As evidenced by the “bug slam” intro a la Warzone, Chicago’s Buggin embody the “Dance Hard or Die” ethos.
Hardcore is about venting rage, embracing community, and participating, and the band’s new record, Concrete Cowboys, out now on Flatspot Records, is an intense, boisterous album. While a track like “Snack Run” relieves some tension in a Murphys Law-esque manner, mostly, the songs are about pushing back against society. Concrete Cowboys sonically embodies bands like Bracewar, Internal Affairs, Rotting Out, and many contemporaries discussed in this interview. Short, fast, hard-hitting hardcore is the formula. Only two of the 12 tracks cross the two-minute mark.
Vocalist Bryanna Bennett explains that Concrete Cowboys has been done for a year, so in that span, when not ripping up stages on tour, Bennett has been working—with the sage-like guidance of Flatspot co-founder/Backtrack guitarist, Ricky Singh—on Tribes of the Moon Fest. The fest will take place August 19 and 20 at Bowery Ballroom in NYC with Burn, End It, Soul Glo, Move BHC, Zulu, and Bleed The Pigs, highlighting Black people in hardcore and punk bands.
Bennett went to a suburban Chicago high school of 4,000 students with Black folks representing about 1% of that population. They note, “being Black and also being weird on top of that, it was a really bad mix.”
Reflecting on the Midwest and the simmering ignorance, they say the racism was not overt, but “very covert and on the low. Lots of micro-aggressions […] not even tokenizing. They just don’t know how to interact. It was very isolating.” Bennet’s solace was digging through the internet discovering “mostly metalcore and pop punk.” They also delved into interviews and music videos, crediting tumblr for discovering bands such as Backtrack, Incendiary, and The Rival Mob. (Those hardcore bands) “just had so much more behind it—the emotion I didn’t get from metalcore or pop punk.”
A stand-out track, “All Eyes on You,” is simply about youth.
Bennet explains, “you may not like the things that the youth are doing, but they will be on the forefront of every major change, good or bad. You better get with it, or you will end up sounding like your parents. Every generation rebels against their parents, and the previous generation, in some capacity. We can’t be afraid of fire or someone inventing the wheel. Get with the times, or get left behind.”
Our conversation goes to the obvious subject of racial representation in the Chicago suburbs, Chicago proper, and hardcore—all known for a history of white, male majorities. But diversity is increasing in hardcore.
“It’s more now than before. I grew up in the Midwest. Chicago and Milwaukee are the big cities (with Black people), but I grew up outside. I was surrounded by white people. And Chicago is a segregated city. People forget that a lot. It’s hard for Black people and people of color having the ability to see shows. Dan Ryan (an expressway in Chicago) worked to literally divide the two sides of the city.”
But Bennett expresses optimism, beaming, “I could never have imagined the numbers I see now. I could count the amount of Black people on one hand that I would see regularly. I would see the same ones at every show in the suburbs. Now, I see roomfuls of Black kids at hardcore shows.”
Photo courtesy of Kyle Bergfors
