Gorilla Biscuits
Hard to believe that when Walter Schreifels wrote the lyric, “And I’m trying my hardest/ to make the most out of every minute/Not getting any younger/Getting older. It’s scary,” 30-plus years later his band would still be touring.
The song, “Time Flies,” is from in the 1989 classic Gorilla Biscuits hardcore album, “Start Today.” It touched on the precarity those young NYC punks felt like they were facing under the influence of the Reagan ’80s as they braced for the century’s last decade.
What they did not account for at the time — who could? — is what a unifying force Gorilla Biscuits would become in the hardcore punk world. Formed by Arthur Smilos and charismatic singer Anthony “Civ” Civarelli in 1987, Gorilla Biscuits arose from the same restless need to find community and to vent that also yielded Agnostic Front, Judge, Warzone and Sick of It All.
Gorillia Biscuits also became an unlikely cash cow for Revelation Records, based on demand for their short, scarce catalog: a 1988 self-titled 7-inch and then “Start Today.” But no matter, because ragers like “Degradation,” “Things We Say,” and “New Direction,” with its bugle horn call to action, have stood the test of time, reenergizing each regeneration of hardcore.
More than providing a blueprint and, in a way, codifying an aesthetic, the band’s biggest contribution to the genre was seeding New York’s post-hardcore scene: Schreifels as the founding frontman of Quicksand, peers of the mighty Fugazi and Helmet in the annals of post-hardcore sounds; and Civ and Smilios with the aptly named, high-energy punk rock outfit CIV that turned heads on Beavis and Butt-head and Nissan commercials in the late ’90s.
Now joined by former Judge drummer Luke Abbey and former CIV guitarist Charlie Garriga, Gorilla Biscuits are keeping the racket going without diminishing in range. Their iconic grinning ape logo, with its Quaalude-sized Chiclet teeth, is grinning wider and harder than ever. New hardcore kids will be stoked, older heads might want to preemptively slather on the IcyHot, circle pit’s gonna be nonstop.
Gorilla Biscuits with Beyond Reason, Xcelerate and Collateral perform 7pm Tuesday, November 7 at Gramps in Miami. gorillabiscuits.bandcamp.com ~ Abel Folgar
