Pageninetynine Return To Behold What They’ve Wrought
Reid Haithcock
I saw Pageninetynine a couple of times back in the day. The first time was probably 1998, and I was still in high school. I had some friends in a noisy metallic hardcore band called the Clancy Six, and a bunch of us would go see them whenever they played, which was usually in basements or church halls. This night, they played Johns Hopkins, opening for Enemy Soil and Daybreak, two powerviolence who I think shared members with Pig Destroyer. Those two bands seemed old and scary, but right in between the Clancy Six and those bands, there was Pageninetynine, who all looked like they were about our age. The one thing I remember from their set is that they ended with this big extended feedback squeal and with all the band members freezing in place. One by one, they all collapsed to the floor, as if dead. You could do hilariously dramatic stuff like that at shows back then, and maybe only half of the audience would make fun of you.
I didn’t know anything about Pageninetynine the first time that I saw them, and I didn’t really know anything about them the second time, either. By then, though, the band was a whole lot bigger — both in terms of being able to headline a show and in how many people were in the band. Apparently, Pageninetynine sometimes had as many as 14 members on a given night. If you were hanging out with those guys and you were able to play anything, you were in the band. Their records were all called Document — Document #5, Document #8, etc. — because they thought of each new release as a snapshot of wherever they were at that moment. I don’t know how many members of the band were there for that Baltimore show in 2002, but there were a lot of them. I did not recognize them as the band I’d seen a few years earlier.
My second Pageninetynine show was at the Blood Shed, an awesomely named Baltimore DIY punk venue that didn’t last long. (Police raided it and shut it down a few months after that show.) I was back in Baltimore after finishing college, and I was probably extremely drunk that night, so my memories aren’t that clear. What I do remember is this: One of the guitarists, while playing, ran up to me, undid my belt, and pantsed me in front of everyone — just fully yanked my jeans down. I let it happen because I didn’t compute what was happening. A minute later, I pantsed him right back. That’s how I remember it, anyway. I’m vaguely shook to discover that there’s video of the whole show online, and I can see that I was definitely there, looking real slackjawed. (Wish I still had that Wu Wear shirt.) But I didn’t seen any pantsing when scrolling through the footage just now. Maybe I just made up the pantsing story, or maybe the show was just so chaotic that the camera didn’t catch it. In any case, that was a different time. Nobody is getting pantsed at punk shows today, and that’s undeniably a good thing.
Pageninetynine broke up pretty soon after that Blood Shed show, and now they’re legends, albeit ultra-niche underground legends. When they were around, I thought of Pageninetynine as being just a fast, noisy, clangorous hardcore band. I didn’t know anything about screamo, and I definitely didn’t know that they would one day be considered pioneers of the genre. In the decades since their breakup, though, Pageninetynine’s name has grown, and so has their influence. Their sound — brutal screech-sprints that occasionally veered into Sonic Youth/Unwound-style pretty dissonance — helped establish a blueprint that split off from much of the hardcore underground and became a thriving world of its own. Pageninetynine never considered themselves to be screamo — nobody liked cutesy genre names back then — but the present-day screamo underground would look very different without them.
My third time seeing Pageninetynine — Document #3, for me — was Sunday night. The band first got back together in 2011, and they’ve been intermittently active since then. They haven’t put out new music, but they’ve played occasional live shows. They headlined the Toronto underground fest New Friends Day last year, and they went out on a short American tour earlier this year. Last weekend, they basically headlined their own festival in Richmond. Pageninetynine guitarist Mike Taylor — I don’t know if he’s the one who pantsed me — and Persistent Vision Records founder Paul Hansbarger booked the lineup for Dark Days Bright Nights, a super-heavy underground music festival that took over three days at Richmond’s Broadberry.
Three straight days of screamo and its associated underground genres was too much for me. I was bummed to miss plenty of the bands who played on the first few nights: Soul Glo, Thou, NØ MAN, and maybe especially the Mexican crust heroes Habak. I picked the third night because that was when I’d get to see my friend Alex, the guitarist from Virginia’s own Infant Island, after he moved away to get his PhD in California a while back. (Maybe I should’ve figured that Alex would be there all three days, which he was.) But because I was there for the third day, that also meant that I witnessed Pageninetynine once again. And once again, it was a true experience.
Maybe it doesn’t make too much sense to write up Dark Days Bright Nights in a hardcore column, since a lot of the bands that I saw weren’t hardcore at all. At this point, the screamo world that Pageninetynine helped spawn probably overlaps more with extreme underground metal than with the chest-thumping hardcore that I like to write about in this space. But all of the bands that I saw at Dark Days Bright Nights were awesome, and all of them were truly extreme in one way or another. The festival wasn’t necessarily about any one particular genre; it was about the community that’s sprung out of the music. Onstage at the Broadberry, every band rhapsodized about how great it was to be there, how much it meant to them. Whether or not the bands came from the area, they all seemed to be playing directly to their people, and that’s a beautiful thing to see.
Virginia really showed out. Listless, opening the show in the middle of the afternoon, spent most of their set crouched in a circle, facing one another rather than the audience — a configuration that repeated itself lots of times through the day. In that defensive position, they made ungodly-heavy lurch-spit music that would’ve absolutely destroyed at the Blood Shed in 2002. Richmond metal-punk band Prisoner, staples of the local DIY universe, were a total steamroller — the kind of band where everyone, even the keyboard player, works to make the sound more punishing. My guys in Infant Island already made one of the best heavy-music albums of the year, and I knew that they would kill. I was right. There’s something symphonic about their rasp-gurgle evilness, and it feels like a miracle whenever I get to see them.
The most unexpected inclusion, at least as far as Richmond bands go, was Inter Arma. Inter Arma are an underground metal institution, but they’re not the kind of underground metal band to regularly play hardcore shows. Their sound is not built for moshing; it’s a whole lot proggier and doomier than that. This was my first time seeing Inter Arma somehow, and that shit was bugged out. Some parts of their show sounded like Demonically Possessed Primus, and other parts sounded like Opeth soundtracking a spaghetti western. At certain points, I was like, “Wow, I really wish they would immediately stop playing that riff.” At others, I was absolutely mesmerized. They played for a long time; this wasn’t like the usual hardcore festivals where most bands play maybe 20 minutes. I wasn’t fully on board in the beginning, but by the time Inter Arma were done, I was totally swept away. They’ve got a drummer who looks like an actual unfrozen caveman and who plays, like, blastbeats with jazz timing. Shit is nuts.
The bands that weren’t from Virginia still seemed perfectly at home. Infant Island and New Jersey’s Massa Nera both spoke from the stage about how long those two bands have been touring together and how much it meant for them to share a stage again. It can’t be easy to follow Infant Island’s all-consuming heaviness, but Massa Nera pulled it off. Their loud bits sounded like frag grenades going off, but I was even more partial to the Slint-style quiet parts. Philadelphia’s Rid Of Me were sludgier live than on record. I’d thought of them as being nu-grunge, and that wasn’t wrong, exactly, but their version of grunge is all the way over on the heavy-ass Melvins side of the spectrum. Massachusetts doom band Fòrn were totally new to me, and that shit sounded absolutely bestial in all the best ways. I saw Portrayal Of Guilt in the backroom of a Mexican restaurant last year, and that was cool, but it was a whole lot cooler seeing them up on a kinda-big stage with atmospheric lighting and a crowd that treated them like heroes. The guys in that band are not huge, but when they’re standing more than a few inches off the ground, they seem colossal.
I need to take a moment for the Chicago duo HIDE, the act on the bill who had the least in common with the kind of hardcore that I cover in this space. HIDE are essentially an arty industrial duo. Seth Sher was off to the side of the stage, cranking out beats that sometimes sounded like what might happen if car alarms had the power to hypnotize. Singer Heather Gabel stood up front in what looked like black vinyl underwear, but there was nothing outwardly sexual about her performance style. Instead, she loomed like a gargoyle, growling over those beats while strobe-lights flashed in time, making her look ominous and eternal. They could’ve been the harshest band at the villain’s goth-lair nightclub in The Crow. (Original Crow, not Crow remake.)
Near the end of the set, though, Gabel thanked the show’s organizers for removing a band from the lineup after one member was accused of sexual misconduct. She then talked about the genocide in Palestine — almost every band mentioned it — and I think she cried. She asked for a moment of silence for Palestinian martyrs (her word, but I agree) and that moment stretched on for a very long time. I wasn’t clock-watching, but it was easily the longest moment of silence I’ve ever been part of, only breaking when a club staffer’s walkie talkie went off. The music was all different, but that kind of deep, openhearted sincerity is something that I remember from punk shows in the ’90s, back when every merch table had leftist political literature. I miss that kind of intense engagement, which was especially strong on the crust and vegan straight-edge side of things. It lives on in this corner of the underground.
Well after midnight, Pageninetynine finally took the stage, and they were a spectacle. On this night, there were nine of them: Drums, bass, two singers, five guitarists. It could’ve been two bassists and four guitarists, too. Either way, the excess was overwhelming. All those guys were absolutely locked in. They’re all middle-aged now, and they play infrequently enough that every show is a true event. You can feel that in the crowd, and you can feel it coming from the stage. It means a lot that they still get to do this, and they put everything into it. The stage at the Broadberry isn’t that small, but nine people is a lot. Often facing one another, they all went off, moving like independent parts of a unified organism. I don’t know how they weren’t constantly bashing each other with guitar necks. Maybe that’s something that you just learn when you’re in Pageninetynine — the Matrix-style ability to sense when a guitar neck is about to clock you in the mouth.
Pageninetynine were never my band, so this show didn’t give me the same sentimental punch that I get every time I see their fellow ’90s Richmond punk legends Avail play a reunion show. But they were amazing, and the love in the building was palpable. Near the end of Pageninetynine’s set, Mike Taylor talked about how much the festival wants and how he hopes they can do it again next year. I hope they do, even if I’ll have to start training months in advance. By the time Pageninetynine finished, I’d been in that building for like eight and a half hours. On the final note, I was ready to collapse to the floor, as if dead. I’m already ready to do it again next year.
Dimension Six – “Count Me Out” (Feat. Prime Suspect)
D6 are from Richmond, and their singer once told me that he reads The Number Ones sometimes, so I am already in the tank for this band. But I am also completely right to be in the tank for this band, since their swagged-out chant-along sound calls back to the glory days of ’00s Richmond bands like Down To Nothing and Naysayer. “Count Me Out” is (probably) named after another OG VA hardcore band, and it’s got someone from Virginia Beach’s Prime Suspect showing up to yell on the excellent breakdown. “Not content with living my life trapped in the cell of a nine to five!” Hell yeah, brother. [From Remain EP, out now on From Within Records.]
Killing Of A Sacred Deer – “Devotion” (Feat. World Of Pleasure)
Killing Of A Sacred Deer is the new deathcore project from no-last-name guy Colter, a member of Mortality Rate and World Of Pleasure. It’s named after a Yorgos Lanthimos film that I’ll probably never watch because it looks too fucked-up and depressing. This song is billed as “featuring World Of Pleasure” because it’s got vocals from Jess Nyx, who’s in both Mortality Rate and World Of Pleasure with Colter. Does that make sense? No? How about this: The Killing OF A Sacred Deer EP ends with a song called “Intro.” That’s how fucking twisted they are. In any case, I don’t even like deathcore generally, but this this is so fast and ugly and heavy and chaotic that I can’t help but pay my respects. Maybe, as a token of my esteem, I’ll get around to finishing Kinds Of Kindness on Hulu one of these nights. [From Killing Of A Sacred Deer EP, out now on Wax Vessel.]
Life Abuse – “Life Cycle”
The term “stadium crust” has to be one of the funniest, most self-contradictory genre names that has ever emerged from hardcore, a world that’s fully of funny and self-contradictory genre names. But it’s also a handy descriptor. Sometimes, you really just need to hear vast, overwhelming anthems where motherfuckers get all mouth-foam enraged about the brutality of a cold, hostile world. If that stuff sounds huge, it hits harder. Life Abuse are a brand new band from a bunch of Albany veterans, and “Life Cycle” sounds colossal. Presumably, Life Cycle will only play actual stadiums when the world ends and ragged, slavering junkyard denizens, the people who knew this was coming all along, move into the crumbling remains of the old college football fields and turn them into new-world fortresses. When that happens, this song is going to go off. [From Systematization, out 10/4 on Armageddon Label.]
Nails – “I Can’t Turn It Off”
I can’t imagine how hard it must be to build and maintain an institution when the entire point of that institution is to display your all-consuming disgust for humanity. For many years, Todd Jones pulled it off. Jones’ band Nails had a great run, leaving behind a series of seething, spitting, halfway-to-grindcore rage-blurts. That run ended with a two-song single that Nails released six years ago, but now Jones is back with an entirely new lineup and with a new album that’s just as uncompromisingly nasty as you’d expect. Most of the new Nails songs are like a minute long, and they sound like how it might feel to put your head in a blender. “I Can’t Turn It Off,” one of the two relative epics that end the album, works in much the same way, but it builds an insane sense of D-beat momentum over a couple of minutes, and then the breakdown comes in and annihilates your soul. Also, that guitar solo is… almost bluesy? I’m into it. [From Every Bridge Burning, out now on Nuclear Blast Records.]
P.I.G. – “This Is What Our Ruling Class Has Decided Will Be Normal”
I’ll be honest: They had me from the title. But then I heard the song itself, a reverb-drenched metal-punk gut-mangler that sounds like riding a horse across a desolate wasteland, bashing zombies in the head with a spiked bat, and I knew I was absolutely right. P.I.G. come from Los Angeles and share some members with Dead City, the guerrilla punks whose shows look like actual Mad Max shit, and they make the kind of explosively desperate warehouse trash that I need in my life. [From People Infected By Greed EP, out now on 1753 Recordings.]
Playytime – “Deadman”
Most of this song sounds like something that bubbled up out of the earth’s crust at the bottom of the Marianas Trench, but then you listen close and there’s funky wah-wah guitar in there? And trap 808s? And downbeat grunge melodies buried on the breakdown? None of those extra touches sound self-consciously experimental. Instead, all of them work to make a crushing, guttural track even more crushing and guttural. I owe Atlanta’s Playytime an apology. I was not familiar with their game. [From Deadman Tapes EP, out now on Rope Bridge Records.
Private Hell – “Dead Inside”
This is another Richmond band with a frontman who sometimes reads The Number Ones, so I am once again in the tank right away. Once again, though, the music rips hard enough that I don’t even have to give you any full-disclosure disclaimers. Private Hell were kicking ass from the moment they dropped their demo three years ago, and “Dead Inside” is probably the heaviest thing they’ve done yet. The bass tone sounds like a snoring ogre, and the guitar solo sounds like Kirk Hammett trapped under several layers of rapidly-drying concrete, trying to alert the world that he’s still alive before everything sets. Just like the Dimension Six song above, this one is about knowing that your job is draining all the lifeforce out of you, and sometimes I wonder why anyone ever writes songs about anything else. [From Wake Up Screaming flexi, self-released, out soon.]
Secret World – “Living Less”
Secret World are a new Sydney band who share members with groups like Speed and Downside. I assumed that they were named after the first Fucked Up album until I realized that the record I was thinking of is actualy called Hidden World. But they could still be named after that, right? They mean the same thing! I hate being wrong! Right away, Secret World jump right to the top of the heap of Drug Church-style bands, the ones that combine ragged-throat hardcore yelling with catchy-as-fuck power-pop melodies. There are a lot of bands like that these days, and I pretty much like all of them. [Stand-alone single, out now on Last Ride Records/Sunday Drive Records.]
Show Me The Body – “Stomach” (Feat. High Vis)
It’s still not exactly settled business whether Show Me The Body and High Vis can be considered hardcore bands. I don’t get final say in the matter, by my vote is: Sometimes. This song is one of those times, for both bands. It’s a vast, pummeling groove that makes me want to stomp around like an angry elephant, so it passes all my litmus tents. When these two bands head out on tour together this fall, this song is going to kill. Incidentally, the new High Vis song “Drop Me Out” is a motherfucking monster. That song is one of those times, too. [From Corpus II EP II, out 9/27 on Corpus.]
Si Dios Quiere – “Fool’s Gold”
Chicago’s Si Dios Quiere were already among the hardest out, but this song might represent the moment that the enter Goon Valhalla. The bounce in these riffs is absolutely unreal, and the way the guy bites off the end of every syllable makes me feel like I could karate chop a cinderblock into dust. This is a sincere breakup song, which is about the most vulnerable thing that someone can write, but it doesn’t sound vulnerable. It sounds harder than dinosaur bones. [Stand-alone single, out now on New Morality Zine.]
