Yeah, well, it sounds trite, but it's true ... of course hardcore is my life, my family. It gave me friends that I would die for if I needed to; it gave me experiences and allowed me to express myself in ways that I wouldn't have been able to otherwise; it means that I can tell people that before 1995 was over I had seen Gorilla Biscuits, Fuzazi, Cro-Mags, Earth Crisis, Sick Of It All, Agnostic Front, Damnation, Sensfield, Into Another, Outspoken, Unbroken, Judge, Turning Point, Shelter and so many others ... when hardcore wasn't the fashionable thing or the easy thing, when you had to really work at it even though you didn't feel like it was work, when you couldn't Mapquest the directions and go on a dozen websites and find out where every show is in seconds; it gave me new brothers and sisters in Rome, Helsinki, Copenhagen, Aukland, Barcelona, London, Japan, Brazil, Australia, Poland, Belgium, Germany and too many other places to list here - friends that are now my family and my "home" all over the world. The hardcore scene was and is what we wanted in the world, the thing that made sense to us, and only us.
When I'm at a hardcore show, and other kids are singing along to words as if their very lives depended on it, it's the feeling that you have when ... your soul has left your body and you have found the place where you belong; you have found the other souls that understand and accept and respect you for who you really are.
When I think about what my life would have been like had I not found a world-wide brother and sisterhood to belong to ... had I not by chance run into and met punk and hardcore kids in Syracuse that eventually changed my life, I feel sadness and pride - sadness for those who miss that chance and continue to live their lives in "quiet desperation", and pride for the family that we made and the lives we have changed - our lives, our family.
McKaig, April '08
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