age old old age

i'm gonna be 31 this year.
it's not the number that gets me, it's the history in those years. i've realized recently that music is and will always be the one thing i'll always love, but like most loves will constantly snub me. i play my guitar a lot, but i'm really bad at it. i write songs constantly, but they mostly suck, and i sing all the damn time, but again, no one really wants to hear it.

at the lucero show the other night, reveling in the joy of yet another great band playing in a tiny little bar, i was struck by the scene there. i grew up in a very tight-knit scene myself, but the difference between Hardcore in the late 80's early 90's and indie rock today is like apples and oranges. hell, even hardcore is a different beast all these years later. and the truth is, it's supposed to be. any scene has to grow, fluctuate, and live or die by its supporters. around here back then it was easy, we had a place to go. City Gardens was the life's breath of hardcore and punk. After that hallowed hall went the way of the dodo, the scene took a deep gasping breath and either went back to VFW and Fire Halls or crept slowly away back to philly, north jersey, and NYC.

NJHC in Trenton was on a respirator. In fact, hardcore in general seemed to lose it's identity. Punk was far more susceptible to the wiles of pop mutation so hardcore just sort of simmered until the nu-metal craze opened it's jaws and made anything that sounded loud, angry, strong and defiant the way to go. I've talked to some of the new breed of hardcore kids. I don't relate to them in any way. They would laugh at what was considered hardcore back then, it's nowhere near "HARD" enough. And I personally can't stand 99 percent of the music that is put out today. When a kid tells me that Drowning Pool or some other such band is hardcore, i want to choke the life out of him. When he brags about punching someone in a mosh pit that was "so fucking tough and out of control" I realize that somewhere along the way, most likely during the process of homogenization for the masses, someone missed the point. They took all the aggression, the somewhat violent nature, the crunch of the power chords and made it sound all very much like our music, but it doesn't have the spirit that made it worth while.

Before i sound too much like some holier-than-thou old bastard, lemme say that I know there are still kids out there doing it. Holding shows in their basements, playing Killing Time covers with their friends in a garage. Driving three hours to see a show and beg for interviews for their 'zine. I know that all still goes on. At least, i pray it does. In my heart I know that the time I grew up in will never come again. It can't, because it was only there for me, for exactly that. For me to grow up in. I just hope that the kids who still feel that love, who know that it is a Scene, not a place to be seen, can keep the spirit alive, even if it is just a flicker of the flame i knew.

i really could use a dose of something though. like an AF, SOIA, Burn, and Vision show. somebody set that shit up, ok?