Together We Stand, Alone
A public thank you to Lou Koller and Sick of It All.
By the winter of 1990, I was obsessed with hardcore music and everything that surrounded it. The creativity, the personalities, the emotion, the physicality. It completely captivated me.
At home I’d blast every record I owned: Corrosion of Conformity, Misfits, Agnostic Front, imagining what it would be like to stand in front of those bands someday. I devoured Thrasher, Maximum Rocknroll, and every fanzine I could get my hands on, hoping each one would point me toward something new.
On school days, my Walkman rarely left my side. My collection and my knowledge grew as friends and I dubbed tapes and traded records. For years I’d sneak a headphone into class, no easy feat in those days, tuning out everything around me while NYHC compilations, Cro-Mags, Sick of It All, Leeway, and Suicidal Tendencies became the soundtrack of my life.
By the spring of 1991, Jeff Feinburg and I had started making noise together. Eventually that would become Converge. Eventually we could stumble our way through covers by the Misfits, Maelstrom, Eye For An Eye, Minor Threat, and Slapshot before finally attempting our own early songs.
Back then we idolized the older punks and skins in town. They gathered at the park uptown and told stories from what already felt like another era, Boston, Rhode Island, and Connecticut between 1984 and 1988. Tales of fights, fake IDs, and legendary venues like The Channel, Bunrattys, The Rat, and Green Street Station. Stories about Gang Green, SSD, Black Flag, the Misfits, and bands we’d only read about, but desperately wished we’d seen.
That summer and fall we went to every show we could find. The more we saw, the deeper the obsession became. We chased shows through the suburbs and into Boston, all the while dreaming about making the pilgrimage to New York City and finally seeing a proper show at CBGB.
The deeper we went, the more each of us fell in love with hardcore in our own way. Even then, we recognized we were witnessing something special: an explosion of creativity, personalities, and conviction that felt too real to be fiction.
To us, New York City was the true center of it all.
In December of 1991, I spotted a flyer hanging at Newbury Comics.
Without thinking, I tore one from the bulletin board and folded it into my jacket pocket. I must have looked at that flyer a hundred times before the show finally arrived.
It was my dream show.
Agnostic Front were legends. I had nearly worn out my copy of ‘Live at CBGBs’.
Sick of It All felt like they were leading a new generation, riding the momentum of their latest record.
Wrecking Crew were our regional heroes, a perfect collision of hardcore and crossover thrash at the height of their powers.
And it would also be Boston’s first chance to see Burn, a band we’d only heard whispered about from Gavin from Absolution.
We had to be there.
As the weekend approached, the news warned of a major winter storm. By Saturday, snow and ice had buried much of Massachusetts. It looked unlikely, but there was never any question. I was going.
We caught the train Sunday morning, about a half-hour ride into Boston. Outside the windows, snow and ice swirled violently as we sped toward the city. From North Station we took the T to South Station before making the final walk.
Crossing the Necco Street Bridge, gray slush poured over the tops of my sneakers. My socks were soaked before we even reached the club, but I couldn’t have cared less. We reached the club half frozen and joined a small crowd gathered outside the entrance. Some were familiar faces we’d seen at previous shows, everyone buzzing with the feeling that something unforgettable was about to happen.
The house lights disappeared. Before my eyes could adjust, Burn crashed into their first song.
Loose, urgent, and completely alive, they commanded the room. Gavin’s intensity paired with Chaka Malik’s poetry felt unlike anything I’d experienced before. Standing there, I felt like I was witnessing the birth of a third generation of hardcore.
It was extraordinary.
Then Wrecking Crew hit.
They were always incredible, but that evening felt different. They played with something to prove. You could sense they wanted to earn respect from their New York peers, and by the end of the set, they absolutely had.
Then came the moment that changed my life.
As Sick of It All prepared to play, I noticed Lou and their bass player both wearing the same Wrecking Crew long sleeve I’d bought only minutes earlier.
It was a small thing.
But it stayed with me.
Before I had words and understanding of it, I watched bands support one another. That simple gesture taught me something I’ve carried ever since. This was a community, not merely entertainment. We are here to lift each other up.
Then the room exploded.
The opening notes of “Clobberin’ Time” sent the entire floor into motion. Every song carried a sense of frustration, resilience, and belonging that connected directly to the confused, isolated kid I was trying to make sense of the world.
For the first time, I felt understood and part of something.
Before I had time to catch my breath, Agnostic Front took the stage.
It was Roger Miret’s first tour after serving his prison sentence and one of Matt Henderson’s earliest with the band. At one point they even brought Stigma’s dog onto the stage. It was a wild scene.
What struck me most, though, was seeing members of every other band gathered along the sides of the stage, watching Agnostic Front with the same admiration the audience felt.
There was no ego.
Just respect for the Godfathers of Hardcore.
It felt like hardcore against the world, and for one night, we were winning.
For the rest of the evening I threw myself across the floor, dancing until every ounce of rage was gone. For the first time in my life, I felt like I’d found my people.
As the show ended, I spotted Lou Koller standing near stage right wearing a Slapshot shirt.
I nervously walked over and told him my friends and I had started a band. We exchanged a few words before he smiled and simply said,
“Keep doin’ it, man.”
That was it.
On the ride home, I made a decision that would shape the rest of my life.
I was going to dedicate myself to art and music.
All of the people who stood on that stage that night made that decision possible.
From that day on, I went to see Sick of It All anytime I could in New England.
Over the decades, the paths of Converge and many of those New York hardcore bands crossed from time to time. We’d share festivals and occasional shows, especially overseas. I was fortunate enough to tell many of them just how much their music meant to me.
I never had the chance to remind Lou about those few words he shared with a nervous kid during a snowstorm in 1991.
In 2020, Sick of It All and Converge were scheduled to tour Latin America together. I had been looking forward to finally sharing that experience with them. Instead, the pandemic brought everything to a halt. Soon afterward, Lou became ill, and the band’s music was forced to pause while his personal fight continued.
Thank you, Sick of It All.
Thank you for helping me discover the life I’ve been fortunate enough to live.
Every band that has ever stood on a stage with Converge exists, in some small way, because a handful of people once stood on a stage for us.
Lou probably forgot our conversation before the next person walked over to him.
I never did.
More than thirty years later, I still hear those four words.
Keep doin’ it, man.
Sometimes it isn’t the grand moments that change your life, it can be the small conversations. It all depends on how, and when, you hear them.
Converge, on tour;
11/07 San Diego CA Dia De Los Deftones
w/ Sanguisugabogg, Black Braid, Pupil Slicer
12.11.26 Germany Munich Backstage
13.11.26 Germany Karlsruhe Substage
14.11.26 Netherlands Eindoven Helldorado
15.11.26 France Strasbourg La Laiterie
16.11.26 France Paris Le Bataclan
18.11.26 UK Leeds Project House
19.11.26 UK Bristol Electric Bristol
20.11.26 Scotland Glasgow TV Studio SWG3
21.11.26 UK Nottingham Rock City
22.11.26 UK London Electric Brixton
12/12 - 13 Boston MA Saddest Day 2026
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Beautifully written. Thank you for sharing this.
I was a metal kid who got into hardcore through bands like SOIA around 93/94. They were always a force live too. I loved the ‘scratch the surface’ record so much that I redesigned the cd cover in high school art class one day. From memory it was a bunch of stencils of the live shots from the inlay with the logo in the middle. The teacher was a cool surfer dude who wanted to connect with the kids but when he heard the music he asked me: do you have problems at home? Haha