Schooled on the likes of Agnostic Front, The Abused, Cro-Mags and Kraut, the band Judge was a child raised by the village of the prime New York hardcore scene, with Washington D.C.’s Bad Brains as co-parent. Mike “Judge” Ferraro spent formative years in the ’80s traveling from New Jersey to New York’s legendary CBGB, absorbing the sounds and the culture of a restless city until his turn to step forward.
Ferraro started out as the drummer for Youth of Today. A trip to Florida while in another band launched his transformation into Mike Judge. As Ferraro told Noisey in 2016, he found himself on the road, lying in a van in a junkyard, lyrics spilling out of him, and realized he needed a different outlet. He and fellow Youth of Today member John Porcell formed Judge, and the quiet guy behind the drum kit found his voice, igniting and influencing hardcore crowds of his own through the band bearing his adopted his name.
The sheer force of Judge’s music misleads many into believing they are a militant group. Ferraro told Noisey that Judge’s lyrical style came from “Drug Free Youth” by The Abused, which taught him that the only way not to self-destruct was to yell about it to himself: “So a lot of the things you hear in Judge where people thought I was being militant and telling people how to live; it was basically me trying to tell myself how to live.”
Judge disbanded in 1991, notably after a Judge crowd became too violent for all the wrong reasons. Rumors spread, but no, Ferraro didn’t join the Hell’s Angels. He pursued other projects and a life outside of music, and revived Judge with Porcell in 2013.
The songs haven’t changed — the Judge discography, aside from reissues, stops at 1991— but they have lasted. In 2025 Judge is topping a bill in Miami with younger kindred acts: West Palm Beach-Gainesville hardcore legends Culture, South Florida powerviolence group Lethal Injection, South Florida thrash metal-hardcore crossover group Agitate, and midwest heavy hardcore group No Grave.
Judge perform 7pm Saturday, April 5 at Gramps in Miami. instagram.com/judge_nyhc ~ Erik Kvarnberg
