Thank You, Helmet

That's Helmet. That's Helmet a long, long time ago. An old, old song, and probably still one of their very best.

I've been listening to Helmet a lot this past week or so. Their album Betty, which came out after this (and featured the single "Milquetoast;" anybody remember that one?). And Aftertaste, which came out a little later, and was definitely their "catchiest" album at the time (and maybe still; I don't know, I kind of lost track of them).

I've been listening to those albums quite a bit on my commutes back and forth to work, on my errands to the grocery store and whatnot, and I've been feeling just sort of... appreciative.

I haven't really listened to much Helmet in years-- those discs have been collecting dust-- and they've brought back some memories.

In large part because of Helmet, I got into a whole world of music and ideas that I might have otherwise missed, a world of music and ideas that has been a big part of my life for close to twenty years now.

The first time I heard that song I was 19 years old.

I kind of fancied myself the alternative rock and roll guy. Long hair. Flannels. Second-hand cutoffs. I played bass and had that pensive scowl down. I was just the right amount of idealistic and disillusioned, listening to Tool and Primus and Nine Inch Nails and Dream Theater and Pearl Jam and Alice In Chains and Nirvana. I was in the midst of my first year of really living on my own, broke and hungry most of the time, had had my first tastes of drugs and beer and ladies that weren't my high school sweetheart.

I was staying in my mom's basement on the weekends. It was winter, and the heating had never been routed down there, but there was an old wood stove and I had a fire going. The local radio station had this thing called "the Sunday Six Pack" or something to that effect, where they would take a recently released album and play six songs back to back on Sunday nights. I was sitting there in the basement listening to the radio and being very pensive when "Unsung" and five other songs came on, and I was blown away by it. I couldn't say exactly what it was that I loved about the songs, though that finally came to me in the right words just the other day. At the time, I would have said there was something "cold" in the songs, but then maybe would have sort of dismissed it as projection, being in a cold basement and all. But now... I think that what I love about Helmet at their best is a sort of lack of emotion. A lot of power, a flawless style, but not energy or emotion in the typical sense. Maybe I can't capture it any better than that.

I liked the songs. Not too long after that, I picked up Meantime. All the songs sort of sounded the same ("Unsung" being the obvious standout), and it was honestly hard to listen to at times (the singer/song writer/guitarist just sort of yells and shouts for the most part, and then there's that whole aforementioned lack of emotion to it). But it was somehow very, very awesome.

Later, there was "Milquetoast," which got on the soundtrack to "The Crow," and I suppose that created a few more Helmet fans.

And then, when I was maybe 21 or 22, they rolled through Syracuse on tour, played at The Lost Horizon.

I could go on and on about the epic quest to find The Lost Horizon for the first time. My friend Jerry and I had heard of the place, but had never been there. We lived in Rome, about an hour away. The night we drove out to buy tickets, it took us six hours to get there, what with the getting lost and getting goofy and many little side adventures. But I'll skip most of that.

The night they played, five of us went-- me, Jerry, Chris, Johnny Wad, and Anthony (who has since left us, which is of course sad).

The Lost Horizon was rougher back then than it is now. I remember bouncers trying to sell us shrooms in line. Another bouncer trying to pick a fight with my buddy Chris when Chris accidentally bumped into him. And lots and lots and lots of people packed tightly together. It was cold outside, but about a thousand degrees in the club. Mostly young white guys, some young white ladies. Almost exclusively white, so that it was easy to notice a somehow larger than life black guy with dreds sitting and talking to someone at the bar.

We waited. And then the openers came on. And then it was like a whole new chapter of life.

Helmet was what you might have called at that time an "alternative metal band." I was pretty familiar with that stuff.

Their openers were bands I'd never heard of, and I wasn't really all that terribly interested in learning anything about them.

Until that first note.

There was a little noise. I looked to the stage, saw that black guy with dreds holding the mic. The music started, he threw himself into the crowd, and what they did for the next half hour or so just blew me away, rewrote my concept of music.

The band was Orange 9mm. I didn't know anything about them at the time, but I learned quickly. The singer Chaka Malik had previously been in a band called Burn out of NYC. Burn was a Revelation Records band. Revelation was the going hardcore label. Orange 9mm was touring on their first full length. They'd put out an EP on Revelation but had quickly been signed to a major for the full length.

None of which would have meant anything to me at the time. They were just... incredible. There was an intensity of energy that I'd never heard before. A positivity. A ferociousness.

And then Quicksand came on. Quicksand was different. They came out of the hardcore world as well, with the singer/guitar player having played in both Gorilla Biscuits and Youth of Today (both of them legends in that world), and other members having played with Chaka in Burn.

Again, didn't know it. I just knew that though they were way more mellow (what you might call post-hardcore), they were great. Still upbeat, still energetic, with a couple of songs that just made you want to jump and shout and kick.

And then came Helmet. And though Helmet was good, though I was glad to be there, that huge rush, that amazing intensity of the first two bands just couldn't be met.

I left that show and scrambled to get everything I could find by Quicksand and Orange 9mm. I played the hell out of Orange 9mm's first EP until I finally got my hands on Driver Not Included, which I played even more. I started wanting to play music that sounded like this, that had the same energy. I still didn't know anything about the wider world that was connected to this stuff, but I loved it. Absolutely loved it.

And then, little by little, it dawned on me that there was a scene here, a culture, a something that I hadn't known a damn thing about before.

I'd buy a CD, and in it there'd be a little two page insert catalog for the record label. The next time I'd be in a record store, I'd see one of those advertised bands, I'd take a shot, buy the disc, and I'd be blown away all over. I heard names like Gorilla Biscuits and Shelter (sometimes from my buddy Jerry, who had had a little exposure to this stuff), I'd get the discs, and I'd just sit there, amazed.

I started going to more shows, and I finally got the full reality of it.

This was hardcore.

Though a few very good bands had been signed to major labels (Orange 9mm, Sick Of It All, Quicksand, Downset, Shelter; they were all pretty quickly dropped), this was essentially a DIY (do it yourself) scene, an underground.

It was hundreds of great bands touring on their own networks, kids letting bands crash at their houses, a few hardworking fans putting together fantastic shows, tiny barely-viable record labels distributing music, kids making t-shirts in their basements.

It was great music, and it was more than music.

It was ideas.

Veganism. I was vegetarian already when I sort of stumbled into this stuff, and I was thrilled to find a scene that embraced that, promoted it.

Straight Edge. I never quite could get myself to make the full on straight edge commitment (no drugs, no cigarettes, no alcohol, no illicit sex), but I respected it, thought it was very awesomely counter-cultural.

Spirituality. Environmentalism. Anarchism. Feminism. Just plain old basic thinking.

Sure, there were occasionally thugs in the crowd (see "315" straight edge assholes picking fights, who were really just as bad as neo-nazi skinhead assholes who came in and broke shit). And there were occasionally thugs and assholes in bands (see Embrace Today, among others).

But that stuff was always the exception.

Especially in my early days, every show was like an escape to a little Mecca.

I'd walk into a dimly lit bar (and I loved dimly lit bars). More often than not, there'd be no alcohol for sale so that it could be an all-ages event. I'd grab a couple of Snapples, order a vegan burger and some chips or a big bowl of veggie chili. Half the floor would be packed with heavily tattooed pierced up kids dancing (a loose use of the term; from the outside, I'm sure it just looked like young people beating the shit out of each other, but it wasn't really that at all). The rest of the floor space was distro tables, info tables. Tiny record labels. Bands selling merch. Someone handing out free manifestos. Animal rights activists. Zines and homemade t-shirts. A guy selling books (politics, philosophy).

Over the years, I saw hundreds of great bands. Some of them I saw ten times or more. Most of them were cool people, who were more likely to hang out talking with music nerds like me and my friends than they were to go to an after-party or try to hook up with hardcore ladies.

Strife. Candiria. Earth Crisis. Sick Of It All. Gorilla Biscuits. Figure Four. Terror. Despair. Shai Hulud. Orange 9mm. Downset. Vision Of Disorder. Diecast. Hoods. Cut Throat. Envy. Turmoil. Another Victim. Birthright. Ascension. One To Face. A Day In The Life. Drowning Room. Path Of Resistance. Lamb Of God. Anti-Flag. Blood Has Been Shed. From Autumn To Ashes. Dillinger Escape Plan. Quicksand. Murphy's Law. Burnt By The Sun. Black Sheep Squadron. Madball. Zao. Scarlet. How We Are. Bane. Meshuggah. Fugazi. Branch Manager. Comeback Kid. Thy Will Be Done. Wisdom In Chains. God Forbid. Mastodon. Mouth Of The Architect. The Promise. Founddeadhanging. Sense Field. Element 101. The Rocking Horse Winner. Walls Of Jericho. Hatebreed. Full Blown Chaos.

And on and on and on and on and on.

I never became a "scenester." In my younger years, I lived just a little too far outside the Syracuse hardcore scene to feel I could be fully involved. Later, I just felt too old to jump into it with the enthusiasm of youth, to have bands sleeping at my house or to dump my savings into putting out a record.

But hardcore became sort of a soundtrack of inspiration and motivation. When I was down, I could either throw on some bitter, angry stuff to happily wallow in it, or I could throw on an "I will rise above this" anthem to get going again. When I had moments of self-doubt, I had the music to erase it. Even now, pushing 40, it's hardcore I go to when I need motivation to put those running shoes on in the morning, hardcore I go to when I need motivation to get my ass to the gym. Hardcore that I turn to when I'm disappointed with the world. Or when I just need to hear that it's going to be alright, that I can do it, that there are people out there fighting back, working together, making something beautiful.

So, listening to Helmet this week, I've just felt this gratitude, this need to say "thank you."

Those guys introduced me to a beautiful thing, and I'll always be grateful for that.