You know, ever since Nirvana and Green Day brought more hardcore music to the pop realm, I've been a happier person. I can actually turn on the radio during the day and hear Metallica and even now MegaDeth crystal clear istead of on some fading-in-fading out college station (WSOU!). And sometimes they even play songs from before the Metallica (black) album.
The semi-hardcore coming from the 'grunge' music was a welcome sight. No longer was I going to be regulated to replaying the scratched up 7Seconds and Dead Kennedy's albums. Maybe these would actually come out on disk!
And the concerts. I could actually look forward to a venue a bit bigger than City Gardens in Trenton. The Ramones and Dickies would be so jealous.
I mean, come on, these bands were going to Woodstock '94! This was one of the happier non-drug induced moments in my life. Aside from the mud men and having a tent that would sag when you blew on it, not to mention the rain beating it into the ground, Woodstock '94 was a thrill.
But that was three and half years ago. Why I didn't bother writing about this before now, don't ask. I was lazy. And this has only been an introduction into what I really want to get at.
I'm into my late twenties/early thirties. I lived through the tail end of the major hardcore scene (Sex Pistols) and was part of the main scenes of underground hardcore through the '80's. I've moshed and headbanged my way through highschool and college, surfing the East Coast, and working in Manhattan.
And now, when the music becomes pop, what happens? These little pimply neo-pubescent knowitallwannabes make slam dancing and killing eachother at concerts the way to be. They call it 'moshing.' The media calls it 'moshing.' IT IS NOT MOSHING. Go rent an old Anthrax video like "Indians." THAT's moshing. It's not some flipped-out, slam everyone you are next to to the ground, epileptic fit spawned by the music of some fake techno, image over talent band like Prodigy.
Look at the footage from Woodstock '94. No self-respecting hardcore punk from the '70's and '80's would've been caught in the hormonal display of the semi-erect wanna-be's slam dancing in the mud. It used to be at a 7Seconds concert, when someone fell down during the mosh, someone lifted them up before they hit the floor because it was about all of us, not just getting our rocks off by bouncing around like a mindless superball.
Oh, yeah, you 'kids' today know it all. This music is new. It has nothing to do with the hardcore and heavy metal of the '70's and '80's. (can you see the sarcasm dripping off your screen?).