Thorp and Sailor's Grave Board

Demonstrate My Style - The Album

CR83 - 8-31-2007 at 11:18 AM

Ok, lately I have been just listening to a bunch of shit to find something to really get into. I have found it. Demostrate My Style is going to be in heavy rotation again for me. It has been about 5 years since I sat and listened to it. The song Live Or Die is just awesome.

bombidol - 8-31-2007 at 11:44 AM

Hold it down is also good

CR83 - 8-31-2007 at 11:44 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by bombidol
Hold it down is also good


VERY true

BKT - 8-31-2007 at 12:18 PM

Those are both great Madball albums. DMS is heavy as fuck.

MM.

bombidol - 8-31-2007 at 12:26 PM

Am I the only one not into Legacy? I much preferred the NYHC EP over it. Havent heard the new one yet, any good?

JUICE MAYNE MSHC - 8-31-2007 at 12:31 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by bombidol
Am I the only one not into Legacy?


nope there a several of us

bombidol - 8-31-2007 at 12:34 PM

I dunno what it is about that album, it just all sounds the same to me. The tracks i heard of infiltrate the system sounded pretty cool though.

Jason the Magnificent - 8-31-2007 at 12:49 PM

Its worse.

JawnDiablo - 8-31-2007 at 12:56 PM

Legacy stinks like a dog's farts

JUICE MAYNE MSHC - 8-31-2007 at 01:03 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Jason the Magnificent
Its worse.

Discipline - 8-31-2007 at 05:16 PM

I like everything Madball.

panzerkreuzer - 8-31-2007 at 05:28 PM

set it off still is their best, but i like all their stuff.

clevohardcore - 9-1-2007 at 01:05 AM

they do no wrong. Dissing any of MADBALL should not happen.

hardtone - 9-1-2007 at 05:44 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by panzerkreuzer
set it off still is their best, but i like all their stuff.


Bingo, you win a prize for best taste. No I just agree that's all. :P


"Set It Off" is hard...Plus Vinny was in Madball back then.

tireironsaint - 9-1-2007 at 06:20 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by clevohardcore
they do no wrong. Dissing any of MADBALL should not happen.
You're beggin' for it with that statement. Madball is a perfect example of what's wrong with Hard Core these days. Ball Of Destruction is the only thing of theirs I can even consider to be an actual HC record. The best thing I can say about them after that is that they make me laugh.

hardtone - 9-1-2007 at 07:36 PM

I understand not liking them, but saying they are what's wrong with hardcore is a little harsh.

Freddie & Hoya are nice guys...

Jason the Magnificent - 9-1-2007 at 07:40 PM

Not sure what people being nice have to do with liking a bands music...

tireironsaint - 9-1-2007 at 08:41 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by hardtone
I understand not liking them, but saying they are what's wrong with hardcore is a little harsh.

Freddie & Hoya are nice guys...
They could very well be the nicest guys around, but the kind of music they play is what I would consider to be a prime example of how far from what Hard Core will always be to me that I see nothing wrong with stating that as my opinion. Personally, one of the benchmarks of HC to me has always been speaking your opinion no matter how harsh or unpopular it might be. I refuse to clam up when I have a strong opinion for just that reason, everybody else is more than welcome to speak theirs and I will always have mine riding out their on my chest. I don't do it to offend, impress, or for any other reason than to express my viewpoint, which as I said, is a huge part of what this whole thing is about to me.

Do I wish ill on the guys in Madball? Fuck no, I have nothing personal against them, although I do think they've been a large force behind directing bands that play a style of music I can't tolerate to call themselves part of a scene I care about and grew up in. I'm not gonna make a statement as someone did about a different band recently and say that I wish they would all die in a plane crash, there's no call for that in a musical discussion. I might say something like that about people I've had personal interaction with and feel that they are worthless douchebags, but that's not the case here.

Yes, I find the band laughable, the times I've seen them play it was ridiculous. Every horrible stereotypical macho tough guy pose I can think of was on display and it made me sick. I find that kind of stuff to be exactly what is wrong with what most people call HC these days and it disgusts me.

hardtone - 9-1-2007 at 11:27 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Jason the Magnificent
Not sure what people being nice have to do with liking a bands music...


It has nothing to do with liking them, that wasn't my point...
Quote:
Originally posted by tireironsaint
Quote:
Originally posted by hardtone
I understand not liking them, but saying they are what's wrong with hardcore is a little harsh.

Freddie & Hoya are nice guys...
They could very well be the nicest guys around, but the kind of music they play is what I would consider to be a prime example of how far from what Hard Core will always be to me that I see nothing wrong with stating that as my opinion. Personally, one of the benchmarks of HC to me has always been speaking your opinion no matter how harsh or unpopular it might be. I refuse to clam up when I have a strong opinion for just that reason, everybody else is more than welcome to speak theirs and I will always have mine riding out their on my chest. I don't do it to offend, impress, or for any other reason than to express my viewpoint, which as I said, is a huge part of what this whole thing is about to me.

Do I wish ill on the guys in Madball? Fuck no, I have nothing personal against them, although I do think they've been a large force behind directing bands that play a style of music I can't tolerate to call themselves part of a scene I care about and grew up in. I'm not gonna make a statement as someone did about a different band recently and say that I wish they would all die in a plane crash, there's no call for that in a musical discussion. I might say something like that about people I've had personal interaction with and feel that they are worthless douchebags, but that's not the case here.

Yes, I find the band laughable, the times I've seen them play it was ridiculous. Every horrible stereotypical macho tough guy pose I can think of was on display and it made me sick. I find that kind of stuff to be exactly what is wrong with what most people call HC these days and it disgusts me.


I don't believe in suppressing anyone?s opinion no matter how harsh, but I heard this case before about how hardcore ain?t what is used to be when Killing Time released ?Brightside?. There has always been that element in hardcore Madball didn?t start that, what about The Cro-Mags, Negative Approach, Judge, Sheer Terror, Sick Of It All, Agnostic Front, Biohazard, & so on. I hear what you?re saying I don?t like the ?tuff guy? or ?thugcore? references either but I do like the angry element about this music. I can relate to it on a personal level with how I grew up and my life?s experiences. I certainly don?t think I?m tuff but I have seen some shit that makes me view the world a certain way.

It?s your right to laugh at that style of hardcore, I really don?t take anything like that too seriously myself. But you have to admit all those Youth Crew bands in the mid 80?s are just as ridicules in different ways. Most of those band members came from good families that went to NY to slum it and preach about how they were going ?to resist & stay strong to the death??

Carlin said it the best; ?most people are full of shit?

You just have to pick the ones you can stomach?

It makes good conversion at least.

tireironsaint - 9-2-2007 at 02:17 AM

I'm not saying Madball started it, just that they are the most visible representation of it and have been for quite a while now. You look at any of the thugcore bands around and every single one will list Madball as one of their influences. Personally, I don't even hear anything that sounds like Hard Core in there even without all the tough guy gangsta shit. It sounds like what used to be the 10 - 20 second breakdown in the old NYHC bands has been turned into whole songs. As for the bands you listed off, I would take any of them over Madball any day of the week, although Biohazard would have to be limited to their very early stuff and even that is a bit close to the edge for me. If you're saying that any of those bands is playing that same sort of thug mentality gang shit that I see in Madball and that type, aside from AF I just don't see it and it's pretty limited there too. Negative Approach, definitely not. I'm curious how they even fit into this conversation. If it's just the anger that you're talking about, of course that's there, it's been one of the main lyrical elements since Hard Core began. I just don't see the anger in thug core as being real, it comes across like the ridiculous "hail satan" bullshit in Metal, at least it does to me. Maybe both Metal bands and thug bands believe in the shit they're saying, but it comes across as very contrived and theatrical to me, which is even funnier when the thug core bands talk about being so real and true.

As for Youth Crew, I find that shit to be just as bad. Sure, when I was in High School that was mostly what I was into, but that was the late 80s and I was in the middle of Texas with no way of knowing the reality of the situation on that shit. I got out of some bad shit in my life partly by taking some of that shit to heart at a time when I needed something positive to focus on, so I'll always appreciate what those ideas got me through even if I can now see them as naive idealistic fluff. I thought it was beyond ridiculous when the trend in HC was to try to recreate the Youth Crew style in the mid to late 90s. I guess there's still a few of those types around now, but not quite the way it was for a while.

DaveMoral - 9-2-2007 at 10:27 AM

Of all the bands out there talking thug, I think Madball is probably the only group that's ever actually walked it. And they've stepped away from that a lot on the last couple records. You wouldn't know that, though, because you wouldn't give 'em a chance now. Which is cool, you don't like that "One Voice" sound, and Madball is pretty much all "One Voice."

If anything the most visible representation of the sound you don't like is Hatebreed. That's to the point where if I see a car with a Hatebreed sticker on it I can be reasonably assured that they don't like any other hardcore bands that I like or have any means of relating to me.

tireironsaint - 9-2-2007 at 12:36 PM

Talked it, walked it, I really don't care. To me that shit has no place in HC. Sure, at one point it was incredibly dangerous to walk around looking like anything even vaguely associated with Punk or HC. I lived through all that in the middle of Texas and can attest to the fact that we did have to be on our guard and watching each other's backs so as not to catch a beating from random rednecks, jocks, and various other normals. But we didn't go out as gangs looking to "drop many suckas", y'know? Their sound is just as big a part of what makes me laugh as all that posturing. I just cannot get my head around anything that makes Madball a band that people like.

Yeah Dave, Hatebreed is right there with them, but more on the Metal side in my opinion. I hear nothing but straight Metal as far as Hatebreed is concerned and they don't even have an old 7 inch that I could ever get behind (as Madball does). I think of Hatebreed as the commercial/mass market face of today's HC which is why I think there's so little of any worth in today's scene. All the big name bands out there have NOTHING to do with what Hard Core is about to me.

Are there some small bands still doing it right (in my opinion)? Yeah, but they seem to disappear quicker and quicker all the time. That's why I mostly listen to older bands or bands completely outside the genre these days. It's gotten to the point where even the really old bands that I consider HC are ones that people think you're an idiot for calling Hard Core now. Take Bad Religion, for example. I don't like that band at all, but that band is more of a true HC band than all these thugs and Metal heads will ever be and yet most people can't even imagine calling them that because they all came up with HC as a name applied to chugga metally bands who sing about being tough guys and have no clue there was something real that had the name beforehand.

hardtone - 9-2-2007 at 12:45 PM

Off the topic, I dig this message board people can disagree here and not takes things personally. That is a rare thing in cyber space nowadays?.

tireironsaint - 9-2-2007 at 12:57 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by hardtone
Off the topic, I dig this message board people can disagree here and not takes things personally. That is a rare thing in cyber space nowadays?.
Yeah, this place is great. For that reason and many others. There's good people here who can discuss shit like adults and not get bent outta shape over it.

ENDERA.x - 9-2-2007 at 01:23 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by tireironsaint
Quote:
Originally posted by clevohardcore
they do no wrong. Dissing any of MADBALL should not happen.
You're beggin' for it with that statement. Madball is a perfect example of what's wrong with Hard Core these days. Ball Of Destruction is the only thing of theirs I can even consider to be an actual HC record. The best thing I can say about them after that is that they make me laugh.



Man I don't know, you're the only person's post I've read I didn't really agree with so far in this thread!

Texas isn't the hood. It's hardcore I'm sure as you lived it. But not the same as how they lived it. It's NOT the same to everyone as it might seem nor should it be in my opinion. They grew up on the streets on NYC not the streets of Texas, quite a difference I think. Just like alot of the detroit and new jersey bands, even boston bands, LA bands perhaps. Whats the deal. You hate all the "thug" shit? Hardcore did represent the streets ever since the older shit and much of it still does just in a different style.

I agree with you on the Youth Crew front though. :|
90% of 'hardcore' bands from any various style of hardcore out there today are shit. Period. Thanks.
I saw the worst fuckin show last night and it really irritated me, too.

tireironsaint - 9-2-2007 at 01:40 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by ENDERA.x
Quote:
Originally posted by tireironsaint
Quote:
Originally posted by clevohardcore
they do no wrong. Dissing any of MADBALL should not happen.
You're beggin' for it with that statement. Madball is a perfect example of what's wrong with Hard Core these days. Ball Of Destruction is the only thing of theirs I can even consider to be an actual HC record. The best thing I can say about them after that is that they make me laugh.



Man I don't know, you're the only person's post I've read I didn't really agree with so far in this thread!

Texas isn't the hood. It's hardcore I'm sure as you lived it. But not the same as how they lived it. It's NOT the same to everyone as it might seem nor should it be in my opinion. They grew up on the streets on NYC not the streets of Texas, quite a difference I think. Just like alot of the detroit and new jersey bands, even boston bands, LA bands perhaps. Whats the deal. You hate all the "thug" shit? Hardcore did represent the streets ever since the older shit and much of it still does just in a different style.

I agree with you on the Youth Crew front though. :|
90% of 'hardcore' bands from any various style of hardcore out there today are shit. Period. Thanks.
I saw the worst fuckin show last night and it really irritated me, too.
You really didn't understand a thing of what I was saying if you think I was trying to say Texas is "the hood" as you put it. Not that there aren't some serious fucking ghetto spots in Texas, but that has absolutely nothing to do with what my point was. What I was mentioning there is that back in the 80s we got shit for looking different than the normals and so we had to be on our guard whereas nowadays all the normals wanna look like us and somehow the average HC kid has become some kind of gangsta for some stupid reason. There's not anybody coming down on these kids because they're into HC, not like there was when I was a kid and we were all seen as a threat to the general population's way of life. Growing up in NYC versus Austin is going to be different, of course, but there's a mentality now that has more to do with gangsta rap bullshit than anything HC has ever really meant. If you look back at old school NY bands they might have been ready to fuck someone up for fucking with them, but they weren't writing songs about Drugs, Money, Sex. It wasn't gang mentality in the sense of dealers and pimps, maybe in the sense of watching out for each other because the world is a fucked up place, but not in the sense of fucking the world up even more.

ENDERA.x - 9-2-2007 at 03:52 PM

Thats not what I said.

DaveMoral - 9-2-2007 at 07:59 PM

You know what's funny... I think when I got into hardcore and punk rock it was a little more like it was for you older heads back in the 80s. I grew up in a real small town and punk rock "fashion" wasn't the next big thing just yet. I was weird when I dyed my hair around graduation time. Sporting straight edge tshirts was weird and I only knew of one store that had anything to do with punk rock gear and hardcore shirts and shit and that same place was the only good spot to get records. Most of the fighting, though, when down between vegan straight edge kids and skins/punks. The normals stayed way clear of us.

Certainly wasn't the same as the 80s, but it certainly wasn't like it is now either.

Nowadays Hot Topic sells straight edge shirts and fuckin Throwdown markers. It's bizarre.

JawnDiablo - 9-2-2007 at 08:58 PM

the silly belts hot topic sells are my favorite.

DaveMoral - 9-2-2007 at 10:56 PM

It's way outta hand. Kids are less punk because they don't have to work at it. Nothing's DIY anymore. Sad.

hardtone - 9-2-2007 at 11:59 PM

Except old fucks like us who aren't cool to the new generation.

Funny how shit works...

clevohardcore - 9-3-2007 at 01:40 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by tireironsaint
Quote:
Originally posted by ENDERA.x
Quote:
Originally posted by tireironsaint
Quote:
Originally posted by clevohardcore
they do no wrong. Dissing any of MADBALL should not happen.
You're beggin' for it with that statement. Madball is a perfect example of what's wrong with Hard Core these days. Ball Of Destruction is the only thing of theirs I can even consider to be an actual HC record. The best thing I can say about them after that is that they make me laugh.



Man I don't know, you're the only person's post I've read I didn't really agree with so far in this thread!

Texas isn't the hood. It's hardcore I'm sure as you lived it. But not the same as how they lived it. It's NOT the same to everyone as it might seem nor should it be in my opinion. They grew up on the streets on NYC not the streets of Texas, quite a difference I think. Just like alot of the detroit and new jersey bands, even boston bands, LA bands perhaps. Whats the deal. You hate all the "thug" shit? Hardcore did represent the streets ever since the older shit and much of it still does just in a different style.

I agree with you on the Youth Crew front though. :|
90% of 'hardcore' bands from any various style of hardcore out there today are shit. Period. Thanks.
I saw the worst fuckin show last night and it really irritated me, too.
You really didn't understand a thing of what I was saying if you think I was trying to say Texas is "the hood" as you put it. Not that there aren't some serious fucking ghetto spots in Texas, but that has absolutely nothing to do with what my point was. What I was mentioning there is that back in the 80s we got shit for looking different than the normals and so we had to be on our guard whereas nowadays all the normals wanna look like us and somehow the average HC kid has become some kind of gangsta for some stupid reason. There's not anybody coming down on these kids because they're into HC, not like there was when I was a kid and we were all seen as a threat to the general population's way of life. Growing up in NYC versus Austin is going to be different, of course, but there's a mentality now that has more to do with gangsta rap bullshit than anything HC has ever really meant. If you look back at old school NY bands they might have been ready to fuck someone up for fucking with them, but they weren't writing songs about Drugs, Money, Sex. It wasn't gang mentality in the sense of dealers and pimps, maybe in the sense of watching out for each other because the world is a fucked up place, but not in the sense of fucking the world up even more.











^^^^^^^^^ I'm sorry to say this but no one really looked out for no one back in the day and they still don't no a days. Bands diss other bands they tour with. Every scene/city has a problem with the other. Even friends one up one another with other friends/clothes/hair cuts/etc. A fucking mohawk is conformity the same as a skin or G.G. freak, or a toothpick 3 inches of blood douchebag with hair in his eyes. Its always been about conformity.

Too say MADBALL sucks is rediculous. THEY HAVE BEEN AND ALWAYS WILL AWSOME. No matter what record they have ever released. One maybe better but they are all good.

RoughBrother - 9-3-2007 at 03:44 AM

DMS is one of the greatest Madball albums, my top 3 albums are Hold It Down, DMS and Ball Of Destruction. Young Freddy sounds very sick...

It's a shame that when Madball had a gig here in Finland (for the first time ever), they played so much songs from the new album.

DaveMoral - 9-3-2007 at 03:49 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by clevohardcore
Quote:
Originally posted by tireironsaint
Quote:
Originally posted by ENDERA.x
Quote:
Originally posted by tireironsaint
Quote:
Originally posted by clevohardcore
they do no wrong. Dissing any of MADBALL should not happen.
You're beggin' for it with that statement. Madball is a perfect example of what's wrong with Hard Core these days. Ball Of Destruction is the only thing of theirs I can even consider to be an actual HC record. The best thing I can say about them after that is that they make me laugh.



Man I don't know, you're the only person's post I've read I didn't really agree with so far in this thread!

Texas isn't the hood. It's hardcore I'm sure as you lived it. But not the same as how they lived it. It's NOT the same to everyone as it might seem nor should it be in my opinion. They grew up on the streets on NYC not the streets of Texas, quite a difference I think. Just like alot of the detroit and new jersey bands, even boston bands, LA bands perhaps. Whats the deal. You hate all the "thug" shit? Hardcore did represent the streets ever since the older shit and much of it still does just in a different style.

I agree with you on the Youth Crew front though. :|
90% of 'hardcore' bands from any various style of hardcore out there today are shit. Period. Thanks.
I saw the worst fuckin show last night and it really irritated me, too.
You really didn't understand a thing of what I was saying if you think I was trying to say Texas is "the hood" as you put it. Not that there aren't some serious fucking ghetto spots in Texas, but that has absolutely nothing to do with what my point was. What I was mentioning there is that back in the 80s we got shit for looking different than the normals and so we had to be on our guard whereas nowadays all the normals wanna look like us and somehow the average HC kid has become some kind of gangsta for some stupid reason. There's not anybody coming down on these kids because they're into HC, not like there was when I was a kid and we were all seen as a threat to the general population's way of life. Growing up in NYC versus Austin is going to be different, of course, but there's a mentality now that has more to do with gangsta rap bullshit than anything HC has ever really meant. If you look back at old school NY bands they might have been ready to fuck someone up for fucking with them, but they weren't writing songs about Drugs, Money, Sex. It wasn't gang mentality in the sense of dealers and pimps, maybe in the sense of watching out for each other because the world is a fucked up place, but not in the sense of fucking the world up even more.











^^^^^^^^^ I'm sorry to say this but no one really looked out for no one back in the day and they still don't no a days. Bands diss other bands they tour with. Every scene/city has a problem with the other. Even friends one up one another with other friends/clothes/hair cuts/etc. A fucking mohawk is conformity the same as a skin or G.G. freak, or a toothpick 3 inches of blood douchebag with hair in his eyes. Its always been about conformity.

Too say MADBALL sucks is rediculous. THEY HAVE BEEN AND ALWAYS WILL AWSOME. No matter what record they have ever released. One maybe better but they are all good.


I have to concur. At least when I was coming up that's how it was, and I was in fucking Indiana. All we really had was Indianapolis vegan bands... which was divided between "PC" and "non-PC" bands who were all at each other's throats half the time. Then a few satellite towns around the state, and my hometown had a small scene of mostly Christian nerds. But it was all divided and shit there too. Cliques would mostly be 5 to 6 guys and maybe a couple chicks and it would all usually be formed around a band that those 5 guys were messing around with.

Hasn't been any different anywhere else I've been in this country over the past decade, I can't imagine it was ever really different the decade and half before that either.

tireironsaint - 9-3-2007 at 06:19 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by DaveMoral
Quote:
Originally posted by clevohardcore
Quote:
Originally posted by tireironsaint
Quote:
Originally posted by ENDERA.x
Quote:
Originally posted by tireironsaint
Quote:
Originally posted by clevohardcore
they do no wrong. Dissing any of MADBALL should not happen.
You're beggin' for it with that statement. Madball is a perfect example of what's wrong with Hard Core these days. Ball Of Destruction is the only thing of theirs I can even consider to be an actual HC record. The best thing I can say about them after that is that they make me laugh.



Man I don't know, you're the only person's post I've read I didn't really agree with so far in this thread!

Texas isn't the hood. It's hardcore I'm sure as you lived it. But not the same as how they lived it. It's NOT the same to everyone as it might seem nor should it be in my opinion. They grew up on the streets on NYC not the streets of Texas, quite a difference I think. Just like alot of the detroit and new jersey bands, even boston bands, LA bands perhaps. Whats the deal. You hate all the "thug" shit? Hardcore did represent the streets ever since the older shit and much of it still does just in a different style.

I agree with you on the Youth Crew front though. :|
90% of 'hardcore' bands from any various style of hardcore out there today are shit. Period. Thanks.
I saw the worst fuckin show last night and it really irritated me, too.
You really didn't understand a thing of what I was saying if you think I was trying to say Texas is "the hood" as you put it. Not that there aren't some serious fucking ghetto spots in Texas, but that has absolutely nothing to do with what my point was. What I was mentioning there is that back in the 80s we got shit for looking different than the normals and so we had to be on our guard whereas nowadays all the normals wanna look like us and somehow the average HC kid has become some kind of gangsta for some stupid reason. There's not anybody coming down on these kids because they're into HC, not like there was when I was a kid and we were all seen as a threat to the general population's way of life. Growing up in NYC versus Austin is going to be different, of course, but there's a mentality now that has more to do with gangsta rap bullshit than anything HC has ever really meant. If you look back at old school NY bands they might have been ready to fuck someone up for fucking with them, but they weren't writing songs about Drugs, Money, Sex. It wasn't gang mentality in the sense of dealers and pimps, maybe in the sense of watching out for each other because the world is a fucked up place, but not in the sense of fucking the world up even more.











^^^^^^^^^ I'm sorry to say this but no one really looked out for no one back in the day and they still don't no a days. Bands diss other bands they tour with. Every scene/city has a problem with the other. Even friends one up one another with other friends/clothes/hair cuts/etc. A fucking mohawk is conformity the same as a skin or G.G. freak, or a toothpick 3 inches of blood douchebag with hair in his eyes. Its always been about conformity.

Too say MADBALL sucks is rediculous. THEY HAVE BEEN AND ALWAYS WILL AWSOME. No matter what record they have ever released. One maybe better but they are all good.


I have to concur. At least when I was coming up that's how it was, and I was in fucking Indiana. All we really had was Indianapolis vegan bands... which was divided between "PC" and "non-PC" bands who were all at each other's throats half the time. Then a few satellite towns around the state, and my hometown had a small scene of mostly Christian nerds. But it was all divided and shit there too. Cliques would mostly be 5 to 6 guys and maybe a couple chicks and it would all usually be formed around a band that those 5 guys were messing around with.

Hasn't been any different anywhere else I've been in this country over the past decade, I can't imagine it was ever really different the decade and half before that either.
Sucks for you guys then. That's definitely how it was when I was coming up. Of course if I rolled into another town with 8 or 9 others we got shit at first, but once it was obvious we weren't there to fuck anything up it was cool. From the time it was first obvious to others that I wasn't just another normal kid, I was greeted and often befriended by other people who were into the same stuff. That happened everywhere I've ever lived. Fuck, it happened as soon as I moved here three years ago, so I'm a bit surprised to hear that it's never been the case for any of you.

I haven't moved around all that much, most of my life has been spent in Texas, but Baltimore in the mid-90s seemed pretty much the same way and here in the middle of nowhere now is pretty similar too. I've gone down to Albuquerque both by myself and with friends to see shows and haven't really had any problems. Actually, people have gone out of their way to offer friendship down there. One of the times I went down for a Darkbuster show, my friends and I actually ended up crashing illegally in the apartment that a guy we met had just been evicted from. The landlord hadn't changed the locks yet, so we crashed in a place that our host could have gotten into some serious shit for even going into by himself and he brought us there after knowing us only that night. Personally, I think that's a pretty good example of people in this subculture sticking together.

I'm not painting some rainbows and lollipops Youth Crew unity bullshit scene here, I'm just saying that there was a kind of "tribal" acknowledgement. If you were part of the freak family, for lack of a better term, you were accepted by that group. Of course, in those days it was quite a bit easier to determine who was part of that family based on first glance than it is nowadays.

Of course there were assholes that wanted to roll into another town and fuck shit up for those kids, but that's travelling high school football team mentality and it happens inside or outside the scene. There have also always been assholes in every scene that wanna be the king shithead and push kids around for their own amusement. We had our share of those back when I was a kid, most of them were nazi assholes, but later on it was also some of the leaders of the crews coming in to supposedly run the nazis out. Funny thing was, we had already done a pretty good job of running the nazis out by the time those dicks showed up to take the credit.

And no, Clevo, conformity wasn't always what it was about. I'm sorry for you if that's the experience you've had, but it sure as fuck wasn't that way for me. In my High School the freak contingent was so small we couldn't have gotten by if we had excluded everybody that wasn't like us simply because there weren't more than one or two people in any given subsect of a subculture. The Skins stuck with the Punks stuck with the Metal Heads stuck with the New Wave kids stuck with the Stoners stuck with the straight up Outcasts and so on. We were all targets of the jocks and the rednecks so it made a lot of sense for us to stick together.

As for your comment that it's ridiculous to say Madball sucks, you're entitled to your opinion, but don't belittle mine. Personally, I find it hard to believe that anyone can tolerate that music, but that's just my opinion and I'm not gonna back down from it just because someone disagrees.