This entry was posted on Monday, March 24th, 2008 at 3:59 pm and is filed under Trends, Nostalgia, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
A few weeks ago, I interviewed Bad Religion founder Greg Graffin about his band’s recent string of L.A.-area dates. Bad Religion’s been through several commercial revivals, as wiseacre punks, as an unlikely radio act in the mid-’90s (”You and meee … have a diseeease …” ) and most recently as something approximating a hugely successful local band. They play large theaters and festivals and sell decently around the world, but to someone whose experience with rock radio is limited to KROQ, they must seem as big as Linkin Park. I always chalked it up as a Southern California thing, that the ’90s varietal of double-time skate punk that came to be called the “Epitaph Sound” put its claws in deep after the Offspring and never let up. All that grindable pavement, the year-long sunshine and the intraversible open space of L.A.’s mutant version of urbanity certainly helped.
Now, here we are in 2008. NOFX just played one of the most talked-about shows at SXSW. The upcoming Bamboozle Left has H20, a Hot Water Music reunion, Face to Face, Goldfinger, Bouncing Souls, 7 Seconds and Dillinger Escape Plan, a lineup that pretty much reads like every mixtape I made between the ages of 13 and 16. And the Socratic ideal of bro core, Pennywise, just put its free new album, “Reason to Believe,” out on MySpace Records. It apparently has been downloaded more than 500,000 times, with the single “The Western World” cracking the Top 30 on Billboard’s Hot Modern Rock Tracks and rising.
A whole generation of teens and tweens who think recorded music began with Blink-182 have elevated mall-emo to the new hair metal. If the narrative holds, and Pete Wentz is our C.C. DeVille or whatever, are Pennywise, NOFX and Bad Religion his Ramones and New York Dolls? The founding fathers of bro core seem to be going through yet another revival, so why are today’s teenagers rediscovering the pleasures of galloping-horse double kicks and F-minor palm mutes and song titles like “The Western World?”
I’m thinking it’s because your Pete Wentzes, your Gerard Ways and your Brendon Uries have now officially joined the celebrity-industrial complex, and their Ashlee Simpson-dating public personalities aren’t resonating with average kids anymore (which is sort of a shame, because the new Panic at the Disco album is actually pretty good). Let’s not forget that the ne plus ultra of this world, Blink-182, were normal dudes in skate shorts singing about girlfriends who buy them Mexican food and cracking oral sex jokes between songs (until they started rolling with Robert Smith and made that pretty wankish last album, anyway). Travis Barker made a terrible reality star, and Angels & Airwaves is like Wings if McCartney tried to make a mall-punk response record to “Double Fantasy.” Mark Hoppus, who I always suspected was the smart one in Blink, is writing songs with kid-core bands such as All Time Low, keeping a blog and neglecting his duties in +44, which is a good move for him.
All these bro-core bands are decent dudes (Jim Lindberg even has an alterna-dad memoir), run tight ships live and have giant back catalogs that only grow exponentially more resonant to the now three generations of 15-year-olds who’ve learned the “Whoaaa-whoa-oh-oh” chant to Pennywise’s “Bro Hymn.” The first time I saw Bad Religion live in my early teens, they opened for Blink at the Tampa Ice Palace (not a trip I’d repeat). I was there for BR, and it seemed kind of unjust that they were the opening act, but I guess that’s like Fueled by Ramen signing Lifetime, or Kurt Cobain touting the Vaselines in interviews — a devoted subculture act breaks big and wants to show off its influences, both to keep its credibility and throw a bone to its favorite veteran bands.
The new Paramore single, “That’s What You Get,” has a bit of D-Plan’s screwy odd-time math-core in it, and Hot Water Music was one of the first post-hard-core bands to really try a hand at frothy second-generation emo, albeit with a singer who sounds like a pirate. I suspect they’ll both blow a few tween minds at Bamboozle Left. And good for them, because for all of bro-core’s shortcomings, it’s working-class music for kids who toil at the local suburban enormoplex cinema, and none of those kids will ever get Jay-Z or Liza Minnelli to drop a guest verse on their album.
– August Brown
Pennywise photo by Chapman Baehler
so good to see all these bands doing well. NOFX has a new documentary series airing on Fuse on April 15th: http://fuse.tv/tv/nofx-backstage-passport/index.php
you know absolutely nothing about music
have you ever heard of punk rock?
Wow… You just managed to group HWM, 7 Seconds, Face To Face, Dillinger Escape Plan and Pennywise all under the same category… which also happens to be completely wrong for all of the above. Bro-core is a term for metallic hardcore bands, whose fans act like the jocks that they are at shows and ruin it for everyone else. It’s actually really offensive that you put amazing bands like Hot Water Music under this heading with no real explanation, just because you were too lazy to do the research. It’s called journalistic integrity. Figure it out.
Pennywise and Hot Water Music shouldnt be compared. I want you to look a punk kid straight in the eye and say Pennywise influenced music as much as Hot Water Music and the supposed “Gainesville Sound”.
Pennywise is punk for drunks.Thats an accurate description of bro-core I think.
Did you just attempt to parallel Paramore and Dismemberment Plan? This whole article is embarassing to read. I am embarassed for you.
Seriously? I could of swore your reasoning for bro-core is basically what is known as modern punk (aside from DEP, who are a progressive hardcore band). Any “core” term is usually referenced to metal these days anyway. Yes, traditional 80’s harcore (and emocore) was in reference to punk, but the term has evolved drastically and if you are going put these bands under that phylum is incorrect and misinformed. Do you even listen to what you write about?
Just because a band creates a song with the word “bro” in it and proceeds to publicize it via one of the largest “bro-internet territories” (myspace) does not give you the right to stick it under a completely different genre- and wait, did you also just bring The Bouncing Souls and Bad Religion into this? You understand you are talking about bands from the 80s, early 90s and that these bands are straight up punk rock bands?
Also, you forgot to mention the oddity of Dillinger playing at Bamboozle; Dillenger was formed in 97 and is the least fitting into the line-up, as in, not quite an early punk band. Not actually a punk band for that matter.
And to Garrett, Pennywise and HWM are comparable as punk bands through ideals- HWM formed years after Pennywise. From what you’ve written I take that you have yet to listen to most of their music. Look me in the eye and ask me that question about influence and I’ll tell you what you don’t want to hear. Get to know your genre.
You nailed it. I hope the mall kids dig in and bring it all back. And it’s nice to see punk kids still split hairs over differences in bands listed. HOW DARE YOU compare bands that all seek the same audience for the most part. P.S. “the gainesville sound” sucks. And I’ve been to every FEST. How’s that for cred, jerks?
lame…
[…] The re-ascent of bro core […]
yeah what a waste of time, get a clue… do you really need to label each kind of rock music you listen to? or was all that just to fill up a lame article that pennywise was barely even in… give it up and go back to listening to hip-hop you phony
Sorry Bro. This was lame. But I’ll give a B- for trying at least.
[…] simply to aggravate all the readers who took exception to August Brown’s post on bro core, but the winner of this week’s on-sales info column is kid-core. Kids wearing Vans […]
Honestly I’m not taking a shot at anyone but can someone fill me in on what the point of the article actually was because through all the talk on what bands have done and what they sound like and what genre they belong to, I did not see what the point of the article was…
Saying that BR is a “bro” oriented band is completely false. Greg Graffin is a college professor whose lyrics preach and praise socialism and anti-materialism, not tattoos and raised trucks with tap-out and volcom stickers.
See Face to Face Live if you can- amazing band
Dude, you are so ignorant about Punk music and you should be banned from listening to it…put your new Panic at the Disco record on and drink your latte. leave the good music to us who get it. bro-core is about the dumbest name I have ever heard…
I’ve learned not to expect much from articles about pop music and its influence, but this was surprisingly well-written. I dig it, even if a few people on here seem not to.
When you start putting things in categories, you’re setting yourself up for backlash. Get off your pedestal at the Los Angeles Times music blog and get a job on Warped Tour this summer. Then you can talk trash.