We live near the desert, it gets real hot in the summers. Living in a Hispanic household holds influence over our sound, too. I currently live/work in NorCal; being in the forests under tall trees and hiking tall mountains gives me lots of time to think of new riffs and ideas for future songs. The commute opens me up to more ideas as well. My brother stays down south, so when we meet up, we combine what we’ve been cooking up in our heads and run with it.
Author: Hector Zaldivar
Professional magician. @hexzald
SVA – KTOWN HXC.
DIY gives us a chance to have a voice. It gives opportunities to smaller groups that don’t have the chance to play in venues and develop a lot of exposure and experience.
ENTER: CHIMERA.
Our main focus is to speak up on fem-forward and societal issues that others might be uncomfortable bringing up themselves. We also try to have fun playing music.
ROB COONS – PURSUIT OF DISORDER.
I want someone to be able to walk up to my photo & feel the happiness, the rage, the sadness; the intensity of the moment. Pure emotion and energy.
DANCEFLOORMURDER.
It took me 20 years of doing music to realize that I should be a paid photographer. And it took a few years of being a paid photographer for it to pull me back into music, the right way.
PRETTY HECTIC – DEVIATED STATE.
It’s weird because we’ve been around for a long time and we’re still trying to get on all the cool hardcore shows. Like, we want to play For The Children – it would be cool to get that reach and put Harbor Area on the map, but we’ve heard through people that we don’t get put on big hardcore shows because we’re just a ‘backyard band.’ You play too many punk shows, so we can’t take you seriously.
CASKET MUSH – KEEP GRIND POLITICAL.
If anything, it really is an emotional experience, playing and listening to this. All the anger and explosion you feel every day of your f*****g life wrapped up in a genre. That’s exactly how I felt when I was growing up. And I had a scene to reflect it, you know?
Every Venue is Dead – CON on OC Generator Shows.
“If we’re playing any venue in this economy, it’s like $10 to $12 tickets. And you have to see other bands that you don’t really know. Like, there’s no shows where there’s an actual scene set up, where actual bands that would play a backyard are now in a venue – no, it’s cut up. ‘Cause you have to have a headliner and an opener… It’s different.”
PUNK GENTRIFICATION AND THE DIY CYCLE – PRAYFORDEATH.
Muni: When I started drumming for this band, a lot of people knew me because I used to shoot and film shows. As I documented the scene, I noticed that a lot of these people who used to be in the crowd graduated to playing their own shows, becoming their own promoters, creating their own zines, etc, etc. And then those people graduated to running their own businesses, mastering their own trades, managing their own recording studios, whatever, whatever. I realized that DIY is a cycle; there always has to be a new person to fill in that spot in the crowd.
But right now it’s like the blind lead the blind. The OG’s we looked up to had the core values of what it was like to gather a community and lead by example, down to the smallest things – you see someone fall in the pit, you pick ’em up… You got an extra snack or beer, you offer… Whatever. Or how about just not charging for water? A lot of the people around now don’t have that in them. You bump into someone at a show and the most you’ll get is a dirty look. What the f*** happened?
Sullen Eyes – Swallowed by the Depths. San Diego HxC/MxC.
I definitely feel like there’s been a boom in hardcore recently – partly due to TikTok making anything and everything blow up. And with that, I’ve seen shows getting more & more expensive. I can’t say exactly what it is, I don’t book shows or know the logistics behind it, but I will say going to a show at 20 to 25 dollars can feel a little weird, especially in extremely DIY spaces… But yeah, I would say there are a lot more people in hardcore now because of social media. That’s when people only start seeing music as a monetary opportunity – when they know no matter what they charge, people will come to the shows. That’s a disservice. So many kids want to take part in their local scenes but can’t because they don’t have the money or it’s not all ages or something like that.