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"name": "Caryn Rose",
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"rubric": "photo essay",
"teaser": "Down and out in New York City’s 1980s hardcore scene.",
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"text": "Caryn Rose"
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"text": "Agnostic Front, Cro-Mags, Warzone, Murphy’s Law, Bad Brains. Ancient band names, at this point as legendary and distant as Ozymandias. But in the early 1980s, when the smoke cleared from the remnants of first-wave New York City punk rock, another self-made scene evolved: New York hardcore (or NYHC, as its adherents referred to it). Once again, the kids who didn’t fit in flocked to the East Village.",
"ampText": "Agnostic Front, Cro-Mags, Warzone, Murphy’s Law, Bad Brains. Ancient band names, at this point as legendary and distant as Ozymandias. But in the early 1980s, when the smoke cleared from the remnants of first-wave New York City punk rock, another self-made scene evolved: New York hardcore (or NYHC, as its adherents referred to it). Once again, the kids who didn’t fit in flocked to the East Village.",
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"text": "Best known for its Sunday afternoon all-ages matinee shows, NYHC was part of a continuation of the original art form that exploded out of CBGB with its own ethos, work ethic, and “take no fucks and give no quarter” attitude. If you walked the block on a weekend afternoon and saw this motley crew of fans and bands (who were often one and the same) hanging outside, you’d probably cross the street. But the reality was much different. Unlike in the U.K. and Europe, American hardcore punks weren’t racist, and most didn’t tolerate those who were. The mosh pits were expressions of enthusiasm and freedom and only later got coopted as an excuse for gratuitous violence.",
"ampText": "Best known for its Sunday afternoon all-ages matinee shows, NYHC was part of a continuation of the original art form that exploded out of CBGB with its own ethos, work ethic, and “take no fucks and give no quarter” attitude. If you walked the block on a weekend afternoon and saw this motley crew of fans and bands (who were often one and the same) hanging outside, you’d probably cross the street. But the reality was much different. Unlike in the U.K. and Europe, American hardcore punks weren’t racist, and most didn’t tolerate those who were. The mosh pits were expressions of enthusiasm and freedom and only later got coopted as an excuse for gratuitous violence.",
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"text": "Brooke Smith — best known as Dr. Erica Hahn on <em>Grey’s Anatomy</em> and as the Tom Petty–loving <a href=\"https://www.vulture.com/2020/11/brooke-smith-answers-every-silence-of-the-lambs-question.html\">kidnapping victim in <em>Silence of the Lambs</em></a> — was one of those misfits who found her people on the Bowery. Before she became an actress, she was part of a loose collection of die-hard fans known as the Warzone Women, named after one of the legendary groups that built, contributed to, and upheld the sound and culture of NYHC. The Warzone Women were known for periodically taking over the pit during their shows. But Smith never joined them. Instead, she’d carefully grab a spot on the edge of the mayhem and take photos. She shot the bands, she shot the fans, she shot her friends and the people she knew — couples and goofballs and even some babies.",
"ampText": "Brooke Smith — best known as Dr. Erica Hahn on <em>Grey’s Anatomy</em> and as the Tom Petty–loving <a href=\"https://www.vulture.com/2020/11/brooke-smith-answers-every-silence-of-the-lambs-question.html\">kidnapping victim in <em>Silence of the Lambs</em></a> — was one of those misfits who found her people on the Bowery. Before she became an actress, she was part of a loose collection of die-hard fans known as the Warzone Women, named after one of the legendary groups that built, contributed to, and upheld the sound and culture of NYHC. The Warzone Women were known for periodically taking over the pit during their shows. But Smith never joined them. Instead, she’d carefully grab a spot on the edge of the mayhem and take photos. She shot the bands, she shot the fans, she shot her friends and the people she knew — couples and goofballs and even some babies.",
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"text": "But people grow up, scenes fade out, and Smith stashed the photos, moving on with her life and into her acting career. Decades later, these memories have been curated into a book from Radio Raheem Records, a small label that specializes in vintage punk and hardcore. Appropriately titled <a href=\"https://www.sundaymatineebook.com/\"><em>Sunday Matinee</em></a>, it is both a tribute and a body of work. “I was a sad, overweight teen girl growing up in Rockland County, New York, in the 1980s,” Smith writes in the book’s intro. “Everyone in my high school and my hometown thought I was a freak.” The photographs that follow are kinetic, joyful, and affectionate. Shot in both color and black and white with whatever available light was available, they are the visual manifestation of doing what you could with the things you had. Most notably, the Warzone Women and other female hardcore fans are present; in <em>Sunday Matinee</em>, their place in the scene isn’t overlooked.",
"ampText": "But people grow up, scenes fade out, and Smith stashed the photos, moving on with her life and into her acting career. Decades later, these memories have been curated into a book from Radio Raheem Records, a small label that specializes in vintage punk and hardcore. Appropriately titled <a href=\"https://www.sundaymatineebook.com/\"><em>Sunday Matinee</em></a>, it is both a tribute and a body of work. “I was a sad, overweight teen girl growing up in Rockland County, New York, in the 1980s,” Smith writes in the book’s intro. “Everyone in my high school and my hometown thought I was a freak.” The photographs that follow are kinetic, joyful, and affectionate. Shot in both color and black and white with whatever available light was available, they are the visual manifestation of doing what you could with the things you had. Most notably, the Warzone Women and other female hardcore fans are present; in <em>Sunday Matinee</em>, their place in the scene isn’t overlooked.",
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"text": "“I think there is something to the fact that a lot of these bands were just people who said, ‘You know what? I’m gonna start a band even if I can’t play,’” Smith tells Vulture. She was too timid to get onstage herself, so she found her spot in the scene behind the lens of her Minolta SLR. “I think I really wanted to perform. So I guess the camera was kind of an instrument for me; in a way, it gave me a role to play. There’s the drummer, singer, guitarist, bassist, and there’s Brooke on the camera.”",
"ampText": "“I think there is something to the fact that a lot of these bands were just people who said, ‘You know what? I’m gonna start a band even if I can’t play,’” Smith tells Vulture. She was too timid to get onstage herself, so she found her spot in the scene behind the lens of her Minolta SLR. “I think I really wanted to perform. So I guess the camera was kind of an instrument for me; in a way, it gave me a role to play. There’s the drummer, singer, guitarist, bassist, and there’s Brooke on the camera.”",
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"header": "A young Brooke Smith, sitting on the sidewalk in front of CBGB",
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"imageCaption": "<p>“Clearly, the crimper should come back. The sweater is a whole thing because I’m still friends with the girl, Joie, who stole it soon after this picture was taken and literally kept it for, I don’t know, 30 years. She doesn’t have it anymore. But she finally admitted that she took it because I <em>knew</em> she did. It was my favorite sweater. I wore it all the time. And it almost looked like it was alive.”</p>",
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"imageCredit": "Brooke Smith",
"imageCaption": "<p>“That’s Terry, who was with Billy Psycho, who was in the band the Psychos! I love this photo. I love her face. I read a story in Roger’s book the other day. I wasn’t there when it happened, but I guess Terry became a nurse. And somebody got very seriously injured — I believe their neck was cut with a knife — and apparently Terry saved his life. They threw him in a van and took him to the hospital. And she put pressure on the wound until they got there.”</p>",
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"header": "English Mark and his dog, Blitz",
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"imageCredit": "Brooke Smith",
"imageCaption": "<p>“English Mark was the sweetest guy. He’s gone now. This is when we were squat hunting. So we’re on the roof of the building that we were looking at on 2nd and C. We broke into this building and looked at it, and Mark was the guy who sort of knew if it was going to be salvageable. He said no, but I did find a beautiful blue bottle there, which I have in my kitchen.”</p>",
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"header": "Roger Miret of Agnostic Front",
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"imageCaption": "<p>“The guy with the long hair, that’s Roger. He’s the dad. I think he was basically saying, ‘Can you hold the kid while I go in and play?’ And then the one on the far left with the arm sticking out, that’s the mom, Amy. This was the first hardcore baby.”</p>",
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"imageCaption": "<p>“The T-shirt that Madonna’s wearing, Whole Wide World, it used to be Modern Clix; she was in the band. Madonna was always, dare I say, a mother to everyone in a way. She still lives in Staten Island. I remember somebody in the elevator at Danceteria overheard that her name was Madonna and mistakenly thought that this was probably the woman who had had an affair with her boyfriend. And I was like, ‘No, no, no, no, no, no, this is <em>not</em> that same Madonna.’”</p>",
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"pageTitle": "Inside New York City’s 1980s Punk and Hardcore Scene",
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