Some quick housekeeping before we get into this: I have a website now: https://jaypapandreas.com. Here, you can see some of the recent work that I’ve done for bands and brands alike, and you can contact me for work in writing, creative direction, and public relations. Here’s an essay on the current state of affairs in guitar-based subculture music:
On consecutive weekends, I have seen the two polar opposites of hardcore occur in Brooklyn. On 1/22 (really 1/23), I went to a bar to see what was billed as Protocol and Hotline TNT, but Lethal and Firewalker played sets as well. On 1/29, I saw Trapped Under Ice, Bulldoze, Pain of Truth, Crown of Thornz, Division of Mind, and Illusion (I missed seeing Volcano and Carried By Six because I needed food and I had a pretty solid chicken sandwich at Win Son Bakery before the gig). Both shows were sold out, and both shared attendees, but I cannot stress how different the two were.
There is crossover between these two scenes, but I don’t think there’s been more of a divide in feeling. The first show took place in the back of a bar where a pool table typically resides, and the other was in a big, big venue with foam taped to the steel beams in the middle of the floor to not injure stagedivers. There was a table for merch that nobody was manning during the 1/23 show, as if to say, “The extra money we could make at this show matters less than us playing the show.” The 1/29 show had separate merch tables for every act, and each act had multiple pieces of merch. Each piece of merchandise was meticulously presented for purchase. TUI’s special edition basketball jersey was sold out long before I could ask if they had any in my size.
During the Crown of Thornz set on 1/29, Danny Diablo said, “I know Hardcore is having a li’l bit of a moment right now, but it won’t be this way forever!” But which hardcore is he talking about? There’s clearly a difference between the hardcore at both shows. One is lowercase-h hardcore, and the other is capital-H Hardcore. We’re in a new age: Welcome to the Pro-Core Revival.
Pro-Core was an offshoot of traditional hardcore in the 1990s that prioritized a professionalism in hardcore that was absent before. The records sounded bigger, the merch looked good, and most of all, there was money behind it. Say what you will about Tony Victory, and I do mean say it because it deserves to be said, but he did pour a ton of money into hardcore and turned it into a viable commercial product. And now, from how I see it, Pro-Core is the biggest thing in hardcore.
Taking a look around, it’s not hard to see it. Bands like Militarie Gun or Turnstile are destined for stardom or have already arrived. The biggest bands right now have aesthetics they showed up with and made pervasive, rather than relying on one successful aesthetic to let them coast. For example, Turnstile has been putting out the same hoodie template for almost their entire career, but now that’s a signature. You can trace this sort of lineage in merch/branding all the way back to Victory Records.
For all that Tony Victory did to lock bands into extensive and exploitative contracts, he left his mark with professional-level branding and marketing for a scene that traditionally rebelled against it. The Victory logo, a bulldog, could be manipulated to tie in with any band’s new release and was emblazoned on all sorts of merch to show you that yes, this may be an Earth Crisis shirt, but you’re cheering for Team Victory. Merch and branding are inescapable these days in hardcore. New bands will follow me on instagram and already have a carefully defined aesthetic before even releasing any material.
I didn’t want to name bands in the previous couple of grafs so as to not taint your idea of what Pro-Core is, because Pro-Core isn’t a sound. Bands like Strife and Earth Crisis and Snapcase could be seen as Pro-Core, and they share some sonic similarities, but the shared ethos of Pro-Core is getting paid. At one point, I think Pro-Core was a bit of a tongue-in-cheek derogatory nickname for this approach to a scene that is, traditionally, DIY. Professionally-made merch, booking agents, guarantees, riders – all of these things make a scene that may be held together by toothpicks and bubble gum look like the Real Deal to someone outside of it.
Before we get ahead of ourselves, the thesis here isn’t to rail against getting paid money to make hardcore music. We all know that making money in any art form is hard. My take here is that the Pro-Core Revival movement of today is driven by the idea that art has to make you money in today’s economy for anyone to pursue it as a hobby.
Tell a friend you’re going to start doing something for pure enjoyment, and watch as their eyes start widening at the idea that you could make money off of it. Tell someone you’re going to make a craft for some friends, and you can hear the cash register noises in their head as they open their mouth to prattle on about a way you could scale this to something that would really see a profit in three or four months! Perhaps it’s foolish of the artist to not think about the ROI on their activity. As we all know, time is money and time is our biggest non-renewable resource. We sink time into everything we do and if it doesn’t make money, do we find that it’s less fulfilling? No, but some people have less time for it because they need it to make money.
The main criticism I’ve seen of this turn towards professionalism, at least from old guys tweeting about stuff that makes them mad, is that it sidesteps the years of work it took them to get where they are now. It comes off as resentment that someone else figured out how to crack the code. If you search for Pro-Core on google, you can hear a certain old guy who runs a festival bemoan the Pro-Core Revival as a “Nobody wants to work anymore” argument. I don’t see that being the truth. What I’m seeing is that via the internet and the spread of technology in general, it’s never been easier to look professional and look like a much more established band than you already are. If you spend any time on the internet, you likely have a homie who can screenprint merch. You also probably have your boy in Philly who does graphics. Your bass player might have an MBA in marketing.
When we look back at this moment, the Pro-Core Revival will likely be akin to the big Soundcloud Boom we saw in rap music throughout the 2010s. Some people will be big for a week, other bands will wind up on the festival circuit for years to come. It’s a bit of a gamble, but it’s out there. The barriers to entry have been broken down. Everyone is primed for their 15 minutes of fame, if they want it.