Do u <3 TEH SKRAMZ LYFE???

It is a well-known fact that people from the West Coast are smarter/more sophisticated than ppl from the rest of the country (esp ppl from New York, who always think they know everything about everything but actually are pretty dumb and unsophisticated). If there is a new trend that u just heard about, chances are someone from the West Coast invented it a long time ago, only u didn't know about it until now. One example of this is SKRAMZ.

Can u believe that the fggt singer from this ghey pop band invented TEH SKRAMZ??? Hard 2 believe I know but look at Chris' gauges and u can see how he wishes that they were playing at Gilman in 1994 with Portraits of Past.

What is skramz??
Skramz is just another word for the shitty 90s screamo bands that I listened to when I was in high school. My bro Alex from the popular easycore/pop band Fight Fair coined this term a while ago to draw a line between "true screamo" and "false screamo" bands. He originally said it for a joke, but it caught on with the kids and is now used non-ironically.

As u can see, these mnstrm preppy chicks are big Saetia fans. Wish I went to HS at Miramonte High School in Orinda, California (home of Fight Fair, Seeing Means More and Set Your Goals) so I could impress these girls by telling them I had the Reversal of Man demo in 1995 :( Mb they would drive me around in their X5's and buy me dinner with daddy's black card in a desperate attempt to be down. At least I can be stoked that my high school was the birthplace of BTM and 3A, which is pretty sweet too.

Alex is nearly 10 years younger than me but that dude knows his shit when it comes to 90s screamo. He def earns his title of SKRAM BOSS, and I have to give him srs props on his knowledge. I have no idea how the fuck he knows about Jasmine and I Hate Myself but he does and it's pretty rad.

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It's probably hard to imagine when you look at it through the eyes of today's kids who can play sweep-picked arpeggios and ass-ripping double bass when they come out of the womb, but back in the early 90s the pre-Swing Kids band Struggle were considered amazingly tight and polished. PS WELCOME TO AMERICA YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO BE BEATEN

True screamo/skramz kids don't like to use the word "screamo" because that makes you think of shitty, inauthentic bands like The Used or Underoath who have nothing to do with hardcore and don't know the first thing about seeing Christopher Robin and Nineironspitfire in the basement of the Goat House in 1994. As retarded as the word "skramz" is, I can understand how the kids felt like they needed alternative term, because The Used are a truly wretched band and I wouldn't want to be lumped in with those Mormons-gone-wild either.



The origins of skramz
While I mostly listen to Forever The Sickest Kids and Brokencyde now, back in the 90s my life revolved around DIY hardcore and graffiti-- read my guest post "5 Things I Miss About 90s Hardcore" on X Stuck In The Past X for more details if you weren't around back then. It was a very, very strange time for hardcore and I don't miss it at all, but growing up on the West Coast in the 90s I was definitely around for the birth of screamo.

alexbigman posted this on October 22nd, 2007 @ 4:05:35 am
jear your so much more punk and diy then me omg...i went to college and joined a frat, made friends(do you have any?) hooked up with hot preppy girls...got a degree in history all while putting out 2 vinyl releases, booking diy tours/shows, letting the touring bands crash at my pad, got signed, STILL go to punk/hardcore shows at gilman/che cafe, buy vinyl....
and yahh i'll be on trl in about a year and i'll have a fuck jear shirt on

I saw pretty much all of the first wave screamo bands play at Gilman, The Velvet Elvis, Redmond YMCA, and various shithole basements in Washington, Oregon and California when I was in high school. Later on, I moved to the midwest, went to all the More Than Music fests and hung out at Legion of Doom on the regular, so I was unfortunate enough to sample a wide variety of annoying 90s screamo scenes.

I found the following laughably out-of-date information about Legion of Doom, I seriously think this must have been written a decade ago. Scotty now promotes shit like dubstep parties and that reminds me I need to hang out with him ASAP. Also, where is my Inept demo, and what is Adam Lowe doing these days???:

"Mike Thorn is the best contact for hardcore, crust, grind, punky punk or how he can eat more cookies than anyone else alive today, Emmett White is good to talk to about emo, scremo, metal,or being a hippie- talk to Jon Strange about indie, pop, pop punk or his future political carreer (or even better how much he hates all animals. Scott Niemet will have moved out as of January 1st, as he is moving into fireexit."

It really is impossible to describe the culture to anyone who didn't go to shows before the internet existed, and as much as I genuinely hate what 90s hardcore was like and make fun of it, there was definitely something special about it. I know I sound old as fuck when I say this, but back then the barriers to entry were much higher, so anybody who went to shows, put out records, did a zine, or whatever was pretty dedicated.

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Fucking JOHN HENRY WEST, you can't fuck with this band!!! WHISPERING TEN THOUSAND WORDS

Getting a copy of the Anasarca 7" meant you had to comb through the ads in Maximumrocknroll or its gay, No Fun Club cousin Heartattack (what a piece of shit), or on rare occasions Flipside, send well-concealed cash to some stranger thousands of miles way, wait a few weeks, and hope you actually got something. Now you can just download anything you want in seconds, find out any any show in any city and get directions to it on your phone. That's a far cry from the days in which we would hear through the grapevine that there was an Abnegation show somewhere in Pittsburgh on the 17th or whatever. We would just drive to the city with no idea where the venue was and hope for the best. Somehow or another it always turned out OK, but I have no idea how we did any of this without the internets!

Dr. Spock, left, Charles Bronson's Mark McCoy on the right. Also note John from Bronson's giant denim shorts, a dead giveaway that this photo is of circa-1995 vintage

We used the term "screamo" to refer to bands like Anasarca, Antioch Arrow, Constantine Sankhati, Swing Kids, etc. These bands were into wearing sweaters, tight black pants, and dyed-black bowl haircuts. We often called them "spock rockers" because they looked like Dr. Spock from Star Trek.

After The Locust got popular and dumb kids who didn't come up in the DIY hardcore scene got into screamo, shitty bands like Thursday and My Chemical Romance showed up and ruined it for everybody. I guess that is when ppl started using the term "skramz" as a way of saying "we also scream a lot in our songs, but we do not shop at Hot Topic like the ghey fggts in those bands u like." At least that is my version of how skramz was born! Mb Alex can correct me if I am wrong??


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Chiodos = SCREAMO, UR DOING IT WRONG. Not skramz!

More info: How 2 embody TEH SKRAMZ LIFE
1. How NOT to skramz dance (via Wikihow)
I never heard anybody use the term "2 stepping" back in the day, much less "hardcore dancing," and neither has my brother in moshing Jose Galvan, so if you use these terms old ppl like us will know u are a little kid/poser. Here is a tutorial I found on "how to skramz/hardcore dance":

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Sick Of It All's video for "Step Down" very accurately captures how ppl danced at mid-90s hardcore shows and is the perfect visual aid for this tutorial

1. Enter the pit at a post-hardcore show by "two-stepping", which is essentially a skip. To do this, place your hands in your pockets, look directly at the ground, throw one leg in front of your other, essentially in a tripping motion.
   
   
2. Break out when the music goes from soft to loud. Flail in all directions wildly. During this point, it is essential to throw punches, karate chops, and kicks of all sorts.
   
   
3. Start "windmilling". This is probably the easiest part. Just start moving your arms in a windmilling motion with fists clenched.
   
   
4. "Pick up the change", which includes you grabbing at the ground like there are some gnarly weeds down there and throwing them over your shoulder while simulataneously ripping your elbows as high as possible. You can also "make the pizza", which essentially involves using one hand to make it seem as if you are spinning a large crust. "Mowing the Lawn" is also acceptable, although almost out of practice these days.
   
   
5. Combine steps 1-4 in different orders during the show.

DO NOT FOLLOW THIS TUTORIAL, NOBODY DANCED LIKE THIS AT SCREAMO SHOWS IN THE 90s!! You would have been kicked out by the scene police/No Fun Club as soon as you started windmilling-- ask anyone who attended Chokehold's set at the 1994 More Than Music Fest.

2. Further resources for embodying TEH SKRAMZ LYFE

• Threepennie on the Youtubes
  Zillions of vintage 90s skramz videos- I hate this shit so I can't really handle watching it, but if you study them closely enough you can pretend you went to these shows like I did!
  
  
• Viva La Vinyl
  The bratty little sister of BCO, VLV is a messageboard full of kids who are too young to have experienced 90s screamo firsthand but worship it by paying too much for shitty 7"s on eBay. I believe this is also where Alex from Fight Fair first came up with the term skramz, and there is a shoutout to VLV on the upcoming Fight Fair album!
  
  
• Your Scene Sucks "Skramz Revivalist"
  This is where I stole the image at the top of the page, and it is a handy guide for acting like u luv TEH SKRAMZ LYFE
  
  
• Where 2 buy/download skramz
  Peep the Last.fm "Tr00 Screamo" group, then download their recommendations on Screamo Is Dead or Screamo For Dummies. If u want to 2 impress ur skramz friends by being "more hardcore" than they are, buy some shit from Youth Attack and tell them u like Lärm (so does Mark McCoy, so he will prob think u "know a lot about hxc for ur age").
  

Some classic skramz 4 u
To conclude, I will share some videos of screamo bands I saw/was friends with and/or h8d back in the day, along with my funny/irreverent comments on them. Hopefully it will make butthurt jerks from the No Fun Club angry that I know a lot about this stuff but don't really like it/take it srsly anymore.

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I fucking hate Chokehold. They were rich Canadian fggts who wrote dumb songs about smashing capitalism, then went back home to hang out in their parents' pool with John Pettibone from Undertow/Himsa (as told in Carrie Whitney's "Point Furthest From The Middle" zine circa 1994). Also, they stole the main riff in "Anchor" from Biohazard's "Business." LOL, how punk!

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Are An Albatross skramz?? I don't know. But I liked Ed Guida better when he wore sweater vests and listened to Shelter. I knew him as Eddie Refuge in the mid 90s because he did a zine called Refuge and played in the Scranton straightedge-pop-punk band Bedford with Chris Sleboda from Andrew Thomas Company lol. Somewhere along the line he must have discovered The Locust and turned into, well, THIS. Yuck.

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Orchid is another seminal skramz band that I had never listened to until 10 seconds ago when I looked them up on the Youtubes, but I used to talk to Will Dandy back in the day when he wrote for Punk Planet and was in a grindcore band called Laceration. He helped me interview Mike from Capitalist Casualties in 1994 and was generally a rad dude.

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Jeromes Dream honestly just sounds like static to me (and not in a good way like Anal Cunt or 7 Minutes of Nausea), but I guess they are also worshipped by skramz kids?? This shit was after my time so I don't listen to it but apparently this bro I know named Forbes put out their record; he was also in a sweet band called XThoughtstreamX that u should peep.

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My bro William Werner was the singer for this band Saetia which as I understand it are worshipped by kids who like teh skramz. I have honestly never heard them until 45 seconds ago when I found this on Youtube but he can definitely shriek with the best of them! He was also in a band called Hot Cross that I heard once and liked better than this.

90s screamo was all about 7"s that came in very authentic packaging, such as the Heroin 7". It came in a hand-screened sleeve made out of a paper bag. It can be expensive on eBay, but it's worth the price for this 7" because it is possible that notable San Diego rock personality Justin Pearson pulled the squeegee across your copy!!

The graphics on 1993 Antioch Arrow 7" cover were stenciled on with spray paint-- super authentic!! I know it is hard to replicate that kind of aesthetic on yr band's MySpace but do the best u can within the limits of digital media. mb try spray-painting directly onto the screen of your Macbook??

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This is the skramz equivalent of Old Skull. If this band released a 7" on Ebullition in 1993, my friends and I would have declared it the best thing ever recorded. Especially if it came in a hand-screened paper bag cover.


Here are some pictures of the infamous Pittsburgh fest in 1996. It is perhaps the definitive documentation of tru 90s skramz, so study this shit carefully!!! In attendance were a host of skramz luminaries such as SYWH & Metal Inquisition bro/Fate of Icarus bassist David Duncil and American Eagle art director/designer of the Hal Al Shedad 7" cover Philip Dwyer. Please note the ghey fggt in the upper left CRYING-- a very popular activity at 90s skramz shows!

I cannot think of a better example of TEH SKRAMZ LYFE than the absurd antics of Rent America at the Pittsburgh fest, and I am proud/ashamed to say I was there for every moment of it. Via BCO:

chrisstrunk2 posted this on June 23rd, 2005 @ 4:40:00 pm
Rent America are responsible for the most absurd performance I saw of this era. They took awhile to set up, then they literally played a blast beat for like two seconds, and then they were all on the floor crying and rolling and crawling around. No more music was played. Also, the singer made a speech about refusing to use a microphone because it was elitist and placed him above the crowd before they played, so for the two seconds they played he was just yelling into the air. They were just lying on the floor crying for awhile, and then one of them started yelling "the worms...the worms..oh my god...the worms" and made this teary eyed speech about how because of the human race putting concrete and asphalt all over the earth when it rains the worms come out and can't find their way back to the earth and die in the sun on the concrete. At this point, people just started laughing and the rest of the set was spent by Rent America yelling at the crowd for not taking them seriously and about how it took so much guts to show that emotion in front of a crowd.

After that, Agnes Moraine's Autobiography played and took forever to set up. The guitarist tuned for 20 minutes, then they played half a song, and he threw his guitar across the room and fell on the floor crying. I walked out at that point.

tom posted this on June 24th, 2005 @ 8:29:24 am
The only detail strunk forgot from the Pittsburgh fest is Puritan's drummer grabbing one of his drum mics and yelling "95% of you should have a knife stuck in your neck."

My bff/former roommate BloodyGuts took the photos above and remembers this fest as vividly as I do. She has a Constantine Sankathi tattoo and used to date/eff Makeoutclub founder Gibby, so you should follow her on Twitter and ask her annoying questions about 90s screamo.


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This Universal Order of Armageddon show is everything I hated about 90s hardcore: pretentious dickbags in tight pants screaming about their soul being on fire or whatever to a bunch of other pretentious dickbags who are all trying to win the Spock lookalike contest. Oh, and the music is noisy, tuneless garbage that sounds like a four year old having a tantrum while someone throws a drumset down their parents' stairs.

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While many ppl would accuse Circa Survive of being FALSE SKRAMZ, they are fully backed by SYWH and I will fight you if you talk shit on them. I got absolutely shitfaced with Anthony at 10:30 AM on a Tuesday no more than 15 minutes after I met him, and I have spent many hours praising Sepultura and Life of Agony with Brendan. They are hella mass tight bros of SYWH and legit as fuck. Also, it was pretty funny how after Anthony quit Saosin they got some shitbag/ass hole to replace him who basically just does an Anthony Green impersonation, only without being a rad dude with great stage presence-- FRONTMAN FAIL!


Does he know how much the dickface No Fun Clubbers at Ebullition would h8 him and his band?? I hope that one of those jerks sees this pic and gets super bummed that a bro from a pop band has one of their shirts. I hope they kick themselves for spending the 90s trying to bum everybody out instead of hanging out on the beach with awesome dudes like Alex.

Were u around for "the birth of screamo" like I was?? Do u h8 false screamo? What is ur favorite skramz band? Do u think Anthony Green is to blame for modern screamo? Should Fight Fair do a Warped Tour-exclusive skramz EP with covers of Spitboy, Manumission, Second Story Window and Downcast????????