Photo courtesy of Steven Grise
“Coming up listening to radio punk with my dad, finding hardcore was like the missing ingredient I never even knew I was looking for,” reflects Steven Grise, the one-man media operation based out of Southern California, otherwise known as 197 Media. Grise discovered his love for hardcore music at a young age and has held it close ever since.
“I believe it was somewhere around sixth or seventh grade,” he says. “I had some new friends I made that invited me to my first gig at Showcase Theater (RIP) in Corona, California. At the time, I remember being infatuated with the chaos, intensity, and straight up anger in it.”
Years later, Grise gained more inspiration to feed into what would ultimately become his own media endeavor. Witnessing the singer of his old band, Gabe Ochoa, recording bands live when they would go on tour, is what Grise links his initial inspiration for filming live music to.
On top of that, he recalls absorbing inspiration from old Hellfest DVDs and a This City Is Burning live label showcase DVD, which eventually led to Hate5six and other live videos online. Specifically, a Xibalba set from This Is Hardcore Fest.
“For the longest time, my biggest gripe with live videos online was that you could either find a video that looked great but didn’t sound good, or sounded great but didn’t look good,” Grise says. “That Xibalba set was the video that made me say, ‘Woah, so you can find a way to make the two happen in hardcore.’ This was also the video that introduced me to Hate5six and everything Sunny was doing around that time.”
In love with the idea of preserving live gigs, Grise utilized his GoPro and Flip HD cam earlier on to begin carrying out his mission. Then, around 2015, he upgraded and branded himself as 197 Media. Balancing his day job and running 197 has required Grise to adopt a concrete workflow, but working remotely since the pandemic has been a great way for him to ensure concert promptness.
He reveals that the moments he’s able to capture on video outweigh the stressors of being a one-man operation. Grise references a show he recently filmed at Chain Reaction for Terror’s tour with Drain, One Step Closer, and Dare.
“Angel, the singer of Dare, brought his little brother out to the gig and he got to go on stage and do guest vocals during an Inside Out cover from One Step Closer,” Grise says. “It was such a rad moment seeing him just go for it and turning over to my left to see Angel visibly proud and happy for him. Having that documented forever is just one of the many moments that keeps fueling the fire.”
Having had the opportunity to film plenty of hardcore heavy hitters such as Madball, The Acacia Strain, Terror, Knocked Loose, Jesus Piece, Xibalba, and many more, Grise acknowledges that every show has its own moments of magic—even more so since shows have returned after the pandemic.
“I think it just comes from the excitement of gigs being back finally,” he says. “The energy and atmosphere of the live show will always be something you can’t just replicate on an album. Whether it be a certain moment during the gig or song, it’s just something that you can never seem to get from the studio recording alone. Somehow it always finds a way to be even better live.”
Check out 197 Media’s video of Knocked Loose live last month: