UPTOWN RUMBLE: New York hardcore
New York hardcore (NYHC) emerged in the late ’70s as a more youth-driven, street-tough, and working-class punk rock. Many of the first wave of punk bands at CBGBs had either broken up or moved on to commercial sounds by this point. A number of these bands came from more middle-class backgrounds, with the exception of acts like The Dictators or The Ramones. As more working-class kids began playing punk in the City, it became faster, more aggressive, sonically bleaker, and detached from the nostalgic-sounding rock and roll of punk’s first wave.
This sound, already developing with local bands like The Stimulators, took off in ’79 when the Bad Brains relocated to New York City from Washington, D.C. Theirs was a blisteringly fast, technical, energetic, and rebellious kind of punk rock, and NYHC came into its own in the wake of their arrival.
Above: The High and the Mighty performing at Chet’s Last Call in Boston on December 16, 1983. Courtesy of Drew Stone
Javi Savage from Pelham Parkway was part of the scene at the time, and he formed Big City Records to release recordings from the first generation of NYHC bands like The Mob. He also started the Big City fanzine and recorded an EP himself as Savage Circle (1982). In this same period, Drew Stone and his buddies from Kennedy High School in The Bronx formed The High and The Mighty, releasing a demo in ’84 and playing regularly with seminal NYHC bands like Agnostic Front and Murphy’s Law.
In the mid ’80s, the Cro-Mags, with guitarist and Bronx native Parris Mayhew, formulated the more metallic, thrash-infused sound that has come to dominate NYHC ever since. In the late ’80s, Bronxite Djinji Brown, son of jazz great Marion Brown, brought a dose of fresh energy to the scene as acrobatic singer for Absolution.
Advertisement in Big City fanzine #6 (Winter ’84) for Nice and Loud (1984), a compilation released by Big City Records. Both the zine and the label were founded by Bronxite Javi Savage, who had his own NYHC project, Savage Circle, which also included the Fragnito brothers from Bronx heavy metal band Blacklace. Big City Records released multiple NYHC recordings, including Hammerhead (1987), the first and only full-length by Bronx band The Unjust, which started out playing a more traditional hardcore sound in the early ’80s before becoming more speed metal/thrash in sound. Uptown Rumble collection, The Bronx County Archives.
Drew Stone of The High and The Mighty shaving heads for the traditional NYHC look, 1980s. Unlike in the U.K., where “skinhead” became increasingly synonymous with white supremacist youth movements, in New York the look was simply a marker of being a part of the hardcore community. Courtesy of Drew Stone.
Bronx native Parris Mayhew playing a Cro-Mags show in Germany, 2000. Parris Mayhew is one of the most important figures for pushing NYHC into more metallic directions, starting even with the first album of the Cro-Mags, The Age of Quarrel (Profile, 1986). It was largely his metal-infused guitar riffs that helped lay the groundwork for the crossover hardcore/thrash metal explosion of the late ’80s. Courtesy of Parris Mayhew.
Bronxite Sergio Vega playing with Quicksand at Warped Tour on August 18, 1995 in Asbury Park, New Jersey. Sergio Vega was a fixture in the NYHC community starting in the late ’80s. He introduced his friend, fellow Bronxite Djinji Brown, to the scene as well, and the two eventually would play together in Absolution, an incredibly influential NYHC band of the period. After Absolution, Sergio joined Quicksand with other veterans of the NYHC scene and helped push the music into new horizons. He later played with the Deftones and remains one of the most accomplished Bronx bassists in heavy music. Uptown Rumble collection, The Bronx County Archives.