Cro-Mags, classic or dud

Yeah, but how many (good or otherwise) bands really know what they're doing, while they're doing it?

The band that beat all of these in lasting cred, regionally in that section of the NY-metro-Jersey-eastern shore of PA, was Overkill.

Overkill is still a draw in Allentown. They seem to have made thirty or forty records, most out of print, but with always about five in. I think they opened almost every non-commercial heavy metal show at Lehigh's Stabler Arena over a period of about two to three years in the Eighties. I saw them countless times and, singularly, can't remember any of their tunes. Heck, I remember DD Verni's spinoff joke band, the Bronx Casket Company, much better.

Overkill would always be on the bills with Slayer, Danzig and Motorhead. They were a true journeyman iron man act, the kind that could go on, and no matter how cannibalistic the audience, not wilt.
Oscar Bonavena's of metal.

but what about the Cro-Magnons?!

Yes, what about them?

SO GOOD.

Yeesh...I mean, to each their own, but...yeesh. I'll take the Zero Boys or Angry Samoans or Necros or the Huskers or B-Flag or Flipper or, uh, most hardcore bands I guess over those guys anyday. I really like the idea of taking something so simplified and so restrictive and then making it musical and distinctive almost in spite of itself, so I don't really agree with your "more generic=better" theory.

By the way, just let me note that I fucking love hardcore threads on ILM.

None, probably. But how does that make *Land Speed Record* or the first Die Kruezen album or *What Makes a Man Start Fires?* (or *Back From Samoa* or *Damaged* or *Group Sex* or the first Meat Puppets album or whatever) something other than hardcore, though? I don't want to argue with you; I just always assume that *everybody* considered those hardcore records. I thought that was just accepted; it never occured to me that anybody thought the dumbass lummox third-or-fourth-generation dime-a-dozen new york tattoed-thug moron stuff was the *only* hardcore out there. That's just crazy, Phil!

Can we just agree to disagree on what "hardcore" means and not upset the Cro-Mags fans on this thread? I apologize myself for my stream on "hardcore", the term, here.

I am just curious what Phil's definition CONSISTS of, that's all. It's a new one for me, you know? Like, when does he think hardcore started? As I said, I won't argue with him. I am just CURIOUS is all.

*does weird hand motions and mumbles some tantric bs*

Ok, it is done.

Anyway, when I hear the word "hardcore," I think of what it meant when I was in high school (Westfield, NJ class of 1990 because I repeated freshman year). And that means Gorilla Biscuits, Judge, Sick Of It All, Warzone, Breakdown, Cro-Mags, Killing Time, Leeway, etc., etc., etc. All that other stuff is/was just "punk," and shall ever be thus in my brain.

they may be punk to you, phil, but husker du, black flag, bad brains WERE hardcore bands. until they weren't. they helped to invent it.

having said that, i really want the new judge comp. and the bold comp.

As I remember it (and you may beg to differ), "hardcore" is to "punk" what the rectangle is to the square (i.e. a rectangle is always a square, but a square is not always a rectangle).

Yes, what about them?

they exist, right? I remember trying to find a Cro-Mags album and came upon a Cro-Magnon album, total primitive ruckus. Quite the shockah

actually you got this backwards, alex!

and they are all quadrilaterals, too.

but let's not even get into trapezoids, trapeziums, and paralellograms, ok?

Ah, so I have, Chuck. Figures. I was an English major, alas.

(ok, i'm outta this thread for good today. But i couldn't resist)

Anyway, when I hear the word "hardcore," I think of what it meant when I was in high school (Westfield, NJ class of 1990 because I repeated freshman year). And that means Gorilla Biscuits, Judge, Sick Of It All, Warzone, Breakdown, Cro-Mags, Killing Time, Leeway, etc., etc., etc. All that other stuff is/was just "punk," and shall ever be thus in my brain.

-- pdf (newyorkisno...), July 7th, 2005.

i told y'all it was a generational thing! FWIW whenever i think of "hardcore" i think of the straight edge kids in high school with earth crisis tatoos.

If he lasts ten years. People with tatoos of this nature on their faces are basically either frankly psychotic or plagued by severe underlying mental problems. Just like the occasional young man geek I see in the LA Times about once every two years -- described as having an obscenity or slightly less tattoo'd on his face, anything, really, that says, "Look at me, I am a troublesome and brainless fuck and I want you to know it."

The rider that comes with the story: They either just came out of prison or are waiting to permanently be sent into prison. Reminds of the scene in "Papillon," when McQueen and Hoffman stumble upon the guy with his eyes and upper face covered with a tattoo. They're clearly frightened. The guys asks, "Do you like my tatoo?" Not wishing to touch him off, they say, yes, it's wonderful. The guy, a recluse living by himself on an island, responds wryly, "I do, too. But I was drunk at the time."

The only exceptions are hermits with "fuck you" money or trust funds.

Listened to some Cro-Mags today for this first time in years. Yeah, they were slackjawed meatheads, but damn if Age of Quarrel still doesn't pack a fuckin' wallop.

Was watching the tale end of the American Hardcore movie on cable and a couple Cro-Mags were on, or maybe it was just Harley. Anyway, mostly all he talked about was being street and beating people up, often colleagues from Boston because they were uppity.

Between that and the Village Voice thing on Bloodclot, that's the legacy -- beatings administered for just about anything.

I, as the founder of the band and bass player on all Cro-Mags albums (Age of Quarrel, Best Wishes, Alpha Omega, Near Death Experience and Revenge the good one and the other four)