eps now. I originally said only one LP but I gave From Anger to Rage another listen to honor their end and decided to make it two. As someone aptly put it on the b9, "that one song they had was pretty sweet." Usually I really hate when hardcore kids complain about seeing bands too many times -- hardworking bands deserve respect -- but Verse was a tired band on so many levels. And since they manage to get onto every halfway decent east coast show, I couldn't just politely avoid them. I'll leave out some of my hard feelings about dudes in that band and just say I hope their future projects are as solid as Rebuild was.

The one thing I am legitimately bummed about is that Verse breaking up means the count of active hardcore bands I even just occasionally listen to drops to about three, give or take. The two that aren't Have Heart are west coast bands that almost never tour. Second, this means I'm really old. Verse are considered ancient for their six years of activity. I think that makes me ancient too.

To honor their and my oldness, I will recap my favorite Verse shows in order:

3. MONSTER SUMMER TOUR KICKOFF at the AS220 (7/12/07). Both of the summer's biggest tours happened to be in Providence for their first night -- Have Heart, Verse, DTN, Ceremony, Sinking Ships, Allegiance, Soul Control, and I Rise for a non-fest at Providence's tiny AS220. My favorite set at this show was hands down the Have Heart set because the police came, threatening to cut the mics because the show ran way late. Eventually they did but the kids just belted WATCH ME RISE and it didn't matter at all. Also, it was a perfect summer night. Often shows like that feel really long but this was just a lot of fun. Notable also because it was the first time I saw HxH headline over Verse aka the first time I realized how huge those dudes had gotten. I've been dying to find clips from this show, if anyone can help me out.

2. EDGE DAY 07 at Welfare. (10/21/2007). Again, lots of fun for reasons besides Verse (exhibit A: Sweet Pete doing Take the Risk with The Effort!!) but I have to say that their set was really fun to watch. (Sorry, I know better video exists but I didn't really look.) I was wiped at that point, especially because there had just been a string of mediocre bands, and I was camping out in the air conditioned spot by the sound tech where it's super quiet. Pat and I were singing the words just loudly enough for one another to hear, especially because our voices were echoing off of the sound booth. At such a huge, long show it was amazing to have a quiet moment with a band as quiet, relatively speaking, as Verse. Most of all, Sean Murphy's speeches were spot-on that night. I hadn't heard him speak that personally since he addressed his addiction in some much older WFTF sets I'd seen on video. (And a lot of his pretty trite commentary on politics, which generally makes me cringe.)

1. BEST DAY at the Wallingford Hungarian Club (1/5/04). The line-up still blows my mind: TFS in their pre-first breakup NC days, Our Turn, Verse, Have Heart, Look Alive / Learn shared set, and SOH. First time I saw Verse. The show was mostly youth crew bands. Although I was pretty into Turning Point and stay gold at the time, Verse's melodic style was still groundbreaking/awesome to me. The demo and Rebuild stand out to me as their best (aka before it was tired) work and, as this was one of their first shows at all, it's clear that they had no other option but those excellent jams. Another highlight: I brought notecards to the show from which to study.

Honorable mention: Verse at Fairfield U with TFS, Have Heart, Signs of Hope, and Fired Up (6/28/04). Mark and I ate ice cream in the hallway. One of my favorite shows ever. (I make embarassing appearances in the TFS and Have Heart videos from Scott at Bystander on youtube but nothing from Verse's set....)

Speaking of last shows, TFS last set rip is here. Many of my favorite faces present and an awesome shout out to Ferres before my favorite new TFS song, What We Know. Watching it made my day! Heads up: Rather than a continuous set, the folder contains MPGs of individual songs.