Hardcore Heaven - Courier Journal 1993
From Louisville Punk/Hardcore History
To be filled out - this was an article about Louisville's hardcore scene in the July 17th 1993 Courier Journal.
Partial article below:
BUSH LEAGUE is onstage at the Machine, the cavernous club around which Louisville's vibrant hardcore music scene surges and pulses. The rhythm section is HI pounding like a refrigerator bouncing across linoleum, the guitar grinds a hole in ML your gut and the singer, well, the singer is being With more than 20 bands blaring raucous, parent-scaring music, the Louisville hardcore scene is making national waves Buzz. Buzz Minnich fronts Bush League with a vengeance, careening around the stage with adrenalin abandon, bare torso shining with sweat and tattoos, cut-off shorts trying to slide to his ankles and his voice a tortured shout. yourself from society, questioning what's going on around you and trying to do something about it, whether it's emotions, politics or your diet," said Duncan Barlow, guitarist with Endpoint, Alex Ayers, 17 and fresh out of Pleasure Ridge Park High, listens to End-point because of the band's positive message. "A lot of their music makes you sit back and think about what's going on in the world," he said. "And if you start to think, you've accomplished something." Then there's the lawless, anti-mainstream music. "There are no rules whatsoever," said Richard Vier, 19, of Fern Creek. "It's totally chaotic. You can make strange squeaky noises and then turn around and be real pretty. The main hook is that anything goes." That's true of hardcore in general. As with any good youth movement, hardcore works overtime to establish a sense of identity. Wander through the Machine on Friday and Saturday night, or Tewli-gans currently the only other bar in town that features hardcore music on an all-ages Sunday and you'll get a quick fix of hardcore fashion. Most of it is inspired by skateboarders, who were among the first to champion the music. Pants, with enough material for two adults, hang precariously from narrow hips and billow, like collapsed tents, around rail-thin legs. T-shirts, many featuring local band names, are huge, hanging well past the knees. You remember how Mom always wanted to ville the next Seattle, the city that grunge made famous. Louisville boasts nearly every style of hardcore, from traditional hard-and-fast (Endpoint, Sunspring, Bush League) to post-feminist riot grrrl (Drinking Woman) to post-punk power pop (Cherub Scourge). More than half of those 20-plus bands are recording, either locally or for national labels. Louisville also is home to a handful of high-quality labels, including Self Destruct, Slamdek, Better Days, Automatic and Three Little Girls, which record both local and regional bands. Many of the releases, mostly singles, are reviewed regularly in nationally dis-, tributed publications, such as Flipside, and have been played on disc jockey John Peel's influential British Broadcast-, ing Corp. radio show. Endpoint has toured Europe and averages around five interviews a week with hardcore fanzines. On any given night at the alcohol-free Machine, up to 1,200 kids mainly ages 11 to 18 will pay $5 a head to commiserate with their favorite bands or just hang out. A quality concert at a bar will normally draw 200 or 300, which is a slow night at the Machine, housed in the old Sears building on Shelbyville Road. Touring bands have noticed. Louisville is considered a prime place to play, and fans in other cities speak knowingly of the "good Louisville scene." Why hardcore? "To me, hardcore is about separating By JEFFREY LEE PUCKETT, Pop music writer Staff Photos by SAM RICHE A very young, dark-haired girl sits on the stage in front of Minnich, facing the crowd, small head banging to the staccato crunch of the music as a flailing Minnjch consistently skirts her head by inches, her thin brown hair swept up in Buzz's blow-by. She doesn't seem to notice the singer, but she's missing nothing in the music. She and a few thousand others. Hardcore, the faster bastard son of punk rock, is the heart of the largest, most powerful original music scene in Louisville, where more than 20 bands regularly play to wall-to-wall crowds. It's a scene that has drawn the attention of several respected independent labels, as well, as a couple of majors. And the fanmedia grapevine threatens every once in a while to christen Louis...