Hardcore punk is as regional a genre of music as the accents that its vocals are shouted in. Boston, while not the birthplace of the subgenre, has nurtured its scene to have a unique identity from New York, Los Angeles or D.C. For 15 years, Boston's punks have been playing it loud, hard and fast. While the tempo may have changed over the years, Boston hardcore is still as violent as ever, spawning the film series "Boston Beatdown," profiling the fights started, and usually won, by Boston's F.S.U. crew (worth checking out to see Moby get pulled out of a limo and beaten up). Here are five bands, spanning Boston hardcore's history, that have defined the subgenre.
SSD
Taking D.C. hardcore's straight-edge ethos for clean living, SSD was at the center of what would come to define Boston's regional hardcore scene, and later the country's: crews. These were the kids who would kick someone's ass for smoking a cigarette at a show, and the Boston Crew was no different. Boston and New York's hardcore scenes have a rivalry as brutal as their baseball franchises, and in their heyday SSD would truck their crew down to NYC to start fights at shows. Seminal Boston hardcore label Taang! put out "Power" in 1993, a compilation that spans SSD's four-year career. Though this includes much of their crossover into generic, radio-friendly hard rock, the speed and simplicity of the early years survives on most of the tracks.
Slapshot
By 1985, Boston's scene had died, with most bands - SSD included - morphing into heavy metal acts. Slapshot formed from the ashes of many of Boston's pioneering hardcore acts, and has been kicking around in one lineup or another for the past ten years. They played with Ten Yard Fight in 1998, Converge in 2002 and will probably be around as long as Boston has venues to play in. 1997's "Old Tyme Hardcore" is a good depiction of their sound, but their discography is too expansive to only have one album.
In My Eyes
Boston was the home to the 1997 youth crew revival, and bands like In My Eyes and Ten Yard Fight helped bring about a national throwback to the days of drug-free-dudes-wearing-mesh-shorts hardcore. They breathed new life into Boston's stagnant scene and gave the city's musical output a national focus. "The Difference Between" serves as a sample of Boston at the height of the revival.
Blood for Blood
Working class underdogs, the boys from Blood for Blood signed to Victory Records in 1998. They have a slower, more confrontational sound, with angry and apathetic lyrics far from the "posi" hardcore themes of their predecessors. Vocalist "White Trash" Rob sings like he is speaking for his fans: mad at the world, finding solace in Boston's bars and in the release that hardcore offers. Check out "Livin' in Exile," their first release off of Victory, with breakdowns the kids can two-step to.
Converge
The band that diverted Boston hardcore from being a campy genre, Converge brought in a fuller sound and a screaming, not shouting vocalist. Straddling the line between hardcore and metalcore, Converge is a juggernaut in Boston's contemporary hardcore roster. Forsaking posi-hardcore's straight-edge vocals, Converge creates a poetic wall of sound while retaining the heavy roots crafted by their predecessors. "Jane Doe," their 2001 release from Equal Vision, offers a good look at the direction of both Boston's and the national scenes.
