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    Ian Jane
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  • N.Y.H.C.

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    Released by: Halo Eight
    Released on: 03/25/2008

    Director: Frank Pavich
    Cast: Various
    Year: 1999
    Purchase From Amazon

    The Movie:

    While it's generally considered that the New York Hardcore movement was spawned by Washington D.C. acts like Minor Threat and The Bad Brains, which in turn gave birth to the early N.Y.H.C. bands like Agnostic Front, Murphy's Law and Cro-Mags, Frank Pavich's documentary, titled simply N.Y.H.C., doesn't really cover the origins of the scene. Sure it pays respect to some of the old guard by interviewing Roger Miret, John Joseph and Jimmy Gestapo, the film is more concerned with capturing the scene as it existed during filming, which was in the mid nineties.

    A mix of live footage shot at a few different venues and interviews with band members and fans alike, the movie provides a glimpse into the various aspects that played a part in what was happening around hardcore-friendly clubs of the time, like Coney Island High. The interviews are pretty interesting - Freddy from Madball talks about how he got into hardcore through his older brother, Roger Miret, and shares memories seeing Agnostic Front shows at the age of seven. Miret, having recently wrecked has back at the time this feature was shot, shares his thoughts on the scene while John Joseph and the members of 108 talk about how Hare Krishna plays a role in their music and lifestyle.

    The interviews, who also include members of bands like No Redeeming Social Value, Vision Of Disorder, Crown Of Thornz, 25 Ta Life, and District 9 discuss growing up in different areas of and around New York City. Many of them grew up in low income areas and spent a lot of time on the streets, resulting in a lot of stories about drug use, crime and generally youthful hooliganism. The violence often associated with the scene is covered as well, as the documentary shows some footage of a fight erupting at Coney Island High during a set.

    As a snapshot of the nineties scene, the documentary is pretty good. It treats the subject with respect and lets the interviewees tell their own stories without biased editing chopping things up for whatever reason. Where it fails, however, is providing much of a context for how and why the scene started and became what it is. There are lot of luminaries from the scene who should have been interviewed here and who haven't been. Vinnie Stigma shows up on stage during the Madball live footage but isn't interviewed. None of the other Cro-Mags appear on camera. There's no mention of Warzone or Reagan Youth and no interviews with any of the club owners who provided the stages for these bands to play and evolve on. It's quite surprising, given that the bands that are given much of the documentary's attention, owe the old guard such a huge debt, that there isn't really much screen time given to them, and in fact, many of them aren't even mentioned at all.

    Had this documentary given at least a set up by establishing how and why N.Y.H.C. came to be in the first place, it'd have given the footage of the newer bands much more context and as such, much more worth. By this point, a lot of the bands that are given the spotlight here are fairly removed from the punk rock roots of the scene and while that's part of the whole evolutionary process, it's hard not to come away from this one just a bit disappointed that the originators of New York hardcore are left largely ignored by the filmmakers. Thankfully a lot of the extras on this set make up for that to a certain degree, but their omission from the feature itself is kind of hard to get your head around. What it does do well, however, is show us what the scene was like at the time it was made, exposing the unifications and seperations that existed and still exist, the different lifestyles it all encompasses and, to a certain extent, what it all means to the people involved in it.

    Video/Audio/Extras:

    The 1.33.1 fullframe shot on video production looks about as good as it should on this DVD. Amazingly enough, with all of the extra content included on the discs, there aren't a lot of compression artifacts to complain about. Detail is alright considering the source material and the image is clean and colorful. Some of the live footage looks a bit washed out but that's got more to do with the lighting inside the clubs than anything else.

    The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo track is, like the audio, just fine. The levels are well balanced and while sometimes background noise creeps into the interviews here and there, it's never overpowering or distracting. There aren't any problems with hiss or distortion worth whining about and generally things sound pretty good here.

    Aside from the feature, the first disc includes a commentary by director Frank Pavich, producer Stephen Scarlata and SFT Records guru, Kevin Gil. This is a solid track that details how and why this project come to be in the first place, about working with the various bands and venues featured in the documentary and about how much of it was put together. A solid, interesting group discussion.

    And then there's the Additional Songs section which features some killer footage. Madball, from a 1995 performance at at Coney Island High, perform four tracks: New York City / Down by Law / Streets Of Hate / Never Had It. Vision Of Disorder, from a 1995 show at Northport Pipeline perform two tracks: D.T.O. / Formula For Failure. 108, from the same 1995 show at Northport Pipeline, perform three tracks: Solitary / Holyname / No Spiritual Surrender. 25 Ta Life, again at The Pipeline, contribute three songs: Separate Ways / Short Fuse / Inside Knowledge. Back at the 1995 Coney Island High show, District 9 performs two songs: Fool / Pushed To The Edge. Crown Of Thornz, also at CIH from 1995, contribute three tracks: Juggernaut / Love Sick / The Hard Way-Crown Of Thorns. Closing things out is some footage of No Redeeming Social Value performing No Regrets from a 1995 "Crucial Chaos" NYU Radio Show appearance.


    In The Clubs R.I.P. section we get a look at three venues that were near and dear to the scene's heart and which are no longer with us - Coney Island High in Manhattan, The Pipeline in Newark NJ and The Northport Pipeline which was in Northport, Long Island.

    Five Deleted scenes are also included, starting with an Alternate Introduction, followed by a bit in which some interviewees talk about the scenes integration with religion. There's a short bit about In Effect Magazine's contributions as well as some Moshing footage and some insight into the fighting that would and still does sometimes erupt at these shows. There's just over a half an hour's worth of footage here.

    In the Bonus Footage section you'll see Rick Ta Life interview Tommy Rat, some clips of No Redeeming Social Value playing at NYU, an interview segment with Murphy's Law's Jimmy Gestapo who is joined by Todd Youth, a bit called The Philosophy of John Joseph where the Cro-Mag's vocalist talks about his life's work. Conversations with Lord Ezec is just that, while Speaking The Truth with Myke & Todd is some more interview footage. Loki And His Animals talks about, well, Loki and his animals, while A Hospital Visit With Roger Miret is some fairly sad footage of the Agnostic Front/Disasters vocalist recovering from a very serious back injury that he got at a Madball show. There's over fifty minutes worth of footage in this section. Animated menus and a trailer for the feature round out the first disc's worth of material.

    The second disc contains roughly three hours of updated interviews with many of the performers who participated in the feature. This gives them a chance to update us on what's happened with their bands, what has changed in the N.Y.H.C. over the years and just generally play catch up. In this section you'll find interviews with Rick Ta Life, Tim Williams and Mike Kennedy of Vision Of Disorder, Freddy Madball and Toby H2O, Danny Diablo, Myke Rivera of District 9, John Joseph of Cro-Mags, Kevin Gill of SFT, a group interview with No Redeeming Social Value and last but not least, Mike Dijan from Crown Of Thornz.

    Closing out the second disc is an interview with Roger Miret and Lou Koller of Sick Of It All and a short but sweet piece called CBGB: Last Rites at the Last Ever Sunday Hardcore Matinee which is some footage shot outside and around the club on the day that it hosted the last of its, until then, hardcore matinee shows.


    The Final Word:

    While not a definitive look at the movement, N.Y.H.C. delivers a pretty interesting look at the scene as it was in the last half of the nineties. Halo Eight's DVD looks and sounds pretty good considering the source and it's absolutely packed to the rafters with some pretty awesome extra features.
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