LIVE FROM MEMPHIS

Ten years ago this week, Bury the Living played its first show at the now-vacant DIY space at the corner of Madison and Cleveland. Lead singer Patrick Cox ran the performance venue for a year, during which it became the center of Memphis' hardcore punk universe. "It was the first really scene-run show space," he says. Now, a decade later, Cox says he is the only remaining member of the original lineup, "although Anthony [Siracusa] and Ceylon [Mooney] have been in and out for nine of those years." On Wednesday, June 24, the band, which also includes bassist Christian Walker and guitarist Shawn Apple, will play a tenth anniversary show at the Hi Tone."Ten years in hardcore is like dog years," he says. "If a band lasts more than a year, it's impressive." 

But Cox will be the first to tell you that Memphis' hardcore scene goes back much farther than a decade. The Antenna club, which was the second-oldest punk club in the country after New York's CBGB's, was home to a rotating cast of superfast, superhard bands that played to packed, all-ages shows. "I was a huge metal head," Cox says. "I had heard the Ramones and stuff, but that was as far as my knowledge of punk went. I was in my friend Steve's garage and someone put in an Exploited tape and it blew my mind. So he told me to come to this place called the Antenna club, and I never looked back. The scene back then was incredible. Taintskins, Copout, Recoil, Raid, Pazuzu, Sobering Consequences, Komatoast, Man With Gun...so many good bands." And for the kids who hung out in the Piggly Wiggly parking lot, hardcore became more than just a metal-tinged sub-genre of punk. "There's no such thing as mainstream punk," Cox says. "There are punks, and there are poseurs. As far as metal, I don't think it's even comparable. The politics and ethics involved in hardcore, as well as the music, are a world apart." 

The anarcho-leftist politics of hardcore are on full display at Bury the Living shows, where Cox delivers between-song diatribes that are surprisingly thoughtful and articulate, given his intimidating demeanor. "I write about whatever I'm pissed off about at the moment," he says. "The new stuff tackles everything from gay rights—with a song called "American Cock"—to war, politics, and racism. If it gets me worked up, I usually work it out in a song." But while Cox writes the lyrics, the music is a more communal effort. "Usually, one guy has an idea and we take it and build on it," he says. "I'm no musician, but even I have ideas that get incorporated. Sometimes, I'll think something someone brings sucks, but by the end of practice it has morphed into something awesome." 

Hardcore's recent resurgence may be a reaction against music's passivity during much of the last decade. "So much great hardcore came out in the Reagan years, because there was so much anger to fuel the music," Cox says. But if rock was, as is often claimed, one of the catalysts behind the vast social change of the 1960s, why was it so silent during the criminal and destructive Bush years? "You got me," Cox says. "We wrote tons of anti-Bush and anti-war songs—some really controversial and some definite old-school protest songs. i was really let down by the lack of anger i saw in the scene." Bury the Living's new album, which is nearing completion, will bring plenty of pent-up anger. "Now i have some songs that might get me shot some day," he says.

Cox sees hardcore as taking up the tradition of political music that goes back to pre-rock folk that was unafraid to tackle contemporary issues. "One thing I have learned from being a fan of singers like Phil Ochs and Pat Skye is that even 40 years later those songs are still topical. There will always be war and greed and corruption to speak out against, so until will all live in a beautiful, peaceful, perfect world, the songs will be relevant."