JOHN’S GUIDE: TURNSTILE
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I would say that I know a little bit about music, but there’s a lot of gaps in my knowledge. This isn’t the definitive guide… It’s just John’s Guide.
I always figured that when I finally gave up on my delusional music dreams, I would start projecting those ambitions onto a sports team. While I did enjoy the Milwaukee Bucks 2021 championship run, that didn’t happen. Something more depressing happened. I started watching a ton of Turnstile videos on YouTube.
You’ve likely heard of Turnstile. Since the release of 2021’s Glow On, they’ve become the rare hardcore band that gets nominated for Grammys and plays headlining shows for thousands. They have done the NPR Tiny Desk Concert and gotten Best New Music from Pitchfork and put songs in Taco Bell ads. They are currently on tour supporting Blink-182. If you pay attention to punk, you’re likely sick of them.
From the second I heard the mostly DMV-based band, I knew they were on to something. Though many in hardcore were clowning them for their latent 311 and Red Hot Chilli Peppers influences, those funky flourishes were what drew me in. Back in 2014, it took a lot for me to get excited about a meat-and-potatoes East Coast hardcore band. But Turnstile were fucking around within the narrow parameters of the genre, and they were getting away with it.
In the time since, I’ve witnessed them break through the popularity ceiling that is usually present for any hipster-approved hardcore band. I’ve seen their music open up and foster a fanbase that extends beyond the genre. I’ve seen the backlash to that accessibility and the backlash to that backlash. But there will be no excruciating discussion of “gatekeeping” here. This blog post will be embarrassing in a different way.
Turnstile’s trajectory is amazing. They developed from a tough guy hardcore band to an act whose music and mastery of branding—both sonic and visual—have allowed them to move through culture in a singular style. I’m following them like a sports team.
Live at Ethical Humanist Society Long Island, NY 12/17/11
Turnstile’s been a charmed band from the beginning. Before they started, singer Brendan Yates was already making a name for himself as the drummer of the Madball-esque Baltimore band Trapped Under Ice. At the time of this set, Turnstile had been around for less than two years, but their music was already hitting with the kids who liked TUI. They quickly became popular on the East Coast hardcore circuit. Here, Yates wears a headband and takes off his shirt and gets into some interesting stage moves. At one point, he zips up his fly. It’s the band at their most straightforward, playing well-executed NYHC in a well-lit rental hall for a crowd of stagediving kids in hoodies and snapbacks.
“7/Keep It Moving/The Things You Do (Live at West Side Park, Nanticoke, PA 2/16/14)”
There are more exciting early Turnstile videos I could pick, but this set inside of what looks looks like a recreation center in a small Pennsylvania town seems notable: Yates and then-guitarist Sean Cullen both wear colorful Jams-style Bermuda shorts, which is something that I associate with Faith No More or maybe Paper Rad, not a 2010s-style East Coast hardcore band. That small gesture points to the band’s early intelligence. It’s a calculated aesthetic risk aimed at mildly prodding their core community without alienating themselves from it. It’s an inside joke executed with a poker face. It’s the kind of move they have been perfecting for their entire run.
This video was my first exposure to Turnstile. The band’s groovy alt-hardcore sound and funky punky ‘90s visual style seemed almost tailor-made to fuel certain convoluted ideas I had been developing about contemporary rap rock. Turnstile has always been one of those Rorschach-style bands—not that Rorschach—whose sound is in the eye of the beholder. Some might say Rage Against The Machine; others might say Bad Brains. I’ve heard Quicksand and Third Eye Blind and Living Colour and Madball and Incubus and Jane’s Addiction. Their name itself is probably a nod to the Queens band Token Entry. Ultimately, they never twist too hard in any given direction. If I were in Turnstile, I probably would’ve added turntable scratching to this song. Which is why I am not in Turnstile.
Live at St Stephens Church in Washington, DC 10/29/2016
Flash forward to a week or so before the 2016 election: Turnstile is playing a DC venue made legendary by multiple Fugazi shows. Yates’ pre-show speech seems to tacitly acknowledge a different side of the DMVHC legacy, one more connected to politically informed post-hardcore and less to grown men in basketball jerseys beating the shit out of each other. It’s an example of the band’s ability to move through multiple communities—drummer Daniel Fang still plays in the Revolution Summer-esque band Praise; another melodic DC band, Give, seems to have been a major influence on post-2013 Turnstile, both in sound and vibe—taking imagery and inspiration from everywhere and resting it on a bed of mosh. There’s a new rhythm guitarist here, Patrick McCrory, who comes from the Trapped Under Ice spinoff Angel Du$t. It’s another example of the band excavating their community for the best players and ideas.
Live at Revolution, Amityville, NY 1/26/18
One nice thing about hardcore is that it often incubates outside of major cities. This is the second Long Island show I’ve included here. The cheesy drone shot that opens this video is uncomfortably evocative to me. When you are deep in subculture, the right town on the right night can carry a disproportionate amount of weight. Every Turnstile show feels like they pulled up to the gig in a speeding van. I get the same feeling watching old Clash videos. Here they run through songs from their then-forthcoming record Time & Space. Around this point, Turnstile played a show four blocks away from my apartment. I was already a big fan. I didn’t go. A confusing choice, looking back at it… Not unlike my desire to write this blog post.
Live at About Studio, Bangkok, Thailand 7/1/2018
Even though Pitchfork panned it, Time & Space succeeded in broadening the band’s scope and popularity. Turnstile’s visual presence continued to ramp up, too. Someone had to properly outfit a new generation of post-Hypebeast hardcore kids. Somehow related to this: Time & Space has a Diplo collaboration. YouTube is full of footage of the band ripping up crazed shows around the world; one durable throughline in their live history is the fact that Yates almost always ends up shirtless. I would be curious to know his lifting regimen.
Turnstile continued to tour until the pandemic forced them to stop. They used this uncharacteristic break to hole up in a Nashville studio with the superproducer Mike Elizondo, a protege of Dr. Dre who has worked with everyone from Fiona Apple to Mastodon. The end result would be Glow On, which perfected the ideas incubated on their first two full-length albums. Through the power of riffs and hooks and context, Turnstile built a record that allowed them to move between Pitchfork and butt rock radio; between tours with rappers and massive South American festivals. This three-song short film kicked off the album cycle. It looks less like a hardcore video and more like an especially tasteful Levi's ad.
“Holiday (Live on Jimmy Kimmel Live, 2022)”
Despite its outsized acclaim, Glow On was really just the logical next click on the accessibility meter. The formula had been building from the jump. It’s wild that it took certain people so long to see it. Was all it took to push them over the edge a couple Zoomer pop tunes and a Blood Orange collab? This performance is good, but it’s not Fear on SNL or Tyler on Fallon. Live, Turnstile is a vehicle for dancing. Yates is probably the best hardcore frontman of his generation, and each member has their own moves and drip—rare for a rock band. But compared to other acts on their level, the members of Turnstile still exist as ciphers. The band’s lyrics, too, seem to cryptically allude to ambition and intra-scene positioning, but you don’t get much. They are fairly blank in interviews. Turnstile is activated inside the mosh.
“Blackout (Live at Glastonbury 2022)”
It's always been a dream of mine to create a cultural vehicle sturdy enough to move through contexts without changing the core tenet that makes it special. Turnstile has actually achieved this, and all without an outsized frontman driving an outrage-based online news cycle. Here they have a new touring lead guitarist, a shredder named Greg from a band called Take Offense, and they decimate the most famous festival in the world with a riff good enough that the crowd sings it back to them. "Blackout" is notable for its percussive ending, which sounds like go-go to me. The band has also been throwing out some subtle nods to Baltimore club. Very subtle.
“Turnstile Love Channel - 42 (LA BMO Stadium)”
Over the past few months, Turnstile has been on tour with Blink-182. Now with another new touring guitarist—Meg Mills from Big Cheese and Chubby and the Gang has stepped in on rhythm while McCrory has shifted to lead; I feel like a sports reporter, what am I doing with my life—the band soldiers on, approaching the third year of the Glow On album cycle. Turnstile has been doing these John Wilson-via-Heavy Metal Parking Lot-style YouTube show recaps for some time now, but this video is the first one they have done on the Blink run. Hardcore seems to be in an interesting place. New bands pop up and rise at a pace that portends a burnout for the scene. There may never be another Turnstile. We started at an Ethical Humanist Society on Long Island and ended at a stadium in Los Angeles.