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Mayday, Mayday, Christmas Day, Columbus Day
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I would say this site is pretty much finally done. It's always getting updated though. I don't know ... fuckin get involved or something.
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July 2nd, 2006
Here's the deal, Pittsburgh. Let me explain some things.
Ever since I've been going to shows in this area ... it's been nothing but one big roller coaster ride with this scene. I can't really speak for anything before my time, but when I started coming to smaller DIY shows in the year 2000 ... there would be a consistent 14/15 kids at every Millvale Industrial Theater show. A bunch of my friends started getting involved and by the time the place got shut down in late 2001 ... shows were consistently around 80-100 people. Of course, the MIT got shut down due to health code violations (who would've imagined?) and all shows ended up going to Edinboro/Erie area instead of coming to Pittsburgh. The only shows we had left to attend were overpriced/over-secured shows at Club Laga in the company of the eternal lines of frat boys that exist in Oakland. This is where Planet Of The Apes came into play. Being sick of paying $12 every show to see one decent band, I took things into my own hands and stripped everything down to the bare essentials. Those bare essentials being DIY touring bands in a shitty 3 car garage. We were back to packing shows with up to 120 kids again. As with all illegal venues, we reached our limit and were then shut down. This time around ... nothing picked up in its place. The only person who would step up to do any sort of show was Diggums from Built Upon Frustration who singlehandedly kept the scene alive for quite some time by consistently taking the initiative to find a new bar every time the one before it wanted nothing to do with hardcore due to the fights that would go down. However, with no centralized location for shows, attendances started dropping again. In an attempt to revitalize the scene, the House Of Hardcore opened up. While there were some incredible shows at the venue ... the combination of the hour's worth of construction to get through and the police of the area ended the House Of Hardcore very abruptly. Shows were happening at The World during this little streak, but considering we were dealing with the same person behind Club Laga ... things weren't any different than before. Douchebags bouncers made it nearly impossible for anyone with half of a ballsack to have any sort of fun at the shows. Things ended at this venue with Stillborn Fest 2004 and we were once again, left without a place to call home. This is where The Mr Roboto Project came into play. Throughout all of the aforementioned "time periods", Roboto was consistently holding the occasional hardcore show. However, it wasn't until the summer of 2005 that Roboto became the unofficial home of the Pittsburgh Hardcore scene. Every show was consistently pulling in over 80 kids and being an awesome time for everyone involved. This is, of course, around the same time that hardcore started being promoted in the mall and on MySpace. Things started getting weird ... a lot of kids started getting involved with themselves and not really contributing to anything except their own bands. I digress, however, to the fact that shows at Roboto were being consistently awesome. So awesome, in fact, that it was coming to the point where shows were almost out-growing the capacity at Roboto. The Oakland Cafe started picking up some of the shows that weren't going to fit in Roboto. Feeling as if there was FINALLY a large enough "market" for another venue, I decided it was time to re-dedicate my life to hardcore and go full time with my own venue. Things were lined up to the point of only needing to sign the lease. Unexpectedly, however, things started changing very drastically ... it was almost as if someone flicked the "Kill Hardcore" switch. Shows at Roboto instantly dropped to an average of 25 kids. 10 other promoters in the area decided they wanted to come in and make a quick buck off of doing "hardcore concerts". For some reason, there would end up being 30 shows on the same night ... every night. (NOTE: I credit this to the fact that all of the "new" kids never took the time to meet anyone else who's been involved in the scene for a while in order to coordinate, to some extent, the shows that they book). Everything pretty much fell apart all at one time. To the point where shows at The Oakland Cafe were actually being cancelled due to the fact that UNDER 10 people would show up.
Now, maybe this is just yet another loop of the cycle of Pittsburgh Hardcore ... but for some reason, everything feels different this time. The old kids are seemingly forgetting what support is and the new kids don't care enough to go anywhere that isn't going to be the social gathering of the year. I've COMPLETELY scrapped all plans for my venue. On top of this, I am taking a step out of the booking game. I'm sick of constantly paying out of my pocket for shows that I'm not even enjoying anymore. I'm also sick of being embarassed at the turnouts that these touring bands have been receiving as of late. This fight isn't worth it for me anymore. It gets to be really disheartening to fight a war that you know is being lost on your end. I'm not really sure where things went wrong and, unlike any other time, I'll probably never know. I was really excited to completely dive into all of the things I had lined up for the scene in this area. I almost feel as if everyone has spit in my face for all of the effort I've put into this shit lately. I don't really know how to feel or what to do. But for now, there is no possible way that I could get a venue off of its feet, let alone to survive. I don't even feel comfortable booking my own shows anymore. I'm basically left with nothing except for my band right now. So, for now, at least ... hopefully someone will pick up the slack. I know there are plenty of people running shows all over the city right now ... but I feel absolutely no sense of community amongst everyone involved with "hardcore" right now. It almost seems as if everyone is out there competing over who can bring in the "sickest" bands or the "biggest" tours. I think the scene is far from being considered "dead", but at the same time, something doesn't feel right and I'm sick of trying to figure out what it is.
If anyone feels as if they can handle maintaining this site, feel free to contact me at killtheslavemaster@gmail.com and we can work things out to transfer the site over to you. As for now, I'm going to concentrate on trying to keep the Pittsburgh Hardcore MySpace up to date with show listings and whatnot. Sorry if this sounds depressing ... I've been trying my best to keep a positive outlook on this situation ... but things just got to the breaking point I suppose.
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