Grudge City Activities

The Summer of 2008 was difficult on the hardcore community in Utah. There wasn’t much left of a scene that was once packed with fans, musicians, and genuine veterans of the movement. Trevor Hale (Cherem, Tamerlane), Dan Fletcher (Skeiff d’ Bargg, City to City, First Blood), and Sias Parsons all agreed on that point. The three spent many similar summers attempting to maintain a fire in the scene that they helped solidify in the late 90s by booking shows at consistent venues.

These veterans of the Salt Lake hardcore community, are the same guys who uploaded the first post to grudgecityactivities.com in July 2008. According to Hale the purpose of the site is to document “anything that has to do with Salt Lake City hardcore, past and present.”

The major contributors to GCA are all still active in the scene that they found as teenagers. Parsons is a show promoter and booker who also supportively toured with several bands other GCA founders were in. Hale has been recording guitar on Tamerlane’s second album and playing with Collapse, and Fletcher still works within the hardcore community as a member of the GCA team—a vital asset to the community even though he currently lives and works in New York City. Their backgrounds are diverse, but their musical foundations are similar. “I thought Kurt Cobain was God in elementary school and when I heard him talk about Black Flag’s influence, I snatched up Damaged without a second thought.” Fletcher says, “That record set it off.”

Parsons was also a fan of punk rock and would catch a bus or get a ride from Ogden to Salt Lake to watch shows, eventually leaving behind punk for a more heavy element: “Hardcore was the next logical step in my musical evolution,” he says. Hale has a similar experienced, “My taste started with punk, Propagandhi, Misfits… and the stuff gradually got heavier. The first time I heard Integrity it just blew my mind. Earth Crisis was a big influence [too],” Hale says.

The vegan-straight edge band, Earth Crisis seemed to be on the stereo of all these guys in the late 90s, and on the news, too: “I remember seeing footage from an Earth Crisis show in Salt Lake on America’s Most Wanted and thinking it was the coolest thing I’d ever seen,” Fletcher says.

Though the majority of the GCA staff is vegan, they don’t highlight that fact at all on the site—it’s not their goal to preach. They feel the same way about the straight-edge lifestyle as well, “Everyone that runs that site is straight edge and has been forever but that’s not a focus of the site,” Hale says. Parsons agrees: “We’re not trying to promote straight edge, that’s just who we are.”

Politics aside, these local guys started seeing more Utah-based bands emerge in the current decade. Hale recalls falling in musical love with locals Triphammer and Lifeless and Fletcher can chart his local band love affairs, “Clear, Climb, Triphammer, Deadfall. They introduced me to heavy, metallic hardcore,” he says.

Eventually Fletcher got behind the local band Cherem, which he and Hale eventually joined. “I remember thinking Cherem was the coolest band to ever exist when I was in high school.” Fletcher initially saw the band play at a coffee shop called Undergroundz that was located between Lost Art Tattoo and Uprok and was inspired by their stance on consuming animals. “I went vegetarian at 15 and then I caught this band saying, ‘cut the crap, go vegan ... and do something to end the suffering of animals while you’re at it.’ That was so heavy for me…kids channeling their convictions directly into music as a catalyst for action. I was so honored to join that band a few years later.”

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Comments on this article

Posted on December 8, 2009 by matty temps

we're thriving over here in the boston area, stay strong brothers.

Posted on March 8, 2010 by vx.Devan.xv

These guys are true heros to the scene. We need to continue to life up utah hardcore and show people that through thick and thin we will always be here. I'd rather go to a City To City or a Dead As Lions show more than i would want to go to any majorly promoted show. and i think the youth in the scene today dont understand that its not about the money or the girls. its about the true brotherhood and feeling of that hardcore brings to us. Without guys like this i wouldnt be edge and i for sure wouldnt have ever considered being a Vegan. But here iam. and proud to be. Bring Back DIY Hardcore Ethics!

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