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I’m always eager to learn more about musical genres that I’m fairly-to-greatly ignorant in. I started jumping into the history of punk a few years back, and to this day, I still can’t make heads or tails out of much of it when it comes to the various sub-genres and offshoots. One such offshoot that I was previously ignorant of was the New York “hardcore” scene which thrived in the mid-1990s, but the documentary N.Y.H.C., originally shot in 1995 and now seeing release on DVD thanks to Halo Eight, helps me understand it a little better. I’m not sure I actually like this particular genre of music, but the documentary itself is interesting and informative, though not always in the manner it may have intended.

Hardcore is essentially a faster, more brutal form of punk, with the anger emphasized more so than in traditional punk. It appears to be to punk what thrash is to metal in some ways. Throughout the documentary, we meet many of the band members and some of the fans of the genre, as they try to explain the history, meaning and style of the genre. Interspersed with the talking heads are plenty of performance clips. Bands featured include Madball, 25 ta Life, V.O.D., and others you probably never heard of.

It’s interesting to hear the thoughts and opinions of the people in the music. The members of V.O.D. Discuss using their music to vent their rage and anger as they sit in a nice suburban home. The lead singer of 25 ta Life talks about how he doesn’t care if people can’t understand what he’s screaming, that’s what lyric sheets are for. The guitarist for one bad says he’s been playing guitar for six years and since he’s 18 now, somehow comes up with the age of 15 as when he started. Yeah, some of these guys aren’t the sharpest knives in the drawer.

The doc is edited swiftly enough to keep an entertaining pace. Even if you don’t care for the music, and there will be many who don’t, the film manages to capture the essence of these individuals. That’s the key to a successful documentary I think; that it manages to inform in an entertaining way, even if the subject may or may not be junk.

Released as a 2-disc set, N.Y.H.C. is chock-full of extras. Disc one has a running commentary featuring director Frank Pavich and others. It’s a fun listen, but the sound could have been upped a bit. There’s also a promo trailer for the film, some extra scenes that didn’t make it into the final cut and complete live performances by several of the bands. Disc two includes footage from the last hardcore show performed at the legendary CBGB’s before it shut down. The most interesting extra though are new interviews with many of the players from the documentary. Seeing these guys thirteen years later shows that some have moved on from the scene, either literally or stylistically. Some still stick to tried and true. The entirety of these new interviews equal, if not surpass the actual doc in terms of length.

N.Y.H.C. certainly isn’t for everyone; the music alone will drive most potential viewers away. But that doesn’t take away from the fact that it’s a very interesting documentary and does a lot to expose a musical genre that was previously sheltered from the outside world.

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