Krishnacore Film Details Hare Krishna Influenced Punk In The 1980s

Back in the 1980s, a number of hardcore punk bands mostly in the New York area began to be influenced by Hare Krishna and Hindu ideas. They formed a pseudo-genre of their own, dropping out of the existing hardcore scenes to pursue a life of relative sanity and create music that channeled raw rage into a more meditative outlook.

A group of filmmakers recently decided to revive interest in this somewhat forgotten time period with a documentary film. The teaser has just been released, and can be viewed here:

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19 thoughts on “Krishnacore Film Details Hare Krishna Influenced Punk In The 1980s”

  1. I'm black says:

    Oh dear, more forgotten trend punk from way back. Lemme guess! There’s a thriving krishnacore scene in some delapidated city USA? Fuck it

  2. death metal slug says:

    This might be interesting, though I sense that it’s aimed more toward folks who didn’t know that krishnacore was ever a thing

    But if you were into hardcore at all in the 90s this shit was unavoidable. 108 and shelter were pretty big in the early oughties and I even remember Krishna dudes handing out pamphlets outside of shows where no krishnacore bands were even playing, cuz it’s not like they had any kind of insular scene

    But I will probably watch this anyway cuz i’m curious about where those dudes went. I assumed they just gracefully faded out from the scene and are living quietly, but their retrospectives might be enlightening, sincea lot of them had pretty extreme perspectives but managed to avoid embarrassing themselves somehow

    1. canadaspaceman says:

      I got way,way more into metal by the late 1980s.
      My invites to hardcore gigs by out of town bands kept getting lower.
      I barely heard of Shelter in 1990, and finally , when somebody played a CD, I could not give a crap.
      Weird, as i was a pacifist at the time, but the hardcore scene was also changing.
      Started getting anti-metal again.
      They probably didn’t want guys around that also worshiped Ted Nugent and Megadeth.

      1. death metal slug says:

        Maybe that’s what the scene at large was like but the handful of hardcore dudes I knew were indifferent to or cool with metal

        One of them got me to listen to emperor for the first time

        We listened to the knuckle dragging retardcore anyway like 25 ta life unironically, that shit’s pretty “problematic”

    2. UrmTheMad says:

      >But if you were into hardcore at all in the 90s this shit was unavoidable

      Tell me how the 90s scene was sampai

      1. death metal slug says:

        I mean if you picked up any of those label sample discs that were given away for free at shows and with other discs or shirts or whatever, then you had some krishnacore on disc most likely

        And if you listened to hardcore at all then you would probably have run across one of those discs

        Otherwise there is nothing to say about hardcore in the 90s except for spazz and charles bronson though I know you were just clowning

        And it’s spelled sempai fuckin baka

        1. UrmTheMad says:

          >And it’s spelled sempai fuckin baka

          How rude.

  3. Mountaineer says:

    Interesting enough, many of the Krishna dudes turned out OK. Ray and Porcell from Shelter lived what they preached and goddamn if both of them both look health as shit and not a year over 30.

    Shelter has some reunion shows coming up this year too.

    1. Mountaineer says:

      ln addition, I’ve seen 108 a few times and they are one of the heaviest fucking bands I have ever seen.

  4. whatever is dead says:

    bardo bums

  5. NWN War Metal Tranny Rapist says:

    This is shemale music!

  6. the poopagogue says:

    white people embracing religions from the other side of the world that they have no authentic cultural connection to is maximum cringe.

    1. T. Desecration says:

      Very Indo-European!

    2. forced to twerk says:

      Like amerimutts larping as vikings?

      1. miserable modern reactionary says:

        I don’t understand.

    3. Marc Defranco says:

      You can make this argument about anything

      1. jerk on the subway says:

        George Zbrudi ramonamarahowas likes paki pssy

        kiss my ass Hawthorne you fake

  7. Marc Defranco says:

    Hmm to me hardcore/punk has always been based too far into reality. Never able to go beyond the physical/political making it hard for me to listen to, especially now. Also the political aspect was always too simple, anarchy, communism, open borders and what not instead of looking at underlying aspects that are in the roots of humanity. Only few bands move past this to me like Amebix. Maybe these krishnacore guys were on to something

  8. The Spoiler says:

    No Cro-Mags in this doc = no documentary.
    Krishna years before Shelter and 108.

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