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**Table of Contents**

SPOKE

BAD BRAINS

THE TEEN IDLES

BLACK MARKET BABY

SOA

MINOR THREAT

GOVERNMENT ISSUE

VOID

IRON CROSS

THE FAITH

SCREAM

MARGINAL MAN

GRAY MATTER

BEEFEATER

KING FACE

RITES OF SPRING

DAG NASTY

EMBRACE

SOULSIDE

FIRE PARTY

SHUDDER TO THINK

IGNITION

FUGAZI

SWIZ

THE NATION OF ULYSSES

JAWBOX

BIOS

THANKS

Copyright and Credits

About Akashic Books

9th and F Streets, Washington, DC, 1981 (Ellie Moran)
There was nothing extraordinary about growing up just outside of Washington, DC, in the 1980s. But head south a few miles down Georgia Avenue into the heart of the city and you were at the epicenter of one of the country's most vibrant punk scenes—the birthplace of bands like Minor Threat, Bad Brains, Government Issue, Scream, and others. When I discovered at the age of twelve that these bands were playing in my backyard, my world changed. I was a skinny, nonathletic kid who wasn't particularly good at anything. So, much like I had with comic books and B movies before, I hunted down everything I could find on the subject—which at that point consisted of fanzines and a few record-store clerks who would answer my endless barrage of questions. It was that geeky preoccupation that led me to start a photocopied fanzine called _Metrozine_ in 1984. Published from my mother's kitchen table, it exposed me to a community that encouraged innovation, insurrection, and a DIY approach to life. At that point, anything (and everything) seemed possible.

This was always a story that I wanted to tell, and yet when I reflected on it, so much of it seemed like a Technicolor dream filled with cigarette smoke, feedback, sweat, and my own adolescent angst. It wasn't until I approached middle age that I was able to start to wrap my head around how deeply the scene impacted me and informed so many of the decisions that I'd made in my life. That's what led me to start filming _Salad Days_ —a documentary told ostensibly through my eyes, but ultimately through the voices that were there and/or inspired by the DC punk scene throughout the 1980s. Shortly after hatching the idea, I reached out to my longtime photographer friend Jim Saah (whose iconic photos of that period appear in the film and in this book)—like me, he was inspired by the music and the aesthetic of the DC community, and we began work on _Salad Days_ shortly thereafter.

As you can imagine, trying to cover every band and every personality was nearly impossible within the confines of a hundred-minute documentary film. With that in mind, I reached out to Akashic Books with the goal of exploring many of the bands featured in the film in a little more detail and in their own words. Over the course of almost four years, we interviewed over a hundred people for _Salad Days_ —and from those I culled many of the quotes that you see here. There were a few band members who chose to not be included—some thought they had little to add, while others had mixed feelings about their own experiences.

One thing I was constantly reminded of while making the movie was just how young we were. It's important to acknowledge that much of what we experienced was filtered through an adolescent lens—filled with self-doubt and a still-developing worldview—a fact particularly noteworthy given how self-assured and technically proficient much of the music was. It also helps explain some of the misconceptions (and misperceptions) of the era.

Much like the film, this book seeks to take a chronological look at the musicians who helped shape the DC scene throughout the decade. While _Spoke_ covers many of the bands in the film, it certainly doesn't include all of the musicians, artists, photographers, writers, and entrepreneurs who made the community come alive. I encourage you to seek out more information from sources like the DC Punk Archive (dclibrary.org/punk), the DC Punk and Indie Fanzine Collection (http://hdl.handle.net/1903.1/26175), and books like _Banned in DC, Dance of Days,_ and _Hard Art,_ for additional insights into what made the city so special.

Although both the movie and this book examine the past, neither is meant to serve as some kind of misty-eyed scrapbook. In the words of author/activist Mark Andersen, "Our salad days weren't then, they're now. They're _always_ now." — _Scott Crawford_

Scott crawfoRd, DC Space, DC, 1985 (JenN izza Fox-thomas)

Bad Brains, Hard Art, DC, 1979 (Lucian Perkins)
"I always thought if I'm going to be a singer, I gotta do it like HR." —HENRY ROLLINS

For all intents and purposes, Bad Brains is where the story of DC punk begins. Yes, White Boy, The Slickee Boys, The Nurses, and others came first. But the direct inspiration for local youths like Ian MacKaye and Henry Rollins to transform themselves—and their music—came from stumbling across the lightning-fast proto-thrash and intense commitment of Bad Brains in full flight at Madam's Organ (a DC venue), and the demo that would later be released as the _Black Dots_ LP.

Originally a jazz fusion/funk ensemble called Mind Power made up of Paul "HR" Hudson on vocals, Gary "Dr. Know" Miller on guitar, Darryl Jenifer on bass, and Paul's younger brother Earl on drums, they would be inspired by friend Sid McCray's introduction of the Sex Pistols, Dead Boys, and Ramones. And by their parents' ownership of books by Napoleon Hill, with the concept of PMA (positive mental attitude). Renaming themselves Bad Brains after a track on the fourth Ramones album, they shaped their music into a precise and complex punk, suffering no loss of ferocity. A Bob Marley concert would influence them to embrace Rastafari, able to shift from land-speed-record-breaking thrash in one song to heavy, creepy-crawl dub reggae in the next.

Bad Brains would relocate to New York City in the early 1980s after being "banned in DC" (as one of their most famous songs put it), recording a highly influential debut LP that was initially released only on cassette by Reachout International Records (ROIR) in January 1982. The group pursued various exciting new musical directions over the years, dissolving and reforming many times. But it was with their first single, "Pay to Cum" (1980)—which hit many ears like a Sex Pistols record played at 78 rpm, and made many people check to see if their turntables were set at the proper speed—that harDCore was truly born. The first Ramones LP was fast, but Bad Brains' debut single was faster—and impossibly tight. _—Tim Stegall_

9:30 CLUB, DC, 1982 (MALCOLM RIVIERA)

**HENRY ROLLINS:** I remember working in Georgetown and seeing this intense, scary-looking punk dude, who happened to be black, putting up fliers. When I walked up to the pole it was on, I saw that it was for the Bad Brains opening for The Damned. A few hours later, I saw them onstage for the first time. They were lean, good-looking, they had ripped clothes with red paint for blood. A lot of people were backing away from the stage when they first started. Myself, Ian [MacKaye], Mark Sullivan, and a few others all went _toward_ the stage. We were just like, "Wow!" I remember them singing "Why'd You Have to Go?" and watching HR just screaming and freaking out onstage. He was the most charismatic guy I'd ever seen next to Lux Interior at that point. When they all walked offstage, we all looked at each other and said, "That's the best band in the world."

**BARBARA ANN RICE:** Before they were the Bad Brains [Mind Power], we gave a ride to HR and some friends from DC Space. In the backseat, they started singing the Ramones' "Bad Brain" song.

**Thurston Moore:** It was all of these young Caucasian city kids completely inspired by an African American band that was fusing soul and reggae into their punk rock. Seeing them influence these bands that didn't have this background was inspiring.

Dr. Know, Carrboro, NC, 1980 (MalcoLm Riviera)

**IAN MACKAYE:** I remember the show on 15th Street and the way that show felt, the potential that was in that room, just the euphoria of the event, it was like we are doing all of this together, this incredible energetic, transformative experience.

**HENRY ROLLINS:** They played Madam's Organ one night and we all went and introduced ourselves. They were all nice guys. After that we just followed them around. "When's your next show? What do you eat for breakfast?" You realized you're living in the same small town as the greatest living band on earth.

**KENNY INOUYE:** Seeing the Bad Brains live was like watching a bomb go off.

HR, Wilson Center, DC, 1981 (MalcoLm Riviera)

**DAVE GROHL:** Everybody wanted to be like the Bad Brains. Fucking everybody.

**BOBBY SULLIVAN:** HR embodied a place that was really profound for a lot of people and I think he knew it and struggled with it. He really took me under his wing and schooled me in a lot of ways. His mentorship was in a way what was so important about the punk scene to me.

**HR:** I feel happy that those other groups liked us. For me, it was good that we could help them improve. It's super cool that they thought of me as a mentor.

**SIMON JACOBSEN :** The first time I saw the Bad Brains I was fifteen and I'm pretty sure they were opening for us [SOA] with Minor Threat. The roster never read that way again, of course. (Back then there was no "opening," really, it was just an issue of who had to go first because we had homework to do.) I had never seen such disciplined energy and focus from four guys who, from the looks of things, were in their own metaphysical parallel universe to mine. They didn't look at anyone, they didn't look at themselves, it was as if someone had pressed the _start_ button and the room exploded.

They were such gentle giants and I consider myself fortunate to just have been in the room with them.

**HENRY ROLLINS:** I always thought if I'm going to be a singer, I gotta do it like HR.

**HR:** [Moving to New York City] was an improvement because there were a lot more places to play in New York than in DC, so the Brains took advantage of that. A natural progression, I guess.

HR, Madam's Organ, DC, 1980 (PETER MUISE)

**DAMON LOCKS:** Bad Brains were a furious blend of sonic catharsis. Intensity, showmanship, spirituality, craftsmanship, and identity were all captured within the music's fitful attacks and melodic releases. A Bad Brains show made me feel a visceral connection to the moment. There was an ecstatic quality about them. There was an unpredictability that was invigorating, a transformation that enlightened. There was a lack of clarity in some respects that drew me in. Not only was the music complex, a new form to ingest, the lyrical content took careful consideration as well. I had to allow room for the unknown—which is a great problem to wrestle with for any young mind. One doesn't have to accept everything wholesale. It was useful to sift through the layers and accept or reject ideas. The positive, the negative, the crazy, the revolutionary, the inspiring, and the dangerous: all of these things I experienced thanks to Bad Brains. They articulated a new language and brought ideas into the light. Rock for light. Rock for light.

**HENRY ROLLINS:** Bad Brains were one of the most influential bands of my life. They were the band we aspired to be—we knew we wouldn't be as good, but we would die trying.

**SKIP GROFF:** The only band that I had trouble with in the studio was the Bad Brains. They were frequent visitors to my store and the day before we were supposed to record, HR came into the store and I was the only one working that day. He just sat there in the store and stared at me for hours without saying a word. It freaked the hell out of me. I begged Kim Kane [Slickee Boys] to take over the session the next day because I was afraid. Kim told me later they showed up a few hours late and were only able to record a song called "Don't Bother Me" that I released later on Limp.

**BUBBA DUPREE** : DC was probably a good town to be a black punk rocker. Partly because the Bad Brains had already knocked down any walls that might've been a hurdle.

Wilson Center, DC, 1980 (Malcolm RIVIERA)

**LLOYD STUART CASSON** : The first show I saw the Bad Brains at was the Hard Art. It was unbelievable—I can't put it into words. It was inspiring to see right in front of me.

Ian Mackaye, Nathan STREJCEK, Jeff Nelson, Geordie Grindle,
rooftop of punk clothing store Blitz, Georgetown, DC, 1980 (Athena Angelos)
"The Teen Idles essentially opened the musical door for me and other kids at the time" —DANNY INGRAM

Wowed by seeing an explosive Cramps gig, DC high schoolers Jeff Nelson and Ian MacKaye decided to form their own punk band in 1979. The duo (plus Geordie Grindle and Mark Sullivan) became a short-lived punk band called The Slinkees that broke up when singer Sullivan left for college. In late summer 1979, with Nathan Strejcek now on vocals, the group reorganized as The Teen Idles. Enthusiastic and determined, but not as musically skilled as their local faves Bad Brains, the group began getting opening slots for both punk and nonpunk shows, while saving their gig earnings in a box. Derisively labeled _teeny-punks_ and _Georgetown punks_ by some slightly older punk enthusiasts, the band took pride in their ability to irritate, with both their appearance and their shouted nonmelodic lyrics that included digs at Deadheads, the Georgetown club the Bayou, and drug culture. Fascinated with the growing California hardcore punk scene, the group took a Greyhound bus out west in 1980 and did gigs in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Later, back in DC, they recorded eight speedy songs with engineer Don Zientara and producer Skip Groff that, after the band broke up, would become the 1980 _Minor Disturbance_ 7", the first release on the band's own Dischord label. The sleeve cover featured the soon-to-be-iconic image of an underage punk's hands with black X's marked on them, showing that the kid could be admitted to a club, but was proudly too young to drink. — _Steve Kiviat_

**Ian Mackaye:** We decided to do a band, and since Mark and Geordie had already been in a band together, they would take over the vocals and guitars respectively. Jeff played drums in the school band, so he became the drummer, and because I could play "Smoke on the Water" on one string, I became the bass player. We called ourselves The Slinkees, partially because we loved to eat Twinkies, but also because we found the verb _slink_ —which meant "to creep, crawl, or lurk"—in the dictionary and thought it was funny. Then Mark went to college and we needed a new singer, and I'm pretty sure the night I went to see The B-52's at the Bayou in 1979, Nathan was there and I ended up hanging out with him after the show. We ended up listening to records and talking all night, which ultimately led to our decision to ask him if he wanted to sing in a band. We played our first show in December of 1979.

**Nathan Strejcek:** We were doing in the basement what people were doing on records that I was buying, and to be able to play live and share it with people was exciting.

**CHRIS STOVER:** I discovered the DC scene through a Bullocks show in Towson, Maryland. When Teen Idles hit the stage, it was like a tornado going through the place. The music was loud and fast. They had brought a bunch of people with them, so they literally took over the place. All of this was escalated by the fact that Teen Idles had just returned from their West Coast tour. I saw this and wanted in.

**DANNY INGRAM:** The Teen Idles essentially opened the musical door for me and other kids at the time by saying: _You too can do this. You don't have to be a virtuoso—you just have to have a passion about it._

GeorDie Grindle, Nathan Strejcek, 9:30 club, DC, 1980 (Simon JacobseN)

**Henry Rollins:** One night the Bad Brains called up Ian and said they'd lost their gear, and asked if they could practice at The Teen Idles' rehearsal space, which was Nathan's mom's basement. Within a few minutes, Earl had broken Jeff's snare. They just came in and manhandled the gear. They weren't trying to break things on purpose or anything, but they were coming at the music so furiously it just happened—whereas The Teen Idles were like, _Hey, guys, listen to this cool riff, man!_

**Ian MAckaye:** In the summer of 1980, The Teen Idles took a Greyhound bus across the country to play Los Angeles and San Francisco—those were the American punk rock meccas that made sense to us. We played a club called Mabuhay Gardens in San Francisco and they let [underage] kids in but they put a big black X on the back of your hand so you couldn't drink. That was the first time we'd seen that.

**Nathan Strejcek:** For me, starting The Teen Idles meant that I could contribute to the scene in a real way. Being a fan and setting up shows was great, but being in a band meant that I could try to make the scene even better.

**Ian MAckaye:** The idea that The Teen Idles couldn't play shows where teens could get in was insane. So we said our shows have to be open to all of our friends, everyone has to be allowed in. We got banned from so many clubs for that.

**Henry Rollins:** We'd go see Skip Groff at his record store, Yesterday and Today, almost every weekend. Skip had a record label called Limp Records and he knew his way around the studio. He said, "I can get you in the studio, I can help you get a record pressed." So at some point, Ian and his bandmates came up with the idea that they should make a record, which was a very daunting idea.

**Ian MAckaye:** So then Skip said, "I can take you to the studio called Inner Ear down in Arlington, with this guy Don Zientara."

across THE street from madam's organ, dc, 1980 (LUCIAN PERKINS)

**SKIP GROFF:** When it came time to take The Teen Idles into the studio, Ian asked me if I would help out, because he knew I had produced The Slickee Boys and in the early seventies I had produced Pentagram. We'd done some of The Slickee Boys records and some of the earlier Limp Records things with Don Zientara at Inner Ear.

**DON ZIENTARA:** Skip said, "I'll bring this band called The Teen Idles over." They were these young guys, they didn't know what to expect, and I certainly didn't know what to expect at all, because when they started playing, it was almost like, _Oh my gosh, what is this?!_ But they knew what kind of sound they wanted. They weren't sure how to achieve it, but they knew what they wanted. They knew the only way to make this music affect the outside world was to do it full-on.

**Ian MAckaye:** At that time, you can imagine the amount of interest there was in the world for an obscure teenage punk band that had broken up. So, people weren't clamoring to get the record, but having said that, Jeff's design on the cover was pretty bold and I think in terms of the punk world, it caught a few eyes, people were curious about it.

tommy carr, keith campbell, boyd farrell, mike dolfi, Backstage at the childe harold, dc, 1980 (PETER MUISE)
"Every Black Market Baby story starts off with, _We was all drunk one night_ . . ." —BOYD FARRELL

Black Market Baby WERE the most gloriously odd men out in the DC scene. They were never a "hardcore" band for one, remaining a true punk rock band in the most 1977 sense of the term. They were also older than their peers, and proudly "bent edge," as brash/loud/snotty vocalist Boyd Farrell once explained to a fanzine editor, saying they were never going to draw X's on their hands. The band drew heavily on the stomping, anthemic songwriting of UK bands like The Clash and Sham 69, and the delinquent energy of US louts like The Dead Boys, though it would be Farrell's melodic yet phlegmatic singing and Keith Campbell's rampaging rock 'n' roll guitar work that would be their trademarks, even across varying hard-stomping rhythm sections. Raw shout-alongs like "Potential Suicide" and "Downward Christian Soldiers" still have the power to thrill to this day. Black Market Baby made a difference, in part by being different. — _Tim Stegall_

9:30 CLUB, DC, 1983 (Jim SAAH)

**BOYD FARRELL:** Albums like _Highway to Hell_ were just as important to us as _Road to Ruin_ at the time. I think that's what made us different.

**JOHN STABB:** Black Market Baby were one of my biggest influences. I almost think of them as the DC's answer to The Heartbreakers or The Damned. They had much more of a NYC vibe to them. But their crowd could be scary. You didn't wanna get in a fight with those guys.

**KENNY INOUYE:** I never wanted to miss a Black Market Baby show.

**TESCO VEE:** Black Market Baby was a hard-rock band and a damn fine one at that. Though lumped in with the "punk" scene, these bumpkins from the Maryland suburbs sported stellar players, crafty songwriting, and were always a rockin' great time live. Though never fitting into or qualifying for inclusion in the Dischord catalog, BMB remains one of the all-time great rock combos to emerge from the DC area. Period.

**BOYD FARRELL:** I was a redneck from PG County.

**MIKE DOLFI:** In lieu of payment, we would play for beer.

**BOYD FARRELL:** I gotta say, we probably cultivated our crazy, drunken redneck punk reputation a bit. It suited us—because it wasn't too far from the truth.

**IAN MACKAYE:** I loved Black Market Baby. They were inspirational. I saw them every time they played. But they were guys who were older than us and coming at it from a different place than we were. They had managers and they used contracts. People used to ask, _Why aren't they on Dischord?_ But when they were big in '83, '84, we were a tiny label. I think largely they thought we were a joke. We were the little kids doing a little label.

**BOYD FARRELL:** I remember being a little peeved when we weren't asked to be on Dischord. But looking back, I can understand why they wouldn't have wanted us representing them.

Boyd FarrelL, Mike Dolfi, Wilson Center, DC, 1983 (Jim SAAH)

**MIKE DOLFI:** I used to use squirrel sperm to spike my hair.

**DANNY INGRAM:** The thing that always impressed me about them, aside from their songs and skill as musicians, was the gang-like mentality that they had as a band. They didn't seem to care how people perceived them. And I think this served them well, because my perception was that, for some, Black Market Baby were not immediately accepted as part of the nascent DC punk scene—even though they had created their footprint before many of us.

**BOYD FARRELL:** I remember doing an interview and somebody asked us if we were part of that straight-edge movement and I just said, "No, not really, we are a little bit more bent edge," and then we started hearing _bent edge_ all the time. I think when the straight-edge thing started to happen, that's when it kind of split—it seemed like all the sort of malcontents, more like the guys who liked to do drugs and drink and all that stuff, they sort of drifted to us and we became their band.

**MIKE DOLFI:** I think when the straight-edge thing came around, that really split people into two different [camps]. "I still love your music but do I show up there because I have been drinking, or do I show up there because I _haven't_ been drinking?" That's when, for me, the whole punk community started going its own way.

9:30 CLUB, DC, 1983 (JIM SAAH)

**MIKE DOLFI:** We used to piss in the back alley of the 9:30 Club when we'd play there. It wasn't until years later I realized I was pissing on the back wall of Ford's Theatre.

Henry Rollins, Wilson Center, DC, 1980 (Susie J. Horgan)
"I was too angry to be nervous. I'd get onstage and just explode." —HENRY ROLLINS

Forming IN 1980 from the ashes of The Extorts, after singer Lyle Preslar picked up a guitar and joined Minor Threat, State of Alert (SOA) will forever be known as Henry Rollins's first band. But SOA deserves far more credit than being a mere dry run for then–Henry Garfield's ascent to Black Flag legendhood and eventual conquest of all media. SOA's sole release, the ten-song _No Policy_ EP (Dischord No. 2), reveals how they were the fastest and most brutal of vintage DC hardcore bands, the entire unit attacking like a relentless rain of fists in a street fight, Rollins's sore-throat bark already firmly established. Dissolving nine months after their formation, leaving behind _No Policy_ and their three contributions to _Flex Your Head_ , SOA's tentacles would weave through Faith and Embrace (guitarist Michael Hampton and drummer Ivor Hanson) and even Fugazi (via Hampton's time in One Last Wish with Guy Picciotto and Brendan Canty), as well as Iron Cross and Lethal Intent (bassist Wendel Blow). — _Tim Stegall_

Henry Rollins, in work attire at HÄagen-Dazs, DC, 1980 (SUSIE J. HORGAN)

**IVOR HANSON:** Henry was definitely the one in charge, it was definitely his band, he was the leader.

**HENRY ROLLINS:** I never had stage fright and was never nervous. I was too angry to be nervous. I'd get onstage and just explode.

**MICHAEL HAMPTON:** Henry was a very charismatic guy. He was five years older than the rest of us and he had a job, so he used to give us quarters to play video games at the arcade.

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**IVOR HANSON:** While Henry was the leader of the band, Michael, you could say, was the "musical director" of the band. He would make clear what a song needed and we would work to make that vision of the song happen.

**MICHAEL HAMPTON:** Henry had an amazing record collection. I learned more about music in three weeks at Henry's house than in my entire life before that.

**HENRY ROLLINS:** Those SOA shows were so chaotic. The gigs were like eleven to fifteen minutes long or something. A good seven minutes of which was, "Are you ready?" "I'm ready, are you ready?" Live tapes of that band probably just sound like this wall of noise with a guy barking over it.

**MICHAEL HAMPTON:** We practiced for the first time in September and then by December we went into Inner Ear to record a demo.

**IVOR HANSON:** Henry made clear to my mom and dad that he would totally look after me (and Michael and Wendel) since we were in a band, and that's what bands do! My dad was a bit puzzled that Henry wore a heavy chain for a belt, but Henry pointed out that it came in handy in case he was gonna get beat by, say, a marine, since Henry's shaved head ticked off some marines since they thought he was trying to look like one of them.

**STEVE HANSGEN:** My initial impressions of Henry Rollins were that you didn't want to make him mad. The first time I saw him, he was wearing a bicycle chain around his waist. I thought, _Anyone who's wearing a bicycle chain around his waist probably means business._

**SIMON JACOBSEN** : The writing was on the wall for SOA just prior to Henry leaving for Black Flag. In fact, when SOA played in Philadelphia and when Henry was asked to join the Los Angeles band, it was like a scene from the cartoon _The Road Runner_ —just a _beep-beep_ and a puff of dust. The termination of SOA was the right time. I left the band to go to school because I was just so punk I couldn't read, Michael Hampton was becoming a very serious guitar and lick-smith that was becoming dissonant to Henry's animalistic bowel-grinding voice, and Wendel was looking for something a little more ultranational. There was also a new drummer named Ivor whose talents would be better matched with Hampton later on.

**WENDEL BLOW:** When I think back to when Henry left for Black Flag, I have many mixed feelings. Surely, he made a career move that so many back then would have made in a heartbeat—Black Flag being the premier US punk band of that time. But in that same light, SOA was a force of nature that, if given the time to mature, I believe would have eclipsed Black Flag's role and established itself as something way more powerful in its ability to deliver the much-needed messages of the day. I think that there were many sides of Henry that I just didn't know or understand, and that his choice to leave entailed a lot more than he was willing to try to explain.

Wilson Center, DC, 1981 (MALCOLM RIVIERA)

**IVOR HANSON:** My dad's last posting in the navy had us living at the Observatory. Michael asked me to be in the band, since he knew me from Georgetown Day School and the band needed a drummer. Before I agreed to join, Michael gave me a copy of the SOA record and he asked me to listen to it and tell him if I wanted to be in the band. I remember putting it on and listening to it with my twin brother and being totally convinced that I was playing the record at the wrong speed, since all the songs were way too fast.

So the next day, I told Michael I would join the band, and shortly thereafter the band showed up at the Observatory gate for the first practice. The uniformed Secret Service guard at the gate called me to tell me, "Ivor, some young men here at the gate are claiming you are in a band with them, and they are here to practice with you. Is that correct?" "Yes," I told him, "that is correct and I'll come and get them"—all our visitors had to be okay'd by the guards at the gate. From then on, Michael, Wendel, and Henry could come to my house unescorted.

**WENDEL BLOW:** In the past, I think I really made too much of all of it [SOA breaking up], but in my own defense, my relationship with Henry was one of some kind of mentorship, and, as I had believed in him, I was certainly left in a state of disillusionment when he left.

Without a band meeting or consultation, or really any honest projection of his interest in what he wanted to do with SOA (after we'd gone and replaced Simon and were hitting our next gear in the music), he pursued and found his place in Black Flag.

**IVOR HANSON:** We weren't that surprised when he told us he was leaving. By that I mean that when Henry told us he was going up to New York to hang out with Black Flag, we jokingly told him that when he came back he would be in Black Flag.

I wasn't in the band for that long—only a few months. Indeed, my first and only show with the band was its last show and it was a drag. But I think it was a bigger drag for Michael and Wendel, since, of course, SOA was much more their band than it was ever my band.

**WENDEL BLOW:** Our last show in Philly was a nightmare, and should never have happened. Henry knew better than to do this half-cocked, last-minute show in one of the worst neighborhoods for a punk rock show in the country. Of course, it ended in a battle, with many of us being caught in a situation that could have easily ended up with one of us getting killed . . .

I do contend, though, that of all of the things Henry has done and said, the words he so powerfully screamed in SOA may prove to be his most prophetic.

Ian MacKaye, wilson center, dc, 1983 (Jim Saah)
"All I ever wanted then—and now—Was to get the whole room singing." —Ian MacKaye

When the Extorts broke up after playing just one show, vocalist Lyle Preslar found himself without a band. By November 1980 The Teen Idles had broken up as well, and bassist Ian MacKaye decided he wanted to sing for the next band that he and drummer Jeff Nelson were envisioning. Knowing that Preslar was a guitar player, they asked him to join the new project. He recommended asking Brian Baker, a friend of his from high school, to play bass, and barely a month later they played their first show as Minor Threat. The band would come to represent DC hardcore to the world. They had the benefit of their own label, Dischord Records, which was run by Ian and Jeff. They would be the first DC band to tour extensively. They had speed, rage, chops, and authority. The stance they took on "Straight Edge," from their self-titled 1981 debut EP, would name and codify a way of life that at times did not sit well within the band.

The records, however, are marvels, better produced and recorded than almost any other punk band this side of the Sex Pistols. The Baker/Nelson (and later Hansgen/Nelson) rhythm section thumped out a foundation as fat as any early-seventies English glam record. By their farewell single, _Salad Days,_ Minor Threat was so good and showed so much promise, you cursed the band for destroying it by breaking up.

MacKaye would go on to form another great band in Fugazi, after making music with Embrace, Egg Hunt, and Pailhead. He remains active these days with The Evens. Preslar played with Samhain and The Meatmen before going into A&R at Caroline Records and later becoming a marketing director for Sire Records. Nelson joined MacKaye in Egg Hunt and also played with Three and The High Back Chairs before settling into graphic arts and political activism in Toledo, Ohio. Baker's guitar has elevated Government Issue, The Meatmen, Dag Nasty, and Junkyard, with Bad Religion now being the steadiest gig of his career. Steve Hansgen went on to produce Tool's debut EP, _Opiate_. But for all their outstanding endeavors over the years, it might be what these gentlemen did as Minor Threat that will truly endure. — _Tim Stegall_

Ian MacKaye, Wilson Center, DC, 1981 (MALCOLM RIVIERA)

**STEVE HANSGEN:** The first time I saw Minor Threat was when they opened for Black Market Baby at the old 9:30 Club in 1981, along with SOA, and we'd heard in Virginia about both bands, and we were really excited to see these new bands that had come out of the ashes of the original DC punk rock bands, and we weren't disappointed. That night was pretty remarkable, and I've heard other people who had seen them before—and they'd only been playing since December at that point, and this was like April or March—I'd heard that this show was something different. I remember they came out and announced that they were no longer Minor Threat, they were called Fifth Column, and they went into their set, and they were shockingly tight.

**IAN MACKAYE:** All I ever wanted then—and now—was to get the whole room singing. I never stopped singing when I'd put the mic out in the crowd. I remember seeing bands do that and thinking, _Now you've fucked up._ We're all supposed to be singing—when you just put the mic out and stop singing, you're just leading, it's not about the music anymore.

Lyle preSlar (Jim Saah)

**SIMON JACOBSEN:** When we used to play shows with Minor Threat, I used to scowl to myself because they were just much more talented and innovative musically than primate muscle-neck SOA. All of our music came from what we could manage at the time with our sophomoric talent and zits. Minor Threat played with their brains and hearts. Henry was singing about his mother for the most part, but Ian was singing about activism and much larger issues that mattered to people.

Brian Baker, 9:30 Club, DC 1983 (Jim Saah)

**STEVE HANSGEN:** He walked like he was in charge, and that was very impressive, because we had heard about Ian out in Virginia, but it was like whispers, like, "There's this guy, and he does this thing, and wow." When you saw him, it was very clear that this was _somebody_.

**JON WURSTER:** You listen to those Minor Threat records and they were just kids but they could really play and the songs were great and Ian's voice was unlike anyone else's. They just had a very unique, instantly identifiable sound.

Jeff Nelson, outside Woodlawn High School, VA, 1981 (Malcolm riviera)

**IAN MACKAYE:** Going on tour back then, it was pretty normal to be attacked onstage. People thought it was punk to attack the singer, or they thought we were some sort of fundamentalist, fascistic straight-edge guys. We would literally fight on the stage. It was just the nature of things. We played in San Francisco and people threw fireworks at us and spiked my Coke.

**SIMON JACOBSEN:** For DC at that moment, Minor Threat and Bad Brains were the answer. They seemed to fill the holes that people had in their hearts and then provided a direction for all of that energy to be positively focused. They also helped create the road map of the complexity and composition for the next generation of postpunk music in the US.

**DANNY INGRAM:** As far as I'm concerned, there were two bands in DC at that time that set a very high bar to which the rest of us could aspire: Black Market Baby and the Bad Brains. I think the first band to really get this was Minor Threat—and you could tell that after The Teen Idles, Ian and company took their songwriting and focus to a whole new level—eventually surpassing those initial inspirations.

Ian Mackaye, wilson center, dc, 1983 (Jim SAAH)

**THURSTON MOORE:** I bought _In My Eyes_ and I thought it was just incredible. It was one of the most powerful records I had heard, so I went back to the store and I bought the first Minor Threat record and I bought the SOA record and the Youth Brigade record, then _Legless Bull_ came out and there were all these records out on this label and I got really into it.

**IAN MACKAYE:** Even before I got into punk rock, I didn't drink. People used to say I made them nervous at parties. They used to called me "the group conscience."

**MARK HAGGERTY:** When Minor Threat were on tour, Ian would sometimes ask for water from the stage and people would hand him cups filled with water that was spiked with vodka. He took a lot of shit for straight edge.

wilson center, dc, 1982 (MALCOLM RIVIERA)

**JOHN STABB:** If it's true that everybody in DC didn't smoke, drink, or fuck, we wouldn't be punk rock, we'd all be _monk_ rock.

**IAN MACKAYE:** I still get crank calls to this day from kids saying, "Hey, dude, I'm drunk! Is that freaking you out?" I'm fifty! Two days ago I got a crank call from a kid saying, "I never liked your fucking band 'cause you're straight edge."

jeff nelson (JIM SAAH)

**JEFF NELSON:** I got tired of being in a band that was either preaching about "Don't do this" or "Don't do that" or was being perceived as that, and it definitely caused some friction in the band.

**CYNTHIA CONNOLLY** : Ian approached me about designing the cover for _Out of Step_. I was like, "What are you thinking concept-wise?" Ian said, "I'm thinking about a black sheep running away from a flock of white sheep." So one day I sat down to draw sheep and my mother had this issue of _National Geographic_ on New Zealand. I see this flock of sheep on one of the pages and I just kind of used that as my guide. The black sheep I drew could have come out of a Dr. Seuss book. I got this box of crayons and drew a black sheep just once and it was done.

Ian Mackaye, 9:30 Club, dc, 1983 (JIM SAAH)

**BRIAN BAKER:** After two years of being a band, we got really good at fighting. Early on, fights would develop and factions would form and kind of move around. Sometimes it would be Ian and I versus Jeff and Lyle, sometimes Jeff and I versus Ian and Lyle. By the end it was basically Lyle and I banded together, which would explain the intensity and the quality of the arguments.

**STEVE HANSGEN** : We saw Trouble Funk together, and then I went back to Brian's house, and he handed me a guitar and said, "Play." I said, "I just want to tell you, I know every Minor Threat song." "Really?" "Yeah," and I just started playing them, and I knew them, boom-boom-boom, one after the other, and he said, "Okay. Well, here's what's going on . . . I'm going to play guitar [now] and we need a bass player. Are you interested?" I was like, _"Am I interested?!"_

**TESCO VEE** : I will not cast aspersions on their recorded output, but to truly experience Minor Threat's breadth of pure punk fury, one needed to see them live. Pound for pound, the most awe-inspiring live set I've ever witnessed. The rancor they felt for each other on a personal level exploded onstage and those fortunate enough to have been in attendance were the grateful recipients. As good as it got.

minor threat's last show, Lansburgh Cultural Center, dc, 1983 (Jim SAAH)

**STEVE HANSGEN:** Like any dysfunctional marriage, you get to a point where you have a choice: you can either break up, or you can have a baby, and the baby will solve everything. Instead of breaking up, which would have seemed odd to everybody if they had just gotten back together and broken up immediately, they had a baby. I was the baby, and I was going to make it all better.

**BRIAN BAKER:** It has to be remembered: this was our band that we did after school. Though it had achieved some level of success at that point, nobody had any inkling that it would have any resonance thirty years later, so it wasn't precious to us.

**Steve Hansgen:** Playing those songs onstage with them in front of any audience was absolutely incredible, and being offstage was not very much fun. They really didn't get along.

Previous four photos: 9:30 CLUB, dc, 1982 (TIFFANY PRUITT)

**IAN MACKAYE:** Brian and Lyle had started to rehearse with Glenn Danzig for an early version of Samhain before Minor Threat had even broken up.

**BRIAN BAKER:** We wanted to be a more commercially viable band.

Steve Hansgen, Wilson Center, DC, 1983 (Jim Saah)

**IAN MACKAYE:** There's no question that Lyle and Brian felt like it was a conflict of interest that Jeff and I owned the record label they were on. But our position was, "We're not making any money anyway, so why does it matter?"

John Stabb, WIlson Center, DC, 1983 (Jim saah)
"I wanted to be the David Letterman of hardcore." —JOHN STABB

To some, GoverNment Issue's 7" debut, "Legless Bull," may sound like typical early-1980s DC hardcore upon first listen—but early live shows revealed how their spastic, frenetic, and often tongue-in-cheek performances (delivered by singer John Stabb) distinguished them from their DC brethren. With time came a more musical approach, largely triggered by GI bassist Tom Lyle's 1982 switch to guitar. Many local luminaries—Brian Baker, Steve Hansgen, Mitch Parker, J. Robbins, and Pete Moffett, among others—would pass through the band's ranks. Government Issue's sole constant remained singer John "Stabb" Schroeder, also a veteran of Betty Blue, The Stab (from which Ian MacKaye and Henry Rollins reportedly derived his nom de punk), History Repeated, Sleeper Agent, and Emma Peel. The David Lee Roth of punk, Stabb had a penchant for wearing the tackiest clothing available in the neighborhood Goodwill—if it was polyester, hideous, and bright, he'd wear it, from flame-resistant leisure suits to the most puketacular of wedding tuxedo jackets. With Lyle's massive guitar tone setting Stabb's rich croon and highly personal lyrics inside an enormous harmonic backdrop, GI would mutate like crazy from 1986's self-titled LP to their 1989 dissolution, becoming one of America's most musical punk bands. Tinges of psychedelia, metal, and straight-up rock 'n' roll would color their basic sound, stretching the boundaries of what is and is not punk rock as wildly as any band this side of The Damned. Government Issue reunited in 2007, gigging when they could be roused. Following a brave three-month battle with stomach cancer, John Stabb passed away May 7, 2016, at the age of fifty-four. _—Tim Stegall_

OUTSIDE 9:30 CLUB, DC, 1983 (JIM SAAH)

**ALEC MACKAYE:** I met John Stabb for the first time at the Chancery—he was a bundle of wires. At that point GI was called The Stab. The Untouchables and The Enzymes were playing. And we found out that John took a cab down to the Chancery from Rockville. We were all like, "Hey, everybody, this guy took a cab all the way down here!" So we started to pass a hat around to get him cab money to get home. We all just thought he was awesome.

**JOHN STABB:** The innocence and the naïveté of the scene was my favorite part. We were all just dumb kids hanging out. But it was pure and honest. Once it became too popular it became tainted.

JOHN STABB (JIM SAAH)

**KENNY INOUYE:** The first time I saw GI, I clearly remember that I honestly wasn't all that impressed. Over time, I came to understand that they were a great band and that show was one of their off-nights. The thing is, they seemed to play out _a lot_ , which meant early on some of their shows were kind of uneven. On the flip side of that, they seemed to really work hard, which meant that they became a solid unit over time. It might also be one reason why they went through so many members over the years.

**JOHN STABB:** When Minor Threat broke up, it left this huge hole in the scene. We inherited the morons and the stupid freak show that Minor Threat left behind. Which then kind of moved on to Scream and Marginal Man.

**TOM LYLE:** We started writing songs to almost antagonize the scene—because it wasn't _our_ scene anymore.

MARC ALBERSTADT, WILSON CENTER, DC, 1983 (JIM SAAH)

**KENNY INOUYE:** Stabb wasn't afraid to poke fun and criticize where he saw the "scene" going, and he also wasn't afraid to be himself. As a result, the music, and the direction it took, reflected that.

**ROBERT MOSS:** The summer of 1983 was Government Issue's second US tour, and my first with the band. We never stayed at a hotel; we either crashed at a fan's place, or just drove through the night to get to the next gig. At a show in the Midwest, a girl told us we could spend the night at her house. So we drive out of our way, getting there around four in the morning. She then tells us we have to park around the corner, sneak into the basement, and not wake her parents. We got some sleep, but nothing else. That was typical.

John Stabb, Glenmont Recreation Center, MD, 1985 (JIM SAAH)

**JOHN STABB:** GI and Scream played the first matinee at the 9:30 Club, opening up for Discharge from England. I always hated banners, and Discharge had one onstage behind the drums. So when I walked out to play I pretended to wipe my ass and blow my nose with it. It was always kind of this challenge where GI would love to open for these big punk rock "star" bands where after we'd play, we'd kind of say, "Now follow that! Good luck—we own this scene" . . .

We played this show with the Necros and the Misfits. After our set somebody from the Misfits went up and told Brian Baker, "Government Issue is great but why does your singer have to dress like a fucking clown?"

**TESCO VEE:** The cool thing about the early DC scene is that nobody tried to ape each other. Every unit had its own identity. And for Government Issue that ID was John Stabb. He dressed like one of Marcia Brady's rejected prom dates, and he more than made up for any lack in crooning ability with a stage presence par excellence. With a lineup of great players backing him like Tom Lyle and Brian Baker, GI carved out a nice niche in the DC punk pantheon.

**JOHN STABB:** My friend Steve Hansgen had his share of filling in on bass for GI, so we put out the word for a new one. J. Robbins was friends with Peter Cortner (Protem/Pitbull/Dag Nasty), so we gave him a tryout. At the time, I thought he looked a bit like Tom Hanks with his curly brown hair. J. definitely nailed the songs and we were mighty pleased to have some talented blood in the group.

**J. ROBBINS:** To this day, I have no idea how I got the gig. I certainly didn't feel like I aced the audition. But after we had run through a bunch of tunes, and I was getting ready to leave, Tom told me I had the job if I wanted it: the ninth GI bassist. Maybe they liked my trench-coated Joy Division–wannabe look. Maybe Tom and John figured (correctly) that I was just young enough to put up with all the hardship and insanity that would come along with touring in a punk rock band and not complain. I remember thinking, _I'm nineteen, and how old are these guys, like twenty-four? Twenty-five?_ (Which seemed so very old to me.) _I can't believe they're still doing this! Still, how cool I got in—I guess I'll just do this for a year or so and then go back to college . . ._ HA! Of course, little did I realize then how that audition pushed me in a direction which practically gave shape to the rest of my life. I'm so grateful it happened the way it did.

john Stabb, Arlington, VA, 1981 (ONAM Ben-israel)

**SHAWNA KENNEY:** My friend Pam and I were at WUST, standing on the side of the stage watching Government Issue, when the whole front of the stage collapsed and we found ourselves in a hole, covered by speakers and amps. Someone had to pull us out and I'm sure we could have been hurt, but we were laughing the whole time, saying, "This is so punk! Death by Marshall stack!"

**TOM LYLE:** The worst was on tour in '87 or '88 in Las Vegas. The promoter couldn't put on hardcore shows in the city proper because of the rules set up to "protect" the interests of the big casinos, so they had this place set up in an abandoned water-treatment plant or something. It was outdoors out in the desert. Lots of concrete structures, and they were covered in anti-Semitic graffiti. Our first reaction was to turn the van around and leave— _Fuck this show._ But the distances between shows west of the Mississippi were vast, and you needed to get paid at each show just to survive. So we played the show with the graffitied walls in the background. After the show, skinheads showed up. Dressed in storm-trooper uniforms, no less. They were just kids, but they threw beer bottles at our van as we pulled away. I felt like a whore playing that show.

Tom Lyle, Wilson Center, DC ( Jim Saah)

**ALEC MACKAYE:** Ignition ran into GI on tour in Nebraska and there was this skinhead shitstorm going on at the show. There were some really bad fuckers there. Somehow I got in the middle and intervened. Ever since then, John always says I saved his life.

**TOM LYLE:** It was a show in the Midwest. Skinheads show up this time, but at a "normal" club situation, an all-ages matinee. During our set they start Nazi saluting us—Sieg Heiling us. We stop our set and start to get in a shouting match with them. I yell over the microphone, "Why are you fucking giving me the Sieg Heil salute?! I'm not a Nazi! Do I look like Hitler to you?!" The set ends short; I don't know who, but someone called the cops, and they escort us out while we are loading out the equipment.

John Stabb, WIlson Center, DC, 1983 (Jim SAAH)

**JOHN STABB:** GI and Dag Nasty were both on the same label at the end of the eighties and there was this petty jealousy between the two bands. I thought Giant [the record label] was treating them better with big magazine ads and everything. Years later, Peter Cortner told me, "Man, they screwed us over worse than they screwed you!'"

We started to get a big head by the end—thinking we were going to get signed and "make it." But it never happened. We were so miserable and tired. I remember one label guy saying, "Just stick it out. Play two more years on the college circuit and eat shit for a while. You're on the verge of something!" And I was like, _Yeah, we're on the verge of breaking up!_

Los Angeles, 1985 (Naomi Petersen)

John Weiffenbach, Wilson Center, DC, 1983 (JIM SAAH)
"I have no idea why OUR music still interests people." —BUBBA DUPREE

Arguably, Void is where the American hardcore/heavy metal crossover begins. The Columbia, Maryland outfit's side of 1982's legendary _Faith/Void_ LP certainly displays enough of guitarist Bubba Dupree's abused version of Eddie Van Halen's whammy-bar/two-hand-tapping innovations to qualify as arena rock parody. But Van Halen never thrashed in short sharp shocks à la Faith, and David Lee Roth never had as corrosive a set of vocal chords as John Weiffenbach. Possessed of what was reportedly the area's most violent and chaotic live show, Dupree, Weiffenbach, bassist Chris Stover, and drummer Sean Finnegan would eventually cut another never-released LP in the summer of 1983 for Touch & Go Records. The label periodically seeks permission to issue it; Dupree refuses every time. Finnegan died of a heart attack in 2008 at age forty-three. — _Tim Stegall_

John Weiffenbach, 9:30 Club, DC, 1983 (Jim Saah)

**BUBBA DUPREE:** Our first show was a basement party. It was us and Artificial Peace.

**ALEC MACKAYE:** The first time I met them was at a show at DC Space and I remember being blown away that there was this thing happening just beyond our borders.

chris stover, wilson center, dc, 1983 (JIM SAAH)

**KENNY INOUYE:** Void was unique to the DC scene because they were really from Columbia, Maryland, not DC, and they made no bones about that fact. Columbia has the dubious distinction of being one of America's first planned communities, and Void's abrasive and aggressive musical approach provided a stark cultural counterpoint to the prefab environment that spawned them. Void was probably the only band I've ever known that not only got more focused over time, but also got more raw and aggressive as well.

**CHRIS STOVER:** It was a forty-five-minute trek into DC. I think we took every imaginable way into DC to see shows. After a while, we ended up taking Military Road as a routine. Law & Order wrote a song about it. Probably the best commute I ever did.

**BUBBA DUPREE:** Columbia was pretty limited. The only other guys that I knew there that were into punk rock were the three guys in the band. It was them or bust.

John Weiffenbach, Wilson Center, DC, 1983 (JIM SAAH)

**THURSTON MOORE:** When I saw Void live they came out and started with "Who Are You?" and the singer jumped up like twelve feet in the air wearing his basketball shorts. Bubba was shredding all over the place and each song was like a minute and a half. After two songs the hair on the back of my neck was standing up and I thought, _This is it—this is the ultimate hardcore band for me. They're doing this noisy guitar thing and the live stage is chaos._ It was fantastic. One of the most amazing live shows I've ever seen in my life.

Sean Finnegan, Newton Theater, DC, 1983 (Jim saah)

**ALEC MACKAYE:** They seemed really normal, I guess, and they did not have this punk look entirely. But the music they made, the energy they put out—it just exploded. Seeing them live was like throwing a garbage can down a flight of stairs. It was insane.

**CHRIS STOVER:** A friend of the band had given us some pictures she took of the band at a Wilson Center show. I showed them to my uncle. He said it looked like we were squeezing the life out of our instruments. I think that pretty well describes our attitude to how we played. In those moments onstage, we wanted the loudest, craziest sounds coming out of our instruments, no-holds-barred. We wanted to squeeze every bit we could into the music. It happened that sometimes the instruments would not cooperate.

Bubba DuPree, Newton Theater, DC, 1983 (Jim saah)

**SCOTT CRAWFORD:** Void was one of the first DC hardcore bands I saw play. I remember being confused by Bubba's appearance—with leather pants and ripped-up bandannas, he looked like the metalheads on MTV. My twelve-year-old mind just couldn't wrap itself around the idea that appearance had very little to do with being punk rock.

**JIM SAAH:** I saw Void several times, but the one that stands out is a matinee show at the 9:30 Club with Second Wind and Marginal Man. All the bands were full of energy but Void just exploded. They embodied the spirit of punk for me. They didn't look punk. (I had long hair at the time and felt even more punk because I was bucking the trend of short hair.) I loved photographing the bands. The more action the better—and Void provided plenty of action. I would get on or close to the stage. Usually to one side, not right in the pit. People would be jumping off the stage right over my head. It helped if you knew the songs because you could anticipate when people would go ape-shit. I would pop up and take a few shots, then crouch and protect my gear, then pop up again. It was like a choreographed dance.

Bubba Dupree, WIlson Center, DC, 1983 (JIM SAAH)

**ALEC MACKAYE:** Sean had this huge drum set and I felt like he kept buying more drums just so he wouldn't miss one. He'd get on beat sometimes and sometimes not.

**KENNY INOUYE:** You never really knew what to expect from a Void show. Sometimes the question would be whether they'd even be able to finish the gig. Their shows were so explosive and adrenaline-laced, and the band and crowd would get so into it that you would genuinely fear for your personal safety. Their music was the musical equivalent of a bomb going off, and their shows would always border on being completely out of control and on the verge of collapse. But out of the chaos would always come something cathartic and memorable. I remember that for about a month Chris Stover from Void was playing bass in an early version of Marginal Man. As stoked as I was to have him in the band with us during that time, I was even happier when he rejoined Void and they got back together.

**CHRIS STOVER:** The split-record idea came from Ian [MacKaye]. He wanted to do a release of each band. We were stoked to release anything, so it was cool with us. We were friends with Faith so that made the idea even better. I don't think anyone really thought it was a way to compare each other's music or a contrast in styles. Over the years, people have compared the two sides, but I think each stands out on its merits and styles.

John Weiffenbach, 9:30 Club, DC,1983 (JIM SAAH)

**BUBBA DUPREE:** Dischord recently put out some unreleased stuff of ours and we had a few record release events. People were coming up to me as fans that couldn't even have been born when we first recorded it! I have no idea why our music still interests people.

Sab Grey, 9:30 CLUB, DC, 1983 (JIM SAAH)
"Iron Cross felt pretty special to us because we got such negative attention." —MARK HAGGERTY

The title of Iron Cross' debut EP should reveal the main thrust of this band: _Skinhead Glory._ Led start-to-finish by charismatic vocalist Sab Grey, they were essentially the first "street punk" band: thick, chugging anthems of working-class pride and rebellion, performed by some of the first boots/braces/number two–cropped skinheads seen on US soil (save for spiky-haired future Gray Matter drummer Dante Ferrando). In their classic lineup, the band also featured guitarist Mark Haggerty and former SOA member Wendel Blow on bass. That first EP's opening track, "Crucified," became a much beloved, much covered skin-punk classic, revered by Agnostic Front and many other Oi! bands worldwide, always a trigger for a pit to go absolutely nuts. Grey would eventually form a new, millennial Iron Cross lineup, after their 1985 breakup, occasionally touring and recording even to this day. Alongside Black Market Baby, Iron Cross were odd men out in the DC punk scene, choosing a more idiosyncratic sound than the area's trademark hardcore thrust. — _Tim Stegall_

space II arcade, DC, 1982 (UNKNOWN)

**SAB GREY:** Our first show was at a friend's graduation party. We played six songs and I forgot the lyrics to all of them.

**MARK HAGGERTY:** I looked up to Sab, and his energy was motivating. Sab had a particular direction for the band that I identified with. Like Sab, I was born in London, with foreign parents, and immigrated to the US. My mother was of a working-class background, and as a teacher in London, she talked about the kids being satisfied kicking a rock or can, instead of the soccer ball that they didn't have.

**DANTE FERRANDO:** We played our songs much slower on purpose. We were heavily influenced by the UK punk scene.

Dante Ferrando, mark haggerty, 1981 (Unknown)

**SAB GREY:** We made a conscious decision we were going to play slower than the other bands around. I think this also speaks to how, at that time, we were probably the least-accomplished musicians in town. But Mark and Dante were fourteen, fifteen years old at the time.

**MARK HAGGERTY:** The British bands appealed to us. There was also a conscious idea of writing songs that were like Sham 69 or the UK Subs, mostly to carve out our own sound that wasn't thrash.

**WENDEL BLOW** : Iron Cross was a mixture of many styles of music and attitudes. I think that Sab always tried to stay in tune with what was "up and coming" in terms of what was cool coming out of Britain and Europe.

**MARK HAGGERTY:** Sab and [bassist] Paul Cleary came over to my house and talked to my mother and told her how they didn't drink or do drugs, and that really created some trust between them. So my mother would let me play shows out of town in NYC or Philly at thirteen, fourteen years old. It was pretty eye-opening to drive down the Bowery in 1980 at that age.

Sab GrEy, 1982 (JIM SAAH)

**SAB GREY:** We always did really well in Philadelphia . . . A lot of the clubs in DC wouldn't even have us cross their door.

**JON WURSTER:** I saw Iron Cross a lot in Philadelphia. They always really impressed me because they weren't a thrash band, they were way more '77 UK kinda punk sounding and they had great songs too. Seeing them on a bill with White Cross and Circle Jerks, it really stood out, and Sab Grey had a great presence.

**MARK HAGGERTY:** Iron Cross felt pretty special to us because we got such negative attention.

Mark haggerty, 1982 (JiM SAAH)

**WENDEL BLOW** : There was a lot of being as pugnacious and confrontational as one could be, even in wearing offensive symbols like swastikas, iron crosses, upside-down crosses, etc. I was guilty of this, as were many others, until a good friend set me straight on how stupid it made me appear. I'm no fascist, neo-Nazi, or anything like that. I'm a tough one in many ways, but if I ever found myself around anyone who really believed such things, I moved on.

I think that, at times, certainly when we're young, we all do things that we wish we could take back. I'm reminded of my youthful blunders from time to time, and I pray that having made the many changes in how I deal with things in life, and realizing how I affected people from every angle I can imagine, I hope that there is some way to see that time in my life with an objective sense of well-deserved scrutiny, if not outright condemnation.

**MARK HAGGERTY:** There was an early interview in _Maximum Rock 'n' Roll_ with Tim Yohannan and he really didn't like Iron Cross. There was shock value to it that, as teenagers, was really gratifying to us.

Hall of Nations, Washington, DC, 1983 (Ellie Moran)

**SAB GREY:** _Maximum Rock 'n' Roll_ had it out for us. They were assholes. We didn't know them, we'd never met them, nor had they even spoken to us. They never even picked up the phone . . . They had a lot to do with fucking the scene up. They went out of their way to decide what was acceptable and what was not acceptable. It's funny—thirty years later so many of my closest friends are all the people that _Maximum Rock 'n' Roll_ hated . . .

We were pegged as Nazi skinheads. I'm a liberal democrat! I'm not a touchy-feely liberal, I'm a I'll-punch-you-in-the-mouth liberal. But I can deal with that. When the zine writers would say, "You guys are violent," my response was, "What would you like me to do about it?" When I see some shirtless jock in the pit punch Dante for no reason because he's five foot four, what was I supposed to do? So I beat the fuck out of that guy. As a matter of fact, they carried him out of the club with blood coming out of his ears.

Alec mackaye, 9:30 club, DC, 1983 (jim saah)
"Seeing the Faith was like seeing Led Zeppelin at Knebworth in '79 for me."—THURSTON MOORE

From the word _go_ , Faith would stand apart. For one thing, their side of the beloved Faith/Void split Dischord Records LP hit the speed of light as often as other DC hardcore outfits. But just as often, those twelve songs could get as heavy as Black Sabbath, and even turn surprisingly psychedelic. Over time, singer Alec MacKaye's vocal bark would become more and more distinct from his older brother Ian's, while delivering the emotional punch of bassist Chris Bald's introspective lyrics. With guitarist Eddie Janney joining for the _Subject to Change_ EP, Faith (which also featured ex-SOA guitarist Michael Hampton and drummer Ivor Hanson) developed its sense of melody and dynamics even further. It makes sense that Janney would follow Faith with Rites of Spring, featuring future Fugazi firebrand Guy Picciotto—many _Subject to Change_ innovations would come to be hallmarks of what would eventually be dubbed "emo." — _Tim Stegall_

alec mackaye, 9:30 club, dc, 1983 (Jim Saah)

**ALEC MACKAYE:** Everybody made a logo for their band. Chris Bald came up with the logo for Faith, which is a broken circle—and the pieces are actually taken from the circle. It could be a deconstructed peace sign, I suppose. But people were coming up with looks and logos and it was really important at the time.

**IVOR HANSON:** I think Faith and Void were two very different bands doing very different things. I mean, Void was really and truly out there musically—avant-garde punk, you could say—while Faith, we were doing straight-ahead punk songs, fast, compact punches of songs. I think it goes without saying that if the bands didn't share an album, I don't think they would have been compared to each other as much as they were, and really, the comparisons didn't mean that much to me.

I think _City Paper_ described the Faith side as "masterfully wrought," or something like that, and though that might be a bit overstating it, I will happily go along with it. I like the Faith side more, although I can't recall the last time I listened to it.

**ALEC MACKAYE:** Doing the split album was really funny because nobody knew what the other guys were doing. We didn't know what Void were going to come up with and they didn't know what Faith was doing either. We just loved each others' bands and wanted to put out a record. It was unimaginable back then that decades later it's still a conversation, which side is better.

**THURSTON MOORE:** I always thought The Faith were the most "core" of hardcore.

**DAVE GROHL:** Mike Hampton is one of my favorite guitar players.

**THURSTON MOORE:** Seeing The Faith was like seeing Led Zeppelin at Knebworth in '79 for me.

**IVOR HANSON:** I think the songs from _Subject to Change_ are great, and Eddie Janney has a lot to do with that. They're slowing down a bit and are more melodic and have more going on. And you hear Michael and Eddie in different speakers and they work so well together, even as they take their guitars in different directions.

I remember there was this flier for a show with the number _5,_ hinting at how the bands playing all had five members—it was us, Minor Threat, and Marginal Man—so it did seem like a DC punk scene fad of sorts. But really it was about the music and the songs, and Faith totally benefited from having Eddie in it.

Alec Mackaye, chris bald, eddie janney, wilson center, dc, 1983 (JIM SAAH)

**JASON FARRELL** : _Subject to Change_ is just a perfect record.

**JIM SAAH:** When The Faith's _Subject to Change_ came out, someone said my photo was on it. I thought they meant a photo I took. But when I got it, there was a photo of the band playing live and in the background there's me standing on the stage taking photos.

michael hampton, wilson center, dc, 1983 (Jim Saah)

**THURSTON MOORE:** After their set at Great Gildersleeves I wanted to talk to Alec and tell him how much I liked his band, so I waited outside. Alec comes busting out of the front door of the club and I'm excited because he's coming right toward us, and he just starts puking—hurling—and it's splattering on these black trash bags on the street literally at our feet. My friend and I looked at each other and said, "Maybe now isn't such a good time to talk to this kid."

**MICHAEL HAMPTON:** Hardcore punk at the time seemed like a brief continuation of what was considered punk, but it was extreme and fast—it just didn't seem like it would last. By the early eighties, a lot of the people that I knew had already become bored with the hardcore punk song structure. The fact that hardcore punk has never really gone away since the eighties perplexes me.

alec mackaye, wilson center, dc, 1983 (JIM SAAH)

**IVOR HANSON:** I count myself as very lucky to have been in SOA, Faith, and Embrace, and to have made the music I did with Henry, Wendel, Michael, Alec, Chris, Eddie, and Ian. The DC scene really shaped who I am.

**IAN MACKAYE:** Faith's last show was really fucking sad.

Previous five photos: hall of nations, georgetown university, dc, 1983 (Tiffany Pruitt)

**IVOR HANSON:** I guess I had mixed feelings that night [of the farewell gig]. Sure, it was our last show, so that was a drag. But at the same time, because it was our last show, there was kind of a build-up to it, and so it really did feel like an event.

For the show, Chris [Bald] painted these really elaborate and beautiful set lists for each of us in the band to mark the occasion. So, yeah, we knew it was ending, and we knew it was special. And with Minor Threat breaking up around then, it did feel like the scene was changing.

I was off to college a week or two later, so Vassar was on my mind as well at the time. So between the "event" aspect of the last show and heading off to college, I didn't feel sad at the time.

But once I got to school, that's when it really hit me that the band was over, and how much the DC scene had come to mean to me. Once I left, that's when I realized how big a part of me it really was, and helps explain why I wanted to get back down there and be in a band again, and that band turned out to be Embrace.

Skeeter Thompson, Pete Stahl, Kent Stax, Franz Stahl, Robert Lee Davidson (NAOMI PETERSEN)
"Everybody in Scream were misfits and outcasts—we always did what we wanted to do." —SKEETER THOMPSON

Known for their ENERGETIC live shows, a mix of hardcore punk, Bad Brains/Clash–inspired dub, and rock 'n' roll swagger, Scream was formed in 1981 in the DC suburbs of Bailey's Crossroads, Virginia, by vocalist Pete Stahl, guitarist Franz Stahl, bassist Skeeter Thompson, and drummer Kent Stax. Their seminal debut LP, _Still Screaming,_ would serve in 1982 as Dischord's first full-length release. With their follow-up LP, _This Side Up,_ they added second guitarist Robert Lee "Harley" Davidson, beefing up their sound considerably. The band toured relentlessly, eventually becoming the first DC hardcore band to go to Europe. Along the way, teenager Dave Grohl replaced Stax on drums. After the band's demise in 1990, when Skeeter's old chemical demons resurfaced and Dave moved to Seattle to join Nirvana, the Stahl brothers forged on with Wool—releasing two albums before breaking up in 1996. Franz went on to play with Dave in Foo Fighters for a stretch, while Pete sings in the doom-metal band Goatsnake, formed the space-rock group earthings? (who continue to gig and record), and collaborated with Josh Homme in his Dessert Sessions project. With an extensive discography—starting with _Still Screaming_ and _This Side Up_ , and including _No More Censorship_ and _Fumble_ with Dave on drums—the original lineup reunited in 2009 and recorded the _Complete Control Recording Sessions_ , a sonic testament to the band's mighty musical prowess. _—Scott Crawford_

Skeeter Thompson, Franz Stahl, Robert Lee Davidson (unknown)

**FRANZ STAHL:** We were from Bailey's Crossroads, Virginia. DC is a government town with a handful of clubs, so that's what inspired us to start our own thing in a way.

**SKEETER THOMPSON:** I went to school with Franz and I started noticing him playing around when he was about fifteen, and I asked him to teach me how to play bass. He introduced me to his older brother Pete and he showed us this DC music that was going on. He'd take us to shows at Madam's Organ, the Psyche Delly, and the Bayou (with his fake ID). Then we started playing together and played some keg parties in Virginia. But after we met HR from the Bad Brains, he started helping us get onto hardcore bills. We weren't quite as accepted as quickly as we would've liked to have been at first. But I think we won people over with our perseverance.

**ALEC MACKAYE:** Scream were really one of the bands that rivaled Bad Brains in their delivery and dynamic songwriting. What a spectacular band. Still are.

Pete Stahl, Alec MacKaye, 9:30 Club, DC, 1983 (Jim Saah)

**JOHN STABB:** One night when GI and Scream were playing at the 9:30 Club, Dody [DiSanto, club owner] came up to Scream and said, "Look, there's a one-act play going on at Ford's Theatre behind us. They're complaining that they could hear GI during their set. Do you think you guys could turn it down a bit during yours?" And Scream was like, "Oh, sure." Then, of course, when they got onstage they turned everything up even louder.

**SKEETER THOMPSON:** We all got along even though we were so different from the Dischord folks—we were beer drinkers and hell-raisers. But I think Ian and Jeff saw how serious we were and that led to them putting out the first record.

**PETE STAHL:** Every band and genre has those typical questions they're asked, and for us it was straight edge because we were from DC. It was clear from our songs that we weren't a straight-edge band in the classic sense of the word. But I never minded answering those questions because it's a part of where we came from.

**SKEETER THOMPSON:** Everybody in Scream were misfits and outcasts—we always did what we wanted to do.

**ANDY RAPOPORT** : King Face opened for Scream at the old 9:30 Club. Besides being huge fans, we were also on a similar trajectory in terms of sneaking in an absurd amount of hard rock to the DC punk scene (in sound, hockey stick–shaped guitar headstocks, and hair). Additionally, Scream always—and I mean ALWAYS—traveled with a full complement of party-adept dudes, and women who were decidedly not in high school—or from DC proper—basically, the kind of chicks we'd see at metal concerts.

My recollection of the gig is spotty, but I clearly remember after our soundcheck, we headed back down to the basement dressing room with our guitars, and there, on one of the tables, was a pile of weed. I'm not talking about a handful of weed, I'm talking about someone dumping a Glad leaf bag of it out on the table. I recall Skeeter mentioning something about "finding this growing on the side of a road." And because it was Skeet, it seemed completely plausible.

**FRANZ STAHL:** There's this great photo of Harley [Davidson, second guitarist] with fingerless gloves, cigarette dangling out of his mouth, and eye makeup. He was this was total metal guy. But I thought it was so punk rock.

**DAMON LOCKS:** Scream didn't seem to care about whatever rules were being imposed on the scene.

Skeeter Thompson, Franz Stahl, Dave Grohl, Pete Stahl (Naomi Petersen)

**PETE STAHL:** Part of the fun of bringing Harley into the band was because we knew it would irk certain people in the scene. But we were always trying to push people.

**Andy rapoPORT** : I remember during one song of Scream's set, all five of them were smoking at the same time. I was utterly transfixed. At that point in the DC scene, you just didn't really see that at punk rock shows. I was particularly keen on their maneuvering of cigarettes. Franz and Harley adopted the classic move of putting their cigarettes under the strings against the headstocks of their guitars, Skeeter and Kent just kept theirs in their mouths, and Pete held his in his non-mic hand.

**DAVE GROHL** : When I first tried out for Scream I said I was nineteen. It wasn't until we played an eighteen-and-over gig that I had to admit I was only seventeen.

**BOBBY SULLIVAN:** Scream were a huge influence on us [Soulside]. I remember thinking when Dave got in the band, "Wow, Dave's really made it now!"

Skeeter Thompson, 9:30 Club, DC, 1983 (Jim Saah)

**DAVE GROHL:** I wanted to get the fuck out of Virginia. I was willing to play anywhere. Touring Europe was exciting—you came back with all of these crazy stories, like in Italy these fucking crazy punks squatted some military base that was six hundred years old. Those were the kinds of experiences I wanted to have.

**PETE STAHL:** Our music stands on its own merit and we always reached another level live.

the rathskeller, boston, MA, 1985 (Chris Carilli)
"In retrospect, Marginal Man seems like the bridge between the old and the new school." —BOBBY SULLIVAn

Formed AFTER THE DEMISE of Artificial Peace in 1983, Marginal Man was known for their all-or-nothing live shows, twin-guitar anthems, and introspective lyrics. The band's ascent within the DC punk scene was swift; in the post–Minor Threat 1980s, they were considered one of the city's biggest draws (along with Government Issue and Scream). The band—featuring guitarists Kenny Inouye and Pete Murray, vocalist Steve Polcari, bassist Andre Lee, and drummer Mike Manos—released their first EP, _Identity,_ on Dischord in early 1984. Songs like "Missing Rungs," "Marginal Man," and "Emotional Scars" helped establish the quintet's songwriting strengths. Marginal Man played a steady stream of shows both in town and out, completing one US tour, one North American tour, and countless dates up and down the East Coast and Midwest, sharing the stage with national acts like Circle Jerks, T.S.O.L., Samhain, Minutemen, Bad Brains, Dead Kennedys, and others.

1985 saw the band switching labels to Enigma imprint Gasatanka, where they released their first full-length LP entitled _Double Image_ (produced by Brian Baker). Many consider _Double Image_ the band's most fully realized effort, with fanzine editor Jack Rabid stating in his long-running _Big Takeover_ zine that " _Double Image_ firmly established Marginal Man as one of America's premier punk bands of the eighties." As the decade began to wind down, Marginal Man released their self-titled swansong in 1988 on Giant. The album highlighted the band's songwriting progression and featured a more pop direction (sonically reminiscent of R.E.M. or late-period Replacements). The record served as a posthumous release for the band, having called it quits after six years together. — _Scott Crawford_

mike manos, kenny inouye, steve polcari, peter murray, andre lee, City Gardens, TRENTON, NJ, 1985 (Jill Heath)

**KENNY INOUYE:** When we had an opportunity to put our first record out on Dischord, it's going to sound cheesy, but as a kid, recording for a label that was putting out the records that got me into all of this in the first place was exciting.

**PETER MURRAY:** Ian really ambassadored our first record. He took us in the studio with Don Zientara at Inner Ear where we recorded next to Don's kids' toys and laundry in the basement.

9:30 CLUB, DC, 1983 (JIM SAAH)

**JEFF NELSON:** Marginal Man made the best use of two guitars of all the bands in DC.

**Nicky Thomas** : I loved them—their songs, their performances—I must've seen them a million times and it was so exciting to later play in a band and share a bill with them.

Cathay de grande, los angeles, ca, 1984 (PETER LANDSWICk)

**KENNY INOUYE:** DC was such a uniquely diverse town. When Marginal Man went on tour, the audience was almost entirely white. In DC, you had African Americans, Asians, LGBT, and everyone coexisted. That's when I realized how special it was and how we really had something going on here.

**MIKE MANOS:** I really enjoyed being in a band that expanded the range of what hardcore could be, slowing down and adding melody. I felt like we could have fun experimenting a lot more than if we limited ourselves to thrash speed. Some people weren't into it, especially when we were out on tour, but in DC a lot of people really liked what we were doing.

**PETER MURRAY:** The great thing about being from DC at that point was that it was really easy to get an out-of-town gig. On the other hand, if you were different or branching out musically from the traditional hardcore sound, you'd get trash and beer bottles thrown at you.

**STEVE POLCARI:** We definitely had people shouting things like, "Play faster!" on the road.

**PETER MURRAY:** We did a show in Denver on our second US tour, and when we showed up to the venue we realized it was twenty-one-and-over. A few kids showed up but couldn't get in. We played to the soundman, bartender, and the local drunk. After the set, the owner comes up and says, "Hey, we didn't make any money, but do you want a pizza?"

Steve polcari, 9:30 CLUB, dc, 1983 (JIM SAAH)

**STEVE POLCARI:** All of our songs mean something to us. Some of them now more than ever.

**MARK ANDERSEN:** Marginal Man were the first proto-emo band in DC.

**SCOTT CRAWFORD:** The first time I saw Pete Murray break down after playing "Forever Gone," I realized just how powerful music can be. As a twelve-year-old, that made a real impact. It wasn't entertainment, it was real life—laid out in front of you from the stage.

steve polcari, Andre lee, peter murray, 9:30 Club (JIM SAAH)

**STEVE POLCARI:** We had to stop playing "Forever Gone" because Pete would lose it while trying to play that song and it would take us ten minutes to put him back together in order to finish the set. It was too hard on all of us. Especially Pete, because he felt that he lived that. All of those songs we lived.

**PETER MURRAY:** I wrote "Forever Gone" about my good friend Stefan who I grew up with in Germany. He was a class clown, a real happy-go-lucky guy. While I was in Artificial Peace, I got a phone call from my mother telling me what had happened. My friend came across him in the woods on the outskirts of my town—he had hung himself. I was in shock.

I can remember around that time, while playing with Artificial Peace, I had been feeling depressed, but the music had always kept me together. In a weird, twisted way, it kept me from ever hurting myself because I saw how it affected everyone around him.

A couple of years later, the song literally wrote itself. Playing it live was something that just proved too hard for me. I just broke down on the stage. Ian [MacKaye] was the only one who came up to me afterward and said, "I understand, it's okay." That meant everything to me because I didn't want to seem like I was like, "Boo hoo, look at me."

We had a band meeting shortly after and decided we couldn't play the song live anymore. A part of me was hurt because the song was really strong and it took all of my heart to write it. I understood where the guys were coming from, but it made me realize that if I was going to write songs that meant that much, then I just can't do it—and that was hard.

peter murray, 9:30 CLUB, DC, 1984 (JIM SAAH)

**BOBBY SULLIVAN:** In retrospect, Marginal Man seems like the bridge between the old and the new school.

**STEVE POLCARI:** The first time I heard the term _Revolution Summer_ was when I called Dischord House and asked about it. Jeff [Nelson] kind of explained it to me and said I should go down to the South African embassy, because they were all protesting apartheid.

knoxville, tn, 1985 (Camp Childers)

**PETER MURRAY:** I went down to the protest outside of the South African embassy and banged on pots and pans. I thought it was great. But it wasn't until years later that I was told the whole thing was called Revolution Summer. I never got the memo.

**KENNY INOUYE:** After Revolution Summer, Marginal Man never really fit into the DC scene. There seemed to be an unspoken split between the old bands like us, GI, and Scream, and the newer ones that made up Revolution Summer.

**PETER MURRAY:** My favorite record of ours? I can't choose. All of them mean a lot to me and they were each the best we could do at the time.

Food For Thought Rooftop, DC, 1985 (BERT QUEIROZ)
"as much as it might have seemed like we were part of that scene, we kind of felt like outsiders . . ." —MARK HAGGERTY

A listener of the music of Gray Matter could be forgiven for finding it hard to believe that two of the band members (drummer Dante Ferrando and guitarist Mark Haggerty) had once been in the Oi! band Iron Cross. Remarkably catchy, and sounding little like the work of early Dischord acts, the tunes of Gray Matter remain some of the most accessible examples of the sound of DC hardcore from its peak era. Steve Niles (bass) and Geoff Turner (guitar and vocals) joined Ferrando and Haggerty in crafting a whole lot of music that brought a sense of humor and garage power-pop to the nation's punk capital. If a band like Minor Threat was this city's version of The Clash, then Gray Matter was its Buzzcocks, tempering the fire of DIY punk with a strong sense of melody and pop sensibilities. The band's first album, _Food for Thought,_ was released on R&B Records, prior to the group joining Dischord, so one should count the direct and angular _Take It Back_ as the first proper Gray Matter album on the seminal label (though the debut record was later reissued by Dischord). Pushing punk into new shapes while retaining the fiery spirit typical of the best bands of the era in DC, Gray Matter dropped a few more releases on Dischord ( _Thog, 4 Song_ s) before finally calling it quits in 1990. _—Glenn Griffith_

dante ferrando, mark haggerty, geoff turner, steve niles

**GEOFF TURNER** : Dante had just left Iron Cross because he was kind of tired of the environment. So me, Dante, and Mark started hanging out again like we did in junior high. We didn't have a real idea of what we wanted in terms of sound, but we all loved punk, and sixties punk stuff too. We all had a similar, weird sense of humor. Then Steve Niles came along and he was the perfect fourth member.

**STEVE NILES:** When I first joined the band I had a bass, but I didn't necessarily know how to play it. We were all still in high school. I was learning on the job.

**ADAM WADE:** _Food for Thought_ from Gray Matter was one of my favorite records from back then. It was my high school soundtrack.

Band (UNKNOWN)

**GEOFF TURNER:** For me, the _Take It Back_ EP really captures that moment of being on the edge of something new. A lot of those lyrics are about that—how to bust through to this next phase in our lives. And survive it . . .

A lot of the Positive Force shows that we played focused more on the music and benefiting the local community. And there was something very DC about that. The idea that we're going to play a show not just to sell alcohol and be somebody's entertainment for the night. That fit perfectly into your mind-set if you grew up in Washington, DC, and you were already toeing this anticommercial line.

**MARK HAGGERTY:** Steve Niles painted the Gray Matter logo and the words _Revolution Summer_ on the roof of Food for Thought before our final show there. We thought we were being bad-asses. Looking back, as much as it might have seemed like we were part of that scene, we kind of felt like outsiders and we wanted to belong. I think that's why we painted that—it wasn't a phrase that we had coined.

**STEVE NILES:** You couldn't tell me there was a show coming up. I'd start throwing up. So the band would wait until the last minute to tell me because I was such a nervous wreck about performing live.

steve niles, food for thought, dc, 1985 (BERT QUEIROZ)

**DANTE FERRANDO:** We were growing up—we were still really young, but expanding our worldview a bit.

**STEVE NILES:** Suddenly there were all these new bands and a real resurgence around Revolution Summer. Our worlds were opening up—we were writing about relationships and life. We weren't in high school anymore, we were all growing up. There was a new maturity and a new energy in the scene.

geoff turner, john kirschten, dc space, dc, 1986 (JENn IZZA fox-THOMAS)

**DANTE FERRANDO:** We didn't feel like we fit in necessarily back then, but I think a lot of the bands that were associated with Revolution Summer, it was sort of like, _Let's just play for ourselves again, and everyone else can piss off._

Onam Ben-Israel, Chevy Chase Community Center, 1986 (Bert Queiroz)
"I'm going to do what I can to stimulate a little bit of aggravation—and sometimes it was heavy-handed." —ONAM Ben-israel

Ex–Red C drummer Tomas Squip (now Onam Ben-Israel) formed Beefeater in 1984, essentially beating Fugazi to the posthardcore starting line by three years. With guitarist Fred "Freak" Smith, bassist Dug E. Bird (Birdzell), and original drummer Bruce Atchley Taylor (superseded in turn by Mark "Two Chair" Shellhaas and Kenny Craun), Beefeater would forge fierce, angular, politically charged rock 'n' roll out of elements of heavy metal (especially Smith's flashy guitar work), funk, reggae, jazz, odd time signatures, and the same Bad Brains–influenced thrash-rock which drove DC hardcore to that point. Their musicianship came close to, if not equalled, the Bad Brains, and the eccentric Squip was one of the more intriguing and charismatic front men around, as instrumental in Revolution Summer as anyone. He and Birdzell would later move on to Fidelity Jones, as Craun shifted to the Rhythm Pigs and Smith joined Strange Boutique. Beefeater's three releases remain fresh, and Squip is politically and musically active to this day, as engaging and eccentric a presence as ever, seemingly in constant evolution. — _Tim Stegall_

DUG E. BIRD (BIRDZELL), DC SPACE, DC, 1986 (JENN IZZA FOX-THOMAS)

**ALEC MACKAYE:** Beefeater was a strange brew. Tomas was a smart, complicated guy who challenged people on their own turf. They were really making people that might've otherwise felt self-assured about what they were doing politically reexamine themselves. I think that was a big part of what Revolution Summer was all about. They were really a major part of the soundtrack for all of that.

**onam ben-israel [a.k.a. Tomas Squip]:** On a primal level I've always been against the mainstream. I'm against mass behavior, so when I see a bunch of people just toeing the line, it irks me on a fundamental level. So it was always my nature to provoke. So if I see a bunch of people in combat boots and jeans just going through the motions, I'm going to do what I can to stimulate a little bit of aggravation—and sometimes it was heavy-handed.

**SCOTT CRAWFORD:** When the skinheads were at their worst around 1985, Tomas figured out how to diffuse them quickly. One night in Baltimore was particularly tense, and during their set Tomas stripped down to nothing and jumped out in the audience and starts hugging the most macho skinheads he could find. It completely dumbfounded them and stopped them in their tracks.

**FRED SMITH:** We were a political band for sure. We were doing what the hippies did before us.

**onam ben-israel:** Most people at that time were focused more on interpersonal relationships and the songs dealt with that issue in the here and now. Whereas for me, I always had more of a flavor for the bigger picture with things like human rights. Injustice and human rights is what punk rock was always about from the very beginning.

FRED SMITH, CHEVY CHASE COMMUNITY CENTER, DC, 1985 (BERT QUEIROZ)

**BOBBY SULLIVAN:** While others in the scene were focused on social issues, Onam was focusing on devotion, only with a larger scope. _The House Burning Down_ LP Beefeater put out, which features many other musicians from the scene, is a perfect example. For me and many others, Onam was a pivotal force in getting us to look at the bigger picture, whether it was what was going on in South Africa, with homelessness in DC, or considering a vegan diet. "Satyagraha," a principle embodied by both Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., and a song on the _Plays for Lovers_ LP, is in my mind his perfect anthem.

**onam ben-israel:** When you listen to the early Beefeater stuff, we're singing about Ronald Reagan. At the time, I was trying to figure out ways to deal with human rights, spiritual realizations, political awareness, and all of that.

**BRUCE TAYLOR:** Beefeater was always a high-level creative place with over-the-top personalities. Dug and Tomas were serious about the message in the music, yet they both had a wry sense of humor that would appear unexpectedly. Fred was . . . Fred—larger than life and going 100 mph at all times. The banter between the three of them at practices was priceless. It just clicked. We recorded _Plays for Lovers_ in one day of live takes—all songs on the first take. I've never been in a band that was so in sync ever again. It was magical.

**DAVE GROHL:** For a while, it seemed like Beefeater played every week.

onam ben-israel, JULES LOFT, BALTIMORE, MD, 1985 (CYNTHIA CONNOLLY)

**BOBBY SULLIVAN:** Fred and Dug were pivotal too. I distinctly remember Fred telling Scott [McCloud], when he loaned him a Marshall amp for a show we were playing together, that Scott should do anything he needs to do. "Smash it if you need to," he said. Dug's bass creativity was formidable and he was a very involved participant in building the scene in a really innovative way.

**onam ben-israel:** We were an odd group of players from different backgrounds. That led to some serious intensity on tour when you're stuck in a van together.

**FRED SMITH:** There was a point while we were on tour where every PA guy would ask me where my bass was because I was the black guy in the band. When I was done with them they weren't asking anymore!

andy rapoport, mark sullivan, larry colbert, patrick bobst, dc space, DC, 1987 (Benjamin Tice Smith)
"We were a feel-good rock band. I wanted people to come to my show and feel great." —MARK SULLIVAN

King Face eschewed the well-trodden hardcore formulas of the time by combining rock 'n' roll swagger with a punk rock snarl. The band was led by dreadlocked front man and writer Mark Sullivan—whose tuneful, husky growl complemented their Van Halen–style precision guitar hooks and propulsive rhythm section.

Comprising Sullivan (whose DC hardcore pedigree included The Slinkees), guitarist Patrick Bobst, bassist Andy Rapoport, and drummer Larry Colbert, King Face was at its best live. Playing often and on a variety of bills, the group's shows were tight, raucous affairs that often ended with a full-throttle Aerosmith or Led Zeppelin cover. Though admittedly a "feel-good band," they never shied away from playing Positive Force benefit shows around town, sharing the stage with Fugazi, Beefeater, Rites of Spring, and others. Unlike many of the other bands of the era, who often burned out quickly and released records posthumously, King Face continued playing through most of the decade, self-releasing their Ian MacKaye–produced debut in 1987 and _Everywhere You Look_ in 1989 on the Dutch imprint Konkurrel. When the group disbanded shortly after releasing the latter, Sullivan would go on to form Sevens with brother Bobby (Soulside) and release a 7" on Akashic/Dischord in 1996, followed by an LP. _—Scott Crawford_

mark sullivan, andy rapoport, 1987 (Marce Sterner)

**MARK SULLIVAN:** When I decided after coming back from college that I wasn't going to play in a posthardcore band, I felt like I was saying no to a certain kind of success. King Face was a different kind of music, and if I hadn't lived at Dischord House, there's no way we would've played the kinds of shows that we did.

**PAT BOBST:** Mark's friends at Dischord House were never unwelcoming, but they didn't really show up for the gigs much in the beginning—I don't think the music was their thing.

Mark Sullivan, Safari Club, DC (Amanda MacKaye)

**ALEC MACKAYE:** Mark's lyric writing was amazing—he's a deep thinker. It was like he was writing from a college text or something. They were mighty.

**SIMON JACOBSEN:** For some unexplained reason that is only known to the cosmos, Pat and I were so tight and in parallel in our playing together that we were beginning to sound like the glam metal bands Ratt or Cinderella. It made me feel that I was becoming a Trojan horse to the band. They accepted me, it was great, but it was my nature to try to change them.

They were so solid in what they were doing that they knew another door would open after I oozed out. The person they found was cut from the finest punk-of-ages pedigree who in my opinion was just the elixir the band needed: Andy Rapoport. The group was now complete.

Band, 9:30 Club, DC (Amanda MacKaye)

**ANDY RAPOPORT:** It was right at the end of Revolution Summer when I got a call from Mark to see if I wanted to play bass in the band. I'd seen them play with Simon Jacobsen on second guitar and Ray "Toast" on bass and Colin [Sears] on drums. They weren't the typical DC punk band though. So when I tried out for King Face, I pulled up to Dischord House and Mark and Pat were out front smoking and drinking. I thought, _Is that even_ allowed _at Dischord House?!_

**MARK SULLIVAN:** We were a feel-good rock band. I wanted people to come to my show and feel great. It was like, _We're all in this together—let's send the roof off of this place and leave in one piece._

dc space, dc, 1988 (Marce Sterner)

**ANDY RAPOPORT:** I think it was pretty cool that people were willing to accept us and not just pass us off as some hard-rock band. Pat even had a whammy bar on his guitar!

**PAT BOBST:** Even though the DC scene was such a microcosm and we were kind of bad boys because we'd start drinking beer from soundcheck until we got on stage, I loved that scene. I didn't come from here, it's not something I grew up with. I came of age seeing Twisted Sister. But it's a scene that has shaped me to this day.

Previous four photos: Band, 1987 (LESLIE CLAGUE)

**ANDY RAPOPORT:** Whether it was a Positive Force show or the 9:30 Club, we put aside whatever sonic differences we might've had as bands and just shared the same stage. DC was like no other scene—and it was ours.

**PAT BOBST:** The closer we got to a major label getting interested in us, the more you felt dirty about it. One A&R guy told us we were "too tall" to make it. Sorry, not a whole lot we can do about that! But we were in our late twenties and life started to get in the way. For the most part, we weren't trying to "make it"—we were just trying to have a great night playing at DC Space or the 9:30 Club.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT, DC, 1985 (BERT QUEIROZ)
"Rites of Spring were to the second half of the EIGHTIES WHAT the Bad Brains were to the first half." —DAVE GROHL

Named after AN orchestral concert work by the notorious Russian composer Igor Stravinsky, Rites of Spring were a pivotal band in the DC punk scene in the mid-1980s. Comprising vocalist/guitarist Guy Picciotto, bassist Mike Fellows, guitarist Eddie Janney, and drummer Brendan Canty, the group ushered in a new, contemplative, emotionally raw lyrical delivery, along with explosive all-or-nothing live sets that would often end in splintered guitars and shattered drums. They would also be one of several bands dubbed "emo" by some locals (a tag which the fanzines picked up on at the time and has subsequently taken on a life of its own). Beneath the chaos and feedback of their debut LP _End on End_ , there were pop hooks and off-kilter rhythms, due in part to the band members' affection for much of the Brit-pop of the time—a fact that became clear by the band's second (posthumous) record. The band would later go on as One Last Wish (with Michael Hampton, but minus Mike Fellows) and then reform as Happy Go Licky (with the original lineup once again), playing a Rites of Spring song at their farewell gig at the 9:30 Club in 1987. Canty and Picciotto would soon join Fugazi. _—Scott Crawford_

Guy Picciotto, 9:30 CLUB, DC, 1985 (JOSEPH HENDERSON)

**DAVE GROHL:** Revolution Summer, and Rites of Spring in particular, had such a huge impact on Washington, DC and everything that came afterward. I wonder if there would've been a Fugazi without a Rites of Spring.

**ALEC MACKAYE:** With Rites of Spring, there was this level of energy that came out that was almost uncontainable. Guy's singing was so raw and urgent, yet he had so much restraint. He's a really sensitive musician and an over-the-top performer. Up until then, I think a lot of bands were striving for tightness, but that was a band that had this music that was loose and lubricated. It pulled everybody in.

**BRENDAN CANTY:** I can imagine if I'd never heard the band before and was watching Rites of Spring live for the first time, I might've been like, _What the fuck am I watching?_

9:30 CLUB, DC, 1985 (Joseph Henderson)

**AMY PICKERING** : When they left the stage, they were broken, all the instruments were broken, all the mics were broken. It suddenly brought the level of emotional involvement and engagement up.

**SCOTT CRAWFORD:** Every show was on the brink of collapse. But it was truly spontaneous, it never once felt contrived. They were fully invested in every note they played.

**BRENDAN CANTY:** We barely made those records. We just decided, _Let's get into a room and record these songs before our guitars break._ Which eventually they did.

**DAVE GROHL:** They brought a whole new sensitivity to the scene.

Guy Picciotto, NYC rooftop, 1984 (lydia ely)

**MARK ANDERSEN:** I encountered a pretty blazing word-of-mouth about Rites of Spring in the local scene through the first half of 1985, but no one really could express exactly what the band was about, and I hadn't heard a note of their music . . . all of which was perhaps for the best. As a result, I came into [a show at a] community center expecting something mysterious and immense, but open to whatever might come. The four band members were rail-thin with long hair, cracking jokes and throwing flowers into the crowd at the beginning of their set, vaguely hippie-ish, but their spirit was classic punk: intense, focused, throwing themselves into their songs like _right here, right now_ was all that mattered, like every song was life-or-death. They played through broken strings and muffed notes, striving toward some sort of communion with their audience. The performance was an act of faith, and the audience responded in kind, spontaneously singing part of the final song, "End on End," over and over and over again, until the band—who had always refused encores—came back to drive the song to a frenzied, sweat-drenched conclusion, together with the crowd. I remember stumbling around amidst the audience thinking, _What on earth is happening? This can't be real . . ._

**BRENDAN CANTY:** We were exposed emotionally onstage quite often . . . Living and playing in the moment—right then—was all that mattered. It was that totally end-of-the-world-is-right-now feeling. The idea that we could've toured and gotten in a van and made it through even two shows is crazy.

**ANDY RAPOPORT:** I don't know why I was crying at some of those Rites of Spring shows. But you looked across the room and all of your friends were doing the same thing.

Guy Picciotto, Chevy Chase Community Center, DC, 1985 (Bert Queiroz)

**STEVE NILES:** There was a lot of emotion onstage—Guy was crying, things were being destroyed, but it was a release.

**BRENDAN CANTY:** A lot of the energy from those shows came from the lyrics and sharing in those emotions that are in the lyrics, which are really exposed and out there. If you took them to heart, you were bound to feel something. That was really the whole thing: can we come together and communicate in a room together?

**SCOTT MCCLOUD:** The Rites of Spring record was the first record to really grab me in a devotional way. I was one of the kids up front just losing my mind at every show.

**BRIAN BAKER:** It was sort of like live therapy for the musicians and for the audience. The performance was a purge.

eddie janney, brendan canty, mike fellows, Guy PicciOtto, NYC rooftop (LYDIA ELY)

**BRENDAN CANTY:** I remember responding to the _emo_ label by saying, "Well, isn't any music that's worth its salt emotional?"

**MEGHAN ADKINS:** I went to high school with Mike Fellows for a semester. He was dating a friend of mine. We'd have lunch together, the three of us. Sometimes he'd talk about the band he was in. I was so bored by it; he wasn't bragging about it but I didn't really care. One day I saw that Mike's band, Rites of Spring, were playing at Food for Thought, where I worked. I went to the show. I couldn't ever talk to him after that. It felt like maybe I'd seen him naked or something.

**DAVE GROHL:** Rites of Spring could have been as big as The Beatles!

Onam Ben-Israel
"It just seemed that what the world needed was a really good punk rock band." —BRIAN BAKER

Brian Baker could be DC punk's secret weapon, or at least its MVP. His brilliant, thick-toned, hard-rock–cum–punk-guitar work has elevated every single band he has passed through, from Minor Threat to Government Issue to The Meatmen to Junkyard to Bad Religion. Arguably, he is at his best in Dag Nasty, formed in 1985 with Colin Sears (drums) and Roger Marbury (bass). Original vocalist Shawn Brown would be replaced by DYS's Dave Smalley (on his way to post-Descendents outfit All) for the 1986 debut _Can I Say_. Clearly refining lessons learned from Bad Brains, The Damned, Faith, and Minor Threat, Dag Nasty came off on that record as the ultimate distillation of everything great about DC punk/hardcore. With Pete Cortner replacing Smalley at the mic in time for their second LP, _Wig Out at Denkos_ , Dag Nasty continued to refine its musicality, releasing seven LPs and becoming nearly every emo band's hidden influence in the process. — _Tim Stegall_

peter cortner, brian baker, roger marbury, colin sears, Oakville, Ontario, Canada, 1986 (Jill Heath)

**BRIAN BAKER** : It just seemed that what the world needed was a really good punk rock band. And [we were going] to take all of the things that we had learned in our various bands and put them together and make sure everybody bleaches their hair.

**Colin Sears:** Brian and I had been talking about being in a band for a while and I know Brian had this idea of all of the members of his next band looking like they belonged together—to all have a "look." So when we started practicing in the summer of '85, Brian had this idea of us all dyeing our hair. We just thought it was a cool idea—like we'd show up to the club and people would see us and go, "Oh, Dag Nasty's here."

**BRIAN BAKER:** At the time of Dag Nasty, I thought I had to play to my strengths. And at that time, it was playing guitar in a punk rock band.

dave smalley, 1986 (David SelTZer)

**Colin Sears:** DC punk had a strict set of rules—stricter than anywhere else. It even came down to the way people dressed.

**COLIN SEARS:** Shawn Brown was our singer and we all got along really well. But then Dave Smalley moved to town and Brian saw that he was a great singer, a lot of charisma and energy, so Roger and I caved to the idea of Dave joining the band. It all happened very quickly. Our last show with Shawn was in January of '86 and the first show with Dave was in March, and then we went on a short Midwestern tour with Beefeater, came home, and recorded _Can I Say._

**SHAWN BROWN** : I was so bummed when they told me they wanted a change in direction. I was pretty angry. I was pissed for years—some of that Swiz stuff was about that. But what I think is cool is that we've been able come back as adults and continue playing. All of that stuff is forgotten.

**DAVE SMALLEY:** [At my first show with Dag Nasty] I was probably nervous, but we were a very intense band, doing something unique, and I think we knew it, even subconsciously. I believed in what we were doing. I've been lucky in that every band I've ever been in, there's been a spark, at one point or another, where the whole thing comes together, it's on fire. For Dag Nasty, that fire was there with the _Can I Say_ lineup. I knew there were a few people who had seen Dag's first few shows from the demos and might have had some questions about this Boston hardcore guy, but I never doubted us for one second.

brian baker (Todd GaLlentine)

**PETER CORTNER:** The local bands that I enjoyed the most at the time were 9353, Beefeater, Dove, and HR. I didn't care for The Faith or Marginal Man, and (heresy of heresies) I didn't like Minor Threat's _Out of Step_ at all. Given Dag Nasty's pedigree and style, I didn't expect them to be my cup of tea.

Nevertheless, for a short time I loved them to pieces. To my THC-addled ears they sounded more like Motörhead than like Minor Threat. And despite their slick sound and straight-edge themes, they came off as completely unpretentious. Shawn Brown seemed completely down-to-earth and unlikely to give a fan shit for having a beer in his hand. Shortly after I first saw them I got a copy of their demo (what eventually became _Dag with Shawn)_ and played it to death. I couldn't get enough of them.

That changed when Shawn was replaced by Dave Smalley. I saw their first DC show with Dave and felt completely let down. Where Shawn had seemed relatable, Dave struck me as evangelical. For me, they'd stopped being a really cool local band—now they were a "package." It was over between us.

**COLIN SEARS:** A few months after recording the album, Dave told us he had been accepted to grad school. We'd already committed to touring with the Descendents that summer, so it was sort of like being told by your parents that they're moving out of your house and they're just going to leave you.

**DAVE SMALLEY:** [The reaction to me leaving] was not good. Bitterness and anger. We knew there was a sort of unique and burning intensity and chemistry with us four, but it was 1986 and we were still very young, and I don't think we really thought it all through—we just didn't have a lot of life perspective yet, or at least I didn't. If I hadn't quit, who knows? It's definitely one of my what-ifs. People have said many times that the original _Can I Say_ lineup could have broken through to be huge.

**BRIAN BAKER:** Some looked down on us for getting out and playing our music beyond DC—to the same people week after week. I still maintain there's no downside to that.

**COLIN SEARS:** Then we started Dag Nasty Version 3 with Peter, and I loved Peter's vocals and lyrics—they were so great.

peter cortner, the pyramid, Richmond, va, 1987 (Todd GalLentine)

**PETER CORTNER:** In 1986, when Dag advertised in DC's _City Paper_ that they wanted a new singer, I was quite surprised. Mark Shellhaas, who played drums for Protem and Beefeater at the time, thought it would be funny if I tried to audition since I'd been such a fan. I thought it would be funny too, so I gave the band a call.

Brian Baker came to Silver Spring to talk with me about what the band had in mind. He brought along a copy of _Can I Say,_ which hadn't yet been released. We listened to it together while he explained that they wanted a singer who would replicate Smalley's approach. Brian emphasized that enunciation was key; the listener should be able to understand the words without a lyric sheet. I nodded my head like a moron and agreed to come to the Dag practice space to try out. I didn't mention that I preferred the old recording with Shawn.

**DAVE SMALLEY:** [On hearing Dag Nasty's next album without him.] I remember being in school in Israel and Mike Gitter sent me _Wig Out_ and I listened to it and cried a bit, because I recognized some of the songs we'd been working on before I quit, and wished that I'd done the album.

**BRIAN BAKER:** _Field Day_ didn't sound very good. We were directionless when were making it. It lacked cohesion. At that point we were focused on trying to become a bigger band.

9:30 CLUB, DC, 1985 (JOSEPH HENDERSON)
"Everything was just too hard in Embrace." —MiCHAEL hampton

By 1984, both Minor Threat and FaitH had broken up. It was a year that saw increasing violence and misogyny at shows, resulting in a pact among many of the newly forming bands to "take back" the early sense of freedom and camaraderie by finding new, more intimate spaces to perform in and not allowing violence and overzealous slam-dancing to ruin the night (often by confronting audience members head-on). This new crop of bands—including Embrace—would become part of Revolution Summer in 1985. Featuring vocalist Ian MacKaye, guitarist Michael Hampton, bassist Chris Bald, and drummer Ivor Hanson (the latter three from Faith), Embrace was a short-lived but potent live band. Hampton's sinewy guitar compositions were the perfect complement to MacKaye's powerfully introspective lyrics. Proving too creatively combustive, the band would break up less than a year after forming. Their one and only album was released posthumously in 1987 on Dischord. _—Scott Crawford_

**ALEC MACKAYE:** The Faith was a volatile scene. When my brother thought he could get a handle on them, I was like, "Good luck with that." But it was worth trying. Playing with fire is fun.

**IAN MACKAYE:** At some point in the late 1984, I started working on what would become Embrace. The original lineup was going to be Jeff Nelson on drums, me on bass, Mike Hampton guitar, and Mark Sullivan singing. But that just didn't really work out. Then it became me on guitar, Chris Bald on bass, and Mark singing. That didn't work out either, so then it became me on bass, Mike on guitar, and Jeff drumming, and maybe I'll sing. But at some point, we were talking about our goals for the band and Jeff just said, "Let's not do this," and he quit.

**Michael HampTON:** The original version of Embrace was actually me playing guitar, Ian on bass, and Jeff playing drums. But Ian and Jeff had some differences of opinion as usual, and we ended up getting Chris on bass and Ivor on drums. That's how it ended up being The Faith with Ian singing—it wasn't an intentional thing.

As a group it never quite gelled. We never took a band photo—Ian said, "I don't wanna take a picture, I don't feel like we're a band." It was a strange band. It wasn't a lot of fun.

CHRIS BALD, DC SPACE, DC, 1986 (JENN IZZA Fox-THOMAS)

**MARK ANDERSEN:** I had become close friends with Chris Bald, a sometimes dark but soulful veteran of the hardcore scene . . . He was one of the folks who would speak in hushed tones about Rites of Spring, and I knew he wanted to be something just as open-hearted and do-or-die as that band, so I couldn't wait to see Embrace play live. I was in Central America for their first show at Food for Thought in July, but had returned in time to see their second show. I walked into the club during the song "No More Pain" and was immediately riveted. The band was slower and more nuanced than Rites of Spring, with intricate, cutting guitar wrestling with melodic but propulsive bass, held together by the drums—but both Ian and Chris brought the same abandon and vulnerability. They were putting it all on the line. By the song's end, Ian was screaming, _"No more petty love, no more petty hate, no more pettiness, no more pain!"_ with Chris rasping, _"No pain, no pain, no more pain"_ behind him, and it all collapsed into a glorious pile of passion and defiance. Then the band gathered itself up and was off into the next song, out for blood and truth.

**IVOR HANSON:** Embrace was a band that worked on paper, but not in real life. By that I mean, since Chris and Michael and I had all been in Faith, we had that experience of playing together already. And even though it was amusing at some level that we went from Alec to Ian singing, it didn't feel like we were simply going from one brother to another in the vocals department.

I think the problem was that while we all wanted to be in a band, we all just shouldn't have been in _that_ band.

As for whether Embrace was a volatile bunch, well, Chris could be a bit unpredictable at that time, but I think we were all just in different places. Michael's songs and ways of recording those songs (as in, for instance, laying down layers of guitars in the studio) were going one way, and Ian's vocals and songs were going in another, and so, well, it was a struggle to truly click.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT, DC, 1986 (Bert Queiroz)

**MICHAEL HAMPTON:** Embrace played a few shows . . . but there was always a sense that things just weren't gelling the way they should. It was not the band that I think Ian wanted to be in. It eventually became the band that none of us wanted to be in. Everything was just too hard in Embrace.

**IVOR HANSON:** Ian would say things like he didn't think we should do a photo since he didn't think we were a band yet, and I remember thinking, _We are playing shows and recording—doesn't that make us a band?_ Or I (or we) would say that taking a band shot or photo session would, at some level, help make us a band. I just didn't get that line of thought. I guess the writing was on the wall, but we didn't, or at least I didn't, see it. I do know I didn't want the band to end, but I also didn't want the band to keep going as it was going, since, well, it wasn't that enjoyable. But, of course, instead of changing, we broke up, proving to be yet another short-lived but revered DC punk band.

Ian mackaye, Mantua Rec Center, VA, 1986 (David Seltzer)

**IAN MACKAYE:** As far as I was concerned, punk had been emotional from day one. I mean, Johnny Rotten was emotional!

**MICHAEL HAMPTON:** By the end of Embrace, Ian went to England and he said, "You guys better practice while I'm gone or we're not a band at all when I get back." And none of us practiced. So when he came back, holding a cassette of the Egghunt session he'd just recorded over there, we were just stunned by how much better it was than anything Embrace had done. Ivor and I both said, "Uh, maybe you should do _that!"_ That was really the demise of Embrace.

9:30 CLUB, DC, 1985 (Joseph Henderson)

**IAN MACKAYE:** I had booked what would have been our first truly out-of-town show in Boston and it was scheduled for just a couple of days after I got back from England. I told the rest of the band that they had to practice while I was gone and they didn't get together a single time. So I quit and that was the end of Embrace.

BOBBY SULLIVAN, 9:30 CLUB, DC, 1987 (TODD GaLlentine)
"the DC scene could become a bit navel-gazing, so to get out and see the world and see how other scenes worked was amazing."—Alexis FLEISIG

By 1985 there was a new crop of punk rock upstarts in DC forming bands and starting labels. Lünchmeat (featuring Mark Sullivan's fresh-faced younger brother Bobby) was among this batch. They released a split 7" with another new band called Mission Impossible (featuring a sixteen-year-old Dave Grohl on drums), entitled _Thanks,_ that would serve as the debut release on Sammich Records (owned by Amanda MacKaye, Ian and Alec's younger sister). Shortly after its release, both bands broke up, with Lünchmeat reforming under a new name—Soulside. As the quartet (featuring vocalist Bobby Sullivan, guitarist Scott McCloud, bassist Chris Thomson, and drummer Alexis Fleisig) continued to evolve musically, Thomson left the band to be replaced by Johnny Temple. The group would release their debut full-length on Sammich and begin a rigorous touring schedule. After a few more records on Dischord, Soulside embarked on a four-month European tour in 1989 where they became the first US punk band to play in East Berlin. Ultimately, the tour proved to be the band's final hurrah, but it resulted in the excellent _Hot Bodi-Gram_ LP—recorded while on the tour in Europe, during which the band decided to call it quits. Bobby Sullivan would go on to play in Rain Like the Sound of Trains, Seven League Boots, and Sevens, while the remaining members went on to become three-quarters of Girls Against Boys. — _Scott Crawford_

BOBBY SULLIVAN (ALEXIS FLEISIG)

**BOBBY SULLIVAN** : Lünchmeat, to me, felt like a group of kids trying something new for the sole purpose of having fun. We hadn't really found a direction at that time. After all, the band had a jokey name. Soulside was something we took very seriously after playing with some of the great DC bands. Crafting a sound, constructing songs in as many different ways as possible—we were working on taking music in a new direction. We were on a mission and I was certainly more passionate about the subject matter of the songs.

**SCOTT MCCLOUD** : Bobby's older brother Mark had played in bands (The Slinkees, King Face), so we found ourselves in a fortunate situation where Lünchmeat could get a good bill. That was incredible for me. To play a venue and not some high school party was just huge at that point. We started to play pretty regularly at the 9:30 Club and DC Space and everyone was so welcoming. We were pretty rough around the edges, but we just kept working at it. There was a framework there with Dischord, there was a path.

**SHAWNA KENNEY** : My roommate Pam and I were supposed to start our new jobs at Record & Tape Exchange but found out Soulside was playing at the Bethesda Community Center in the middle of the day, so we quit our jobs and went to the show instead.

BOBBY SULLIVAN, ALEXIS FLEISIG, SCOTT MCCLOUD, JOHNNY TEMPLE, GRAND CANYON, AZ (ALEXIS FLEISIG)

**BOBBY SULLIVAN** : We were there for that moment—just before it blew up, basically, and that's when the legacy that we were carrying on became clear—because we could headline shows all over the country based on the fact that we were on Dischord and we were from DC. It had nothing to do with who we were as an individual band.

**ALEXIS FLEISIG:** Soulside played a show in San Diego with Dag Nasty in a club that was run by skinheads. It was totally insane—fights breaking out everywhere you looked and band members from the local scene flicking cigarettes at us. That never would've happened in DC. For me, I always had a mind-set where you were aware of your behavior and its implications and I think that's something that permeated the DC scene.

**JOHNNY TEMPLE:** Soulside tours had a healthy dose of violence. There were occasionally fights at shows in DC, but nothing like the barbarism we encountered in San Diego, Flint, Michigan, Boulder, Colorado, Ottawa, Canada, and other places. Most of these incidents were essentially race riots provoked by Nazi skinheads. Scott ended up in the hospital in Ottawa (his shoulder popped out while he was throwing punches). In Flint, after being asked why he had "nigger hair" during our set, Bobby invited a skinhead to share his perspective and passed the microphone to him. The guy came up onstage and began Sieg Heiling and yelling, "White Power!" I'm pretty sure the moron ended up getting his ass kicked, but even so, the whole thing was pretty horrible.

**BOBBY SULLIVAN** : I'll never forget the dialogue between the band and the audience at some shows. There was this one gig in Flint, Michigan, where these White Power guys completely took over the show. They had the audience captive. Four skinheads had taken over a show with maybe three hundred people. And it wasn't until we made a fool out of them from the stage that things settled down. These skins were onstage with me and I asked them, "Are you Nazi skinheads or just regular skinheads?" and they said, "We're Nazis." So then I said, "You know, the Nazis were our enemy in World War II—are you pro-America or anti-America?" All of a sudden three hundred people in the audience are laughing at them and they shrunk off the stage. That's the power of music over violence.

johnny temple (Alexis fleisig)

**JOHNNY TEMPLE:** Bobby's dreadlocks drew a lot of attention, most of it positive, but sometimes very negative, with both racists and cops. We were pulled over by cops numerous times on cross-country tours for simply having someone with dreadlocks in the van. We were rarely given tickets by these cops because we weren't doing anything wrong. One time when we got pulled over (for Bobby's dreadlocks), Scott was driving, and when the cop asked him what we were doing, Scott snapped at him: "We're a punk band!" I thought, _Oh shit, what the hell are you saying?_

**ALEXIS FLEISIG:** At times, the DC scene could become a bit navel-gazing, so to get out and see the world and see how other scenes worked was amazing. In 1989, we toured right as the Soviet Union was collapsing and played Poland and East Berlin and we met all of these people who were really suffering. As opposed to here where a lot of people were at times armchair protesting.

**SCOTT MCCLOUD** : The European tour was just a mind explosion for all of us.

**BOBBY SULLIVAN** : That whole tour was a cornerstone experience in my life. It was amazing to see the pervasiveness of punk/DIY culture before the Internet. For instance, after seeing the people lined up for vodka in one city in Poland, we got to the show and there's a straight-edge band opening up for us. This is in 1989, behind the Iron Curtain!

scott mccloud, the complex, dc, 1987 (TODD GalLentine)

**SCOTT MCCLOUD** : We used to argue about some of the content of the Soulside songs. I felt like some of it was not just too political, but saying things politically that everyone already agreed to. We were preaching to the converted. I was trying to push us to get more personal, to write about things that maybe we weren't even comfortable with. There was tension, but ultimately that resulted in _Hot Bodi-Gram,_ which we recorded as we were breaking up. It's my favorite record by Soulside.

**BOBBY SULLIVAN** : The scene was changing so fast, going in so many different directions, I think we just had stylistic differences about how we wanted to move forward. It's pretty clear what those differences were when you look at the bands we all did afterward.

**JOHNNY TEMPLE:** Our breakup was a bit strange how it unfolded. It happened near the start of our one and only European tour, in early 1989. We were at a bar in Amsterdam early in the tour, and we'd been having recurring arguments, largely because we were all quite immature. This time we realized we didn't want to continue doing the band in such a negative atmosphere and we all pretty much quickly agreed that we would stop. Oddly enough, as a broken-up band, we were at our most potent and productive: we simply continued the epic four-month tour across both Western and Eastern Europe, staying many nights on the floors of squats (with or without blankets and pillows), and then we recorded _Hot Bodi-Gram_ , our best record, and then we played two final shows in DC, at Fort Reno with Fugazi and at the old 9:30 Club.

**BOBBY SULLIVAN** : While I lament the way some of the music found its way into the mainstream in the nineties, a lot of the activism from the scene went with it. I can see signs of that everywhere I look.

Nicky Thomas, kate samworth, amy pickering, natalie avery, OLSHONSKY GALLERY, 2ND FLOOR OF DC SPACE, PHOTO TAKEN IN AN ART ATTACK EXHIBITION, dc, 1988 (CYNTHIA CONNOLLY)
"When we started our band, we wanted to be taken seriously not just as musicians but as contributors to our community." —NATALIE AVERY

Fire Party Predated the Riot Grrrl movement by several years starting in 1986, when even the possibility of four women producing ferocious yet tuneful punk like this was a radical concept. Amy Pickering (vocals), Natalie Avery (guitars), Kate Samworth (bass), and Nicky Thomas (drums) excelled at creating punk that owed a debt of inspiration to bands like X-Ray Spex and The Slits, even if the sound leaned more in the direction of a louder Wire. Stateside, the band received generally tepid audiences outside of DC, but found a more supportive response in Europe, opening several shows for That Petrol Emotion and touring with labelmates Scream. Wholly involved in Revolution Summer, Fire Party released two furious EPs on Dischord ( _New Orleans Opera_ and self-titled) before disbanding in 1990. _—Glenn Griffith_

Fire party With Fidelity Jones, Elko, NV, 1989 (unknown)

**NATALIE AVERY:** Fire Party grew out of this really tight-knit group of people very much shaped by a very small music scene. We were in our late teens and twenties and in our first years of living outside of our parents' homes. The relationships were incredibly intense and intertwined, as people were trying to figure out who they wanted to be and how they wanted to live. The stakes seemed really high. People had been playing music for so long and were such music aficionados, scouring record stores, constantly making mixtapes. And everyone had experienced some of the most amazing live bands ever—from the Bad Brains to Faith and Minor Threat to Rites of Spring. By 1986 it was like, _What could possibly be more epic than those moments?_

So there was also a sense of yearning—to keep creating, to keep pushing the envelope. Maybe something would happen again. So what I remember about this period is a lot of personal turmoil as people navigated those first years of adulthood, along with a lot of creative experimentation and risk-taking.

**MARK ANDERSEN:** Amy Pickering is a force of nature. Dubbed "the mother of the revolution" by Beefeater's Tomas Squip for her behind-the-scenes role in catalyzing Revolution Summer, Amy stepped to the fore as the lead singer of Fire Party. Their sound was dense and churning, with Natalie Avery's guitar colliding with Amy's vocals and the rhythm section of Kate Samworth and Nicky Thomas in a relentless thrust-and-parry sound storm. That they were four young women seizing the stage in a scene where female presence was often lacking in that specific nexus of power was, they insisted, entirely by accident. Be that as it may, their intensity and creativity cleared some crucial territory for the Riot Grrrl movement that would soon erupt in the DC scene. Punk was—and remains—about never-ending growth, and Fire Party sought to rise to that challenge: _"The only way out / is up."_

**JENNY TOOMEY:** For me, the transformative moment was when Fire Party started. Because there were some people in that band who were dating boys in other bands. When those other boys in those bands sang brokenhearted love songs or critical love songs, you had a pretty good idea who they might be singing about. And it was a pretty one-sided conversation. So it was exciting to see Amy and the other women in Fire Party up there with their own voice. It became kind of a dialogue.

**Nicky Thomas:** There was this constant kind of debate about how we're women, we're playing music, but we don't want to talk about it. We just wanted to be looked at as musicians. So it was really kind of an interesting phenomenon when the Riot Grrrl thing happened, because they were turning that idea on its head. We had spent all this time trying to play in a way that we would just be respected, and suddenly these girls are coming along and saying, "This is the forefront of our identity."

**NATALIE AVERY:** Fire Party came out of a pretty different time and place as Riot Grrrl. We'd all been part of the DC punk scene for a long time. When we started our band, we wanted to be taken seriously not just as musicians but as contributors to our community. And we thought that allowing ourselves to be defined as a "girl band" trivialized what we were trying to do and pushed us to the very sidelines that we were trying to get off. We totally downplayed our femininity, and really wanted people to see us as a band and not just a girl band. But obviously, it was a little naive to think that we could just decree that being girls shouldn't be a factor in how people experienced us.

I'm super proud of what we did and how we handled a lot of really fucked-up misogynist shit—some subtle, some not so subtle at all. But for the most part, we kept the conversations about how that felt and what it meant to us private. We talked about that stuff in the van or after practice, not onstage or in interviews. Honestly, I don't know if that was the healthiest way to handle it. I think what Riot Grrrl did as a movement was really important because it forced those conversations public and allowed this whole support network to grow and created this really amazing platform for women and girls to explore their creativity and to really celebrate being themselves.

AMY PICKERING, germany, 1989 (unknown)

**SCOTT CRAWFORD:** There was a lot of anticipation around the first Fire Party show—none of them had played in bands before so nobody knew quite what to expect.

**MEGHAN ADKINS:** I first found out about Fire Party from Nicky, who I had just met at Emerson. We were in an English class together. She had green hair and sat behind me most days. I remember she told me she was in a band and I was dumbfounded. We were fifteen. I was like, "How can you be a drummer in a punk rock band already?" Made me feel really slow. I saw them play later that year and kept thinking, _Why aren't all the girls I know in bands?_ There's nothing cooler than being able to express your actual self through some channel that no one else controls but you.

**Nicky Thomas:** The fact that we were so obsessed with being on the same level as the boys comes with its own set of issues, like, _Why do we feel this way? What about the stance of the DC scene made us feel like we had to live up to some kind of standard?_

OLSHONSKY GALLERY, DC, 1989 (CYNTHIA CONNOLLY)

**AMY PICKERING:** When we played our first show at DC Space I was super nervous. Even though I was surrounded by my friends, I was really scared. After we got off the stage, people were so kind to us. And I never really had to worry about [being nervous] again. Though the next time I ever really had to think about being in an all-girl band again was in Holland when this guy came up to me and asked if we sounded like The Bangles. That really didn't work for me.

**NATALIE AVERY:** In Europe, we mostly played and stayed in squats, some which were absolutely amazing. It exposed us to these fully functioning underground economies, where people could exist totally outside the mainstream—not pay rent and not have to work a regular job. It was really inspiring to see the kinds of lives people were making for themselves and the spaces they created that went way beyond the group-house life I was familiar with. We met a lot of really kick-ass, inspiring women who played leading roles in making those communities work. But of course people made assumptions about what we'd sound and act like based more on our gender than where we were from. That happened everywhere we went.

Stuart hill, mike russelL, craig wedren, chris matthews, rehearsal space, silver spring, md, 1990 (JIM SAAH)
"FOR US IT WAS ALL ABOUT ART AND PUSHING BOUNDARIES." —CRAIG WEDREN

the original lineup of Shudder to Think was Craig Wedren (vocals), Chris Matthews (guitar), Stuart Hill (bass), and Mike Russell (drums). The four-piece had already released one album on Sammich in 1988 _(Curses, Spells, Voodoo, Mooses)_ before they took their act to Dischord. There, on their next two albums, _Ten Spot_ and _Funeral at the Movies_ , the band would inject the dour seriousness of some DC hardcore with flashes of bright color and flourishes of instrumental prowess. Nearly prog-rock moments nudged up against Ronson-era riffs on tracks like "Summertime Train," with Wedren and his bandmates very nearly approaching a Queen-like sense of melody and composition. _Funeral at the Movies_ from 1991 offered up a fairly straight cover of a Hendrix classic ("Crosstown Traffic") to further acknowledge the different point of view that powered this band while most of their peers were still riding the Revolution Summer wave. The group's daring third album, 1992's _Get Your Goat_ , pushed their sound about as far left field of DC hardcore as was possible in that era, and they subsequently signed to Epic. Matthews and Russell left the band and were replaced by Nathan Larson (Swiz) and Adam Wade (Jawbox) around the time that the group was starting to draw more nationwide attention. Their 1994 major label debut, _Pony Express Record,_ scored a college radio hit with "X-French Tee Shirt" and the band was getting noticed by fans of tour mates Smashing Pumpkins, as well as viewers of the _Beavis and Butt-Head_ show on MTV, where the song's video earned some memorable commentary from the animated duo. Finally calling it quits in 2002, Wedren and Larson continue to stay busy with TV and film compositions. Larson has also published three novels on Akashic Books.

9:30 club, DC, 1990 (JIM SAAH)

**CRAIG WEDREN:** Being on Dischord opened up a lot of doors for us but it was also a tough sell. The music that we were playing, and what particularly Nathan and I were interested in, was art—we were straight-up "art fags." We just happened to land in DC and we were boys who were into heavy music . . .

For us it was all about art and pushing boundaries, making out with girls and upsetting straight boys. Girls and gays—that's who who we wanted in our audience.

**KENNY INOUYE:** I wish I could adequately communicate how original this band was. Most bands would love to be considered "trailblazers." These guys went beyond that. A trailblazer paves the way for others to follow the template they created. These guys created a template that few wanted to even try to emulate, and the few who tried didn't make the grade. Whether they liked them or not, even detractors had to respect their originality. They were that good.

**CRAIG WEDREN:** The best part about being in the DC scene was finding so many encouraging characters that I hadn't had in my life before.

9:30 Club, DC, 1992 (Jim saah)

**Stuart Hill:** We had a different sound than people were used to, so it took awhile to build a following. Shit, it took me awhile to get it. The best thing was, when someone got it, they really got it. I always liked having such a dedicated following, it really meant a lot to all of us.

**JASON FARRELL:** Shudder to Think were weird. They made people feel uncomfortable. A large part of the DC scene and hardcore scene in general—those who were amped up on Age of Quarrel—were not ready for Craig. But for those who could embrace it, it was challenging, inventive, and beautiful. Swiz had close ties to Shudder: both bands started out on Amanda MacKaye's label Sammich, we played and toured together, Craig and our bassist Nathan were very close friends, and Nathan eventually ending up as Shudder's guitarist.

**KENNY INOUYE:** We're in the process of laying down the vocal tracks to _[Ten Spot]_. Things are sounding pretty great so far with the instrumental tracks, so everyone is pretty excited at this point. Craig is in the vocal booth, getting ready to lay down his vocal tracks.

"Uh, can I turn off the lights in this room?"

"Yeah, Craig. Sure. Whatever works for you."

He turns off the lights. A few minutes go by, and folks are kind of wondering what's up.

"Uh, can I take off my clothes?"

"Yeah, Craig. Will it help? . . . Yeah, man. Sure. If you think it will help.

You hear some shuffling that sounds like clothes coming off.

"Okay, I think I'm ready now."

Craig proceeded to lay down all the vocal tracks naked and in the dark. At times almost machinelike, it was so well done.

Adam Wade, Stuart Hill, CBGB, New York City, 1992 (Jim Saah)

**CRAIG WEDREN:** After leaving Dischord and signing to Epic, we definitely felt the blessing and the curse of that. There was a mixed sense of friction and tension between the two.

**NATHAN LARSON:** Had we stayed on Dischord our lives would have been quite different. For my own part, things slid quite seamlessly into a lifelong career doing film music, so I truly cannot complain. My only genuine regret is that I was an asshole, did some cruel and thoughtless stuff, and was generally self-absorbed—but who's to say this wouldn't have been the case had we been a Dischord band living in DC . . . ? Being a prick is sort of the standard modality when you're in your twenties, isn't it?

**ADAM WADE:** The juxtaposition between going from Dischord House to 1515 Broadway at the Sony Music building in Midtown Manhattan was intimidating—there's just money everywhere . . . It got us a larger audience, but we pissed off a lot of people too.

Nathan larson, Craig wedren, black cat, DC, 1994 (JIM SAAH)

**NATHAN LARSON:** I wouldn't trade the experience of being on a major label in the 1990s, for better or worse . . . We were there to observe the downfall of the music industry as it had existed since the end of World War II, so that's quite an experience.

**CRAIG WEDREN:** That moment when I came into the scene—right after Rites of Spring and the Bad Brains had released albums—still inspires every bit of music that I make today.

CHRIS BALD, CHRIS THOMSON, DANTE FERRANDO, ALEC MACKAYE, near food for thought, DC, 1987 (Cynthia Connolly)
"When Ignition formed we knew there was going to be an energy that was going to be hard to contain at times." —ALEC MACKAYE

A DC hardcore supergroup of sorts, Ignition started in 1986 with vocalist Alec MacKaye, guitarist Chris Bald (both of whom had played in Faith), drummer Dante Ferrando (of Gray Matter), and bassist Chris Thomson (who'd briefly played in Soulside). Two defining characteristics were Alec's unpredictable, Iggy-like performances and Chris Bald's brooding, hyperkinetic musical style. They played numerous Positive Force shows and benefits for sociopolitical causes. They first released a three-song 7" with an iconic black-and-white cover, then another 7" (recorded by Ian MacKaye) featuring the songs "Anger Means" and "Proven Hollow." The black-and-red 12" EP released by Southern Studios in 1988 combines the two. Their first full-length album, _Machination_ , came out in 1988, followed by _The_ _Orafying Mysticle of . . ._ in 1989. Ignition toured across the US, and also in Europe—making them among the first Dischord bands to play outside of the US. They put out a two-song flexi-disc on the night of their hundredth show in 1989 (at the 9:30 Club), and _Complete Services_ , a compilation of all of their records, was released by Dischord on CD in 1994 and rereleased in 2012. _—Shawna Kenney_

Band, near food for thought, DC, 1987 (CYNTHIA CONNOLLY)

**DANTE FERRANDO:** During a cross-country motorcycle trip, I stayed with Chris Bald in San Francisco [Bald was living there at the time]. We were discussing the tepid state of the music scene—and how our previous bands had broken up before getting to tour. We talked about starting a project with an unbridled, no-holds-barred approach. Getting Alec to sing seemed like an imperative. Back in DC, we got Chris Thomson involved, and asked Alec, who hadn't done anything since Faith split up. He was interested—but had also been talking with his brother about playing together.

Chris Bald and I really wanted to get a single out and go on tour as soon as possible. Ian was still formulating a plan, and he wanted to take time to let it come together. I guess Alec liked our decisive, full-forward approach because he decided to go with us.

We played our first show before we had a chance to settle on a name. Three weeks later we recorded the first single. We put it out on our own because it seemed like the fastest way to get it done. The first tour started about a month after that. Within another five, we launched our European tour.

**ALEC MACKAYE:** When Ignition formed we knew there was going to be an energy that was going to be hard to contain at times.

ALEC MACKAYE, DC SPACE, DC, 1987 (JENN IZZA Fox-THOMAS)

**ALEC MACKAYE & DANTE FERRANDO: **Ignition was a group—but it was a group of individuals, with strong personalities. We shared common goals, but our clashing impulses, collective intensity, and overall dysfunction occasionally got the better of us. There was fairly constant tension and we exploited that, harnessing the friction for energy and explosive performances. Chris Bald sometimes went the furthest, shedding all his clothes if the room got too hot, or deconstructing his equipment if frustration became too great. We didn't hold back for anything.

**CHRIS THOMSON:** I remember everywhere we'd go in Europe we'd get interviewed and they all wanted to know what DC was like. If your only sense of the city is through the records here, you really wouldn't get a good idea of what it's like. There aren't a lot of people that play in bands and it's this really small corner of it.

**JASON FARRELL:** My initial excitement in seeing Ignition was an extension of loving The Faith. Ignition was even darker. Seeing them live could be enthralling, like seeing the trance/snake-handler thing I had imagined the Faith shows to be. It's like they would get onstage and I'd watch them freak out or go get lost. There was this underlying sense of things about to fall apart, that this would be short-lived due to the temperament of its members. And that this inevitable implosion was acknowledged and embraced by the members, making them move quickly and surely before the storm washed it all away.

**CHRIS BALD** ( _as told to_ Dagger _fanzine, 2015_ ) **:** Ignition is the band I am proudest to have been in. We did the most work, a hundred shows in two years, toured the States and Europe, put out our own singles, put out two great records on Dischord.

**ALEC MACKAYE:** There was this one show where Chris's guitar was out of tune. I think it was halfway through our second song, and he stopped and kept trying to tune. He just got overwhelmed with frustration and broke his guitar into tiny pieces and then used those pieces to stab out holes in his guitar cabinet. And I just had to say, "Thanks, everybody, that's what you get for five bucks. Sorry."

CHRIS BALD, ALTERNATIVE FESTIVAL, DC, 1987 (JENn IZZA Fox-THOMAS)

**JASON FARRELL:** Chris Bald was playing a truly shitty guitar . . . it was a Fender or Fender knock-off with a bolt-on neck painted primer gray. He'd often break his shit, and there's only so many times you can fix an SG, so I'm guessing he ended up with this guitar as a last resort. Somehow this sad, gray, collapsible guitar would limp back onstage for the next show. Anyway, it wouldn't stay in tune for the first song. Chris did his best to tune it back up and started the second song, but it just sounded wrong. Chris yelled, "Stop, stop!" halting the song, then proceeded to methodically break this poor guitar again, pull down his amp, and kick out a speaker, while his band watched like a group of people accustomed to and unfazed by random outbursts.

**DANTE FERRANDO:** We used to tour in a beat-up old station wagon that we got for two hundred dollars with a beanbag chair in the back to sleep on. I think my favorite road trip was our "Ariel Square Four" tour. Alec and I had found an ad for a disassembled 1956 Ariel Square Four motorcycle available in Marne, Iowa—so we booked a tour around picking it up. We upgraded from our five-dollar-a-day rental trailer to the slightly larger eight-dollar one, and were on our way.

ALEC MACKAYE, DC SPACE, DC, 1987 (JENn IZZA Fox-THOMAS)

**JASON FARRELL:** At a show in Virginia Beach, midset, midsong, Alec removed his shoes while singing. He then reached up, carefully pushing out an acoustic tile from the low drop-ceiling, stashed his shoes in the crawl space, and replaced the tile. During or after the last song, he reached back up and retrieved his shoes, replacing the tile again. At no point did he mention, explain, or acknowledge whatever it was he was doing.

GUY PICCIOTTO, 9:30 Club, dc, 1990 (JIM SAAH)
"When Fugazi sold a million records it was a victory for independent labels everywhere." —GEOFF TURNER

Formed in 1987, Fugazi is notable for many things, including its members: Ian MacKaye, Joe Lally, and Rites of Spring's Guy Picciotto and Brendan Canty. At the same time, their fiercely independent ethos and methods of operation sometimes got nearly as much attention as their groundbreaking music. Community activism was at Fugazi's core—they played an impressive number of benefit shows. All Fugazi shows had a low door price (famously five dollars for many of their US gigs), even as LPs like _In on the Kill Taker_ entered the _Billboard_ charts, their catalog selling well over a million records. All Fugazi CDs were priced very low, and major label offers were turned down on principle, at a time when the record industry had a feeding frenzy on alternative rock. Interview requests from national publications like _Rolling Stone_ were often declined. Fugazi proved that a grassroots band can be successful on its own terms, never needing to sacrifice core principles.

What guitarists MacKaye and Picciotto, bassist Lally, and drummer Canty accomplished across fifteen years and seven LPs (with their debut _13 Songs_ being a compilation of two earlier EPs, _Fugazi_ and _Margin Walker_ ) is essentially posthardcore—the same deepening and broadening of hardcore's initial thrust as postpunk accomplished following punk. This was achieved through much of postpunk's tool kit, utilizing dub reggae's space and dynamics and a willingness to launch into the unknown—this, after MacKaye's initially stated goal of merging MC5 with reggae. Classics like "Waiting Room" still have an uncanny ability to launch a thousand spontaneously pogoing bodies at nightclubs, even more than a dozen years on from having declared an indefinite hiatus. Fugazi remain as eternal and influential as Minor Threat and Dischord Records; the group is an incredibly significant chapter in DC music history. — _Tim Stegall_

ian mackaye, joe lally, dc space, dc, 1987 (JIM SAAH)

**MARK ANDERSEN:** Fugazi was built to last. This was obvious from long before their first show, with the care that Ian and Joe chose their bandmates over more than a year of practicing. But it was also there in the choice of venue [for their first show]—hardcore haven the Wilson Center—and in the fact that this was a Positive Force benefit show, open to all ages with a five-dollar door. This band was clearly going to stand for something, on a whole bunch of different levels. I already knew the blueprint the band was aiming for . . . and sometimes the seams showed, including when a broken string prematurely capsized the song "Furniture." But already Fugazi was combining heavy rock with the nimbleness of dub, shifting rhythms unpredictably as if to stymie would-be moshers. In the process, the band opened the arena to more inclusive and individual styles of dancing, to audience participation of all types. If Guy Picciotto watched from the audience for this first show, it didn't matter much, because the band was so committed to keeping close to the crowd, physically and spiritually.

**ALEXIS FLEISIG:** When Fugazi first started, a lot of skinheads would come looking for another Minor Threat. They'd be yelling, "Play faster," and because Ian is Ian, he'd just face them down. They were very confrontational in that way.

**JOE LALLY:** My previous conception of being in a band was that you had to look cool and get incredibly fucked up. I thought that's what you had to do to make good music.

Guy Picciotto, Radial hall, omaha, NE, 1989 (BERNIE MCGINN)

**J. ROBBINS:** I feel like it was a foregone conclusion that Fugazi was going to be a big band. No matter what Ian was going to do, people wanted to know about it. And the fact is, they were a really good band.

**GEOFF TURNER:** By the end of the eighties, people's day-to-day interest in hardcore had sort of dissolved. But when Fugazi came around it was a way of showing everyone that there's this infinite palette of what you can do to create really intense music.

**JIM SPELLMAN:** A lot of people may disagree, but at the essence of Fugazi is this great arena-rock band.

**BRENDAN CANTY:** With Fugazi it was all about the work. We'd tour Europe for three months. We spent a month in Germany—two-and-a-half-hour sets every night.

ian mackaye, tempodrom, berlin, Germany, 1992 (JIM SAAH)

**GEOFF TURNER:** When Fugazi sold a million records it was a victory for independent labels everywhere. It underlined everything they'd been trying to do with Dischord and as a band: _We did it, we controlled it, this is us, take it or leave it._

**JIM SAAH:** When I saw Fugazi in Berlin in 1992, at one point in the set Ian started yelling into his guitar pickups, "How many sorties today, how many sorties today?!" The Persian Gulf War had ended but there were still US airstrikes happening. It was a pretty emotional moment. It made me realize the power of protest music. You're having an emotional connection with the band and a communal experience with everyone in the room.

**IAN MACKAYE:** Five-dollar shows were just funny to us. If you lead with the ticket price, it changes everything. Bands always lead with their guarantee—how much they want to make. So these bands put their profit at the fore, which then sets the cadence for the proceedings, the negotiations. Everybody ends up wanting a bigger piece of the pie and the only way to accommodate them is to make a bigger pie, which means raising the ticket price.

**KRISTIN THOMPSON:** The first Fugazi show I saw was in September 1989. I had just moved from Colorado to Washington, DC, to start working at the National Organization for Women. I didn't really know anyone in the city yet, but I'd seen fliers wheat-pasted around Dupont Circle for a Fugazi/Jawbox/Shudder to Think show organized by Positive Force, so I went. Looking back, it's incredible how pivotal that show was in my life. After that show, I don't think _13 Songs_ left my turntable for months. It's still one of the most defining records of my life.

joe lally, St. Augustine's Church Hall, Washington, DC, 1990 (JIM SAAH)

**SCOTT CRAWFORD:** My band [Darkness at Noon] was lucky enough to play twice with Fugazi very early on. Our first show with them was in the fall of 1987 and was a Positive Force benefit with Swiz and Sarcastic Orgasm . . . A few months later we got a gig with them at DC Space. Before the doors had even opened, there was a line around the block. Word had spread quickly about Fugazi and we knew this was going to be a special night. Yet, somehow in my malformed teenage head, I assumed we were still going to headline the night since we had done so just a few months earlier. When I let Ian know that, he smiled and said, "I wouldn't recommend that."

We went on to play a mediocre opening set and Fugazi proceeded to light the place on fire—as they always did. As dumb as I felt in that moment, earlier in the night, Ian, in his infinite wisdom (and pity), had saved us from being upstaged, outclassed, and outplayed that night.

**DAVE GROHL:** The first time I saw Nirvana play was when I flew up there to audition to be their drummer, and I get there and there's like a thousand people at their show. I was blown away that there were that many people there to see a local band because I thought the only place where that happened was in Washington, DC, with Fugazi.

Brenan canty, joe lally, guy picciotto, ian mackaye (jim saah)

**JOE LALLY:** It was fantastic to be able to play shows in alternative spaces that weren't just in clubs. Because it just brought the focus totally onto the music. Whatever we were talking about in between songs or in the songs became the focal point.

**IAN MACKAYE:** We never really got any real offers. Probably the most intense thing was when Ahmet Ertegun from Atlantic came to see us. I mean, he said, in our dressing room, in a kind of off-the-cuff conversation, "I wanna deal with you like I deal with Mick," and at first I had no idea what he was talking about. Then I realized it's Atlantic and they did the deal with The Rolling Stones.

Have we been offered a million dollars to do something? Yes. Even now, somewhat regularly.

st. augustine's church, dc, 1990 (JIM SAAH)

**BRENDAN CANTY:** There was never any hope that we would sign to Atlantic Records. I like to tell the story, but ultimately, at the end of the day, us signing with them would've been the greatest anticlimax in history.

**TED NICELY:** When we were working on _In on the Killtaker_ , there was a lot of pressure on the band (I believe), since the reception to _Steady Diet of Nothin_ g was a bit underwhelming and the sessions with [Steve] Albini were a bit of a dud. Fugazi took the material (whether soft or hard) and wrung every bit of emotion out of it in a beautifully classy way.

**IAN MACKAYE:** People were saying to us, "You gotta make just one good video for MTV." That's when I brought up my analogy of having two fifty-gallon barrels: One is this stainless-steel, spotless barrel. And the other barrel is this fifty-gallon one filled with shit. You can take a teaspoon of shit, and you put that into that clean barrel—you can see it. But you can't put a teaspoon of clean into a barrel of shit . . .

Fans used to say, "That dude won't let us slam, we can't do our thing!" Fuck you. There were so many necks or backs injured and broken at shows. I know that because we had that happen at one of our shows. We had somebody leave on a backboard never to walk again. As I remember, it was a woman who was from England and she was supposed to fly home, but heard we were playing so she changed her ticket. She was in the front row waiting for us to come on, and somebody jumped on her neck from behind [trying to get to the stage] and broke her neck. She never even saw us, they took her out before we played.

band, 1990 (Jim saah)

**BRENDAN CANTY:** It never once felt like we had "arrived." It was always work, always halfway up the hill. There were a couple markers like, _Wow, we had five thousand people at our show tonight. That's a lot of people in Pontiac, Michigan._ I don't want to make it sound like I took it for granted, because I didn't. But it's part of my psychology: I never let myself feel that way because as soon as you do, you're fucking dead, as far I'm concerned.

Nathan Larson, shawn brown, jason farrelL, alex daniels, 1987 (REBECCA MAURY)
"We were all loudmouths and isolated ourselves a bit. We were really young and just trying to be heard, I think." —Shawn Brown

Swiz started out with a mission: pay homage to the classic early DC hardcore sound while steering clear of the Revolution Summer postpunk of the day. Ex–Dag Nasty front man Shawn Brown, guitarist Jason Farrell, bassist Nathan Larson, and drummer Alex Daniels stayed true to their vision, releasing their first single on their own label, Hellfire, months after forming, followed by their self-titled LP on Sammich in 1988. They managed to play out of town quite regularly and developed a respectable following nationally. In 1989, they released their full-length follow-up, _Hell Yes I Cheated,_ which served as an exit point for Larson, who quit to join Shudder to Think.

With Dave Stern taking over the four-string spot, they recorded one more EP before calling it a day in late 1990. The _With Dave_ EP was released posthumously in 1992 by Jade Tree, along with their full discography CD, _No Punches Pulled,_ in 1993. After Swiz's demise, Alex Daniels continued on with Severin, Jason Farrell and Dave Stern moved on to form Bluetip in 1995, and Shawn Brown fronted Jesuseater in 2000. They would briefly reunite under the Sweetbelly Freakdown moniker in 1996—even playing a Swiz song during their final show in Japan. In 2013 Shawn, Jason, and Dave came together again with Red Hare, and in 2014 all four members of Swiz played a surprise set during the _Salad Days_ postpremeire party in Washington, DC. _—Scott Crawford_

the rathskeller, boston, MA, 1990 (nicole Jean Digiorgi chavez)

**JASON Farrell:** When Swiz started in 1987, the intensity of DC music felt lower. That doesn't mean the integrity. I just mean literally, physically, the actual music was not as aggressive (the message might have been more so), but I felt like we thought we could fill this void of power or whatever a seventeen-year-old's idea of energy was.

**ALEX DANIELS** : Shawn was the first singer in Dag Nasty. I liked their music but understood that Shawn was pissed at them. Because of that, perhaps, I never had any really close interactions with any of those guys, but we played with them once and it was really fun.

**BOBBY SULLIVAN** : It was great to see Shawn Brown, one of my favorite front men, have such a good band after Dag Nasty.

**SHAWN BROWN** : We wanted to do something like the Bad Brains meets Metallica, and that's what we were going for. We felt the direction of music changing but we were all into hardcore punk. That was our aesthetic. We were the hardcore band that thought its mission at the time was to "keep it real."

**NATHAN LARSON:** We were doing a slightly retro style of melodic hardcore and considered ourselves standard-bearers of tradition.

The Rocket, Providence, RI, 1990 (BRIAN SIMMONS)

**ALEX DANIELS:** The way we formed—and more importantly, decided to stay together—was the result of an extremely tight "mission" and bond felt between and among us. We had absolute dedication to playing together and having a really hard edge onstage. We were really into playing and into ourselves. Either as a result of this, or as a mechanism to perpetuate this, we constantly needed someone or something to be "against." We did better with a chip on our shoulder.

So if it wasn't people a few years older, who we felt looked down on us, it was people we met on the road. We had a huge grudge against NYC straight-edge bands, because we basically saw them as a bunch of jocks or one-dimensional tough guys—we were looking for someone to be against.

The truth is, I did feel a lot of judgment coming down on me/us from DC kids who were a few years older, and I did my best to antagonize some people to get a reaction. I think that's a common way seventeen- and eighteen-year-olds relate to people who are twenty-four or twenty-five. Having said all that, there were some people who were pretty snobby in DC. Being a little shut out of a part of DC's scene (it was always broader than a single record label) allowed us to meet some pretty interesting, creative people in places like New York.

**JASON FARRELL:** When Swiz was playing in '87 there was nothing I wanted more than to be on that label [Dischord], and there was nothing they wanted less than to have us on that label because we were young, we said a bunch of dumb shit all the time, and maybe just weren't ready and weren't what they wanted to represent on their label. I was mad. I felt dejected, but eventually got over it. And a few years later, in my next band, when Dischord asked to put it out, I was honored. I was ecstatic. I mean, The Faith, Rites of Spring, Ignition, Minor Threat, these are bands that are huge to me, huge to a lot of people, and I don't at all have delusions that anything I've done or any band I've done is anywhere near the caliber of that, but I'm totally honored to share a label with those bands . . . I don't know if we ever really fit into the DC scene.

shawn brown, gilman street, BERKELEY, CA, 1989 (DAVID SINE)

**SHAWN BROWN** : A lot of the other bands playing at that time, like Fugazi, were older than us. We were seeing this attitude shift and a split in the scene but we didn't really understand it. I think because of that, we were all loudmouths and isolated ourselves a bit. We were really young and just trying to be heard, I think.

**NATHAN LARSON:** We had the full and complete support of the Dischord folks (Dischord helped Sammich fund both Swiz LPs) and had a great DC following, so I'm not exactly sure why we vibed disenfranchised . . . probably having something to do with the usual stuff one feels in your late teens/early twenties.

tim green, Ian Svenonius, Steve Gamboa, James Canty, 1990 (JIM SAAH)
"Our van would break down, we'd be fighting, we'd run out of money . . . but everything would come together onstage." —JAMES CANTY

It was intriguing to drop the needle on The Nation of Ulysses' debut LP, _13-Point Program to Destroy America_ , when Dischord issued it in 1991. The record came off as some well-dressed DC reanimation of the MC5, right down to stray avant-jazz strains. But both the revolutionary rhetoric and stylish image were pushed to almost cartoonish extremes. Formed in 1988 by dandy-ish polymath Ian Svenonius on vocals and trumpet, guitarists Tim Green and Steve Kroner, bassist Steve Gamboa, and drummer James Canty (brother of Rites of Spring/Fugazi drummer Brendan), Nation of Ulysses released two LPs and EPs in their four-year lifespan, as well as an ever-evolving, increasingly hilarious manifesto which frequently resembled a parody of both situationism and the White Panthers' mission statements by John Sinclair. Their high-concept, tongue-in-cheek garage/soul/punk would prove influential on outfits ranging from The Hives to The (International) Noise Conspiracy to Refused. — _Tim Stegall_

sacred heart church hall, dc, 1991 (JIM SAAH)

**MICHAEL GALINSKY:** I can't remember the first time I saw The Nation of Ulysses but I'm gonna guess that it was at Maxwell's [in Hoboken, New Jersey]. Again, I don't recall the place or the time but I do recall the feeling of awe at the explosion of energy. There can only be one first time and it was a visceral and searing one.

**TIM GREEN:** I think we were just young enough that we were able to keep the energy pretty high all the time [on tour]. Plus, we were just really excited to play—even if there was no one at the show, which was often the case.

**MEGHAN ADKINS:** I saw Nation of Ulysses a couple times . . . I remember being so incredibly entertained by Ian's crazy raving.

space at chase, New York City, 1989 (Jim SAAH)

**IAN SVENONIUS** (as told to the _Washington Post,_ 2013): Ultimately, Nation of Ulysses had a sort of pre-indie sensibility. It's assaultive. It's total. It's unlistenable. Almost. It was an immersive cult and we saw ourselves as cult leaders because it was very elitist and we wanted to create a culture.

**ELI JANNEY:** I started working with The Nation very early on, in both my career and theirs. I believe my first recording of them was a live-to-two-track session in their practice space around 1989. I was already working at Inner Ear at the time but was interested in recording something outside the studio and they were very interested in documenting themselves as live as possible, so we hit upon the idea of going straight to two-track. We hauled all the (modest) gear over there and got to work setting it up. Now, I had known these guys for a while, having lived with both Stevie G. and Ian. Still, I was not prepared for the insane amount of energy that exploded out of the group when they started playing. Truly one of my favorite recordings of all time, I've spent many years since trying to capture a band as raw and ready to kill as those guys were at that moment. Crazy, crazy time, but so compelling and amazing. Recording _13-Point Program_ with Ian was also fun and satisfying, but that first basement session was great.

**JAMES CANTY:** [Touring] was impossible and addictive at the same time. Our van would break down, we'd be fighting, we'd run out of money . . . but everything would come together onstage. We often had to take Svenonius to the ER after a show—for legs, arms, head. So I guess that was the only hard part—trying to do a show while he was on crutches or in pain—but somewhat worth it for the battle tales we could tell afterward. I also feel like we were all improving as musicians—definitely the case for Steve Gamboa and myself. Being able to tour that intensely with a musician like Tim Green has to make you better.

**ELI JANNEY:** About that same time I was playing keyboards for Edsel. We had a small tour that included a show with NOU in Dayton, I think it was early winter 1991, freezing cold and heavy snow. The show was in a warehouse with a lot of skinheads and mohawks in attendance. At some point in the NOU set Ian grabbed an unruly gentleman who had been fucking with everybody, held him in a headlock, put the microphone on the other side of this guy's head, and screamed his lyrics through his skull. It was awesome. Of course a fight ensued, and Steve Kroner smashed the guy over the head with his guitar, but the rest of the band kept playing and Ian and Steve K. rejoined the song after dispatching their foes. The music never stopped.

**ALEX DANIELS:** We practiced in the same house. I loved their literature that accompanied their fliers/albums. I appreciated their intensity. But there was bad blood between my band and theirs. Our bass player lived with them, so some group-house dynamics might have been in play. Also, I broke a pair of their drummer's sticks—I replaced them, but I think he really needed them before a show and I felt that no matter what I did, he was pissed. I think "too cool for school" is the operative phrase.

cbgb, NYC, 1991 (MICHAEL GALINSKY)

**NATHAN LARSON:** I fucking loved The Nation of Ulysses. I remember Swiz playing with them (and an early incarnation of Hole) at DC Space. They had a lightbulb and a Ken doll hanging from the ceiling, and I remember Ian shrieking, "AGE OF THE MASTODON!"

**TIM GREEN:** I think the fact that we played to so few people most of the time, and more people became aware of the band after we broke up, that there's more mystery surrounding the band. People had to rely on second- and thirdhand accounts. I also think that people have always been curious about what extent to which we took ourselves seriously.

zach barocas, kim coletta, j. robbins, bill barbot (JIM SAAH)
"The DC scene at that time . . . was undergoing a transition into its adolescence." —BILL BARBOT

Jawbox, formed by onetime Government Issue bassist J. Robbins and Kim Coletta, offered up passionate and fiery postpunk that blended the best elements of the post–Revolution Summer Dischord sound with a strong emphasis on song craft. After two albums on Dischord ( _Grippe_ and _Novelty_ ), where the band seemed to be single-handedly writing a sort of template for the sound of future Dischord acts in the wake of Fugazi's success, it was time for a label change. Original drummer Adam Wade would eventually leave to join the only other Dischord band of the era to sign to a major label (Shudder to Think). New drummer Zach Barocas, bassist Kim Coletta, guitarist Bill Barbot, and Robbins managed to then whip up numbers like "Savory" that brought the band greater attention outside the Beltway by way of regular MTV airplay. One of DC's real Renaissance men, J. Robbins would return to the scene via Dischord bands like Channels and Office of Future Plans, while Kim Coletta would continue on with DeSoto Records, releasing dozens of titles through the 1990s and 2000s. _—Glenn Griffith_

J. Robbins, 9:30 club, DC, 1991

**J. ROBBINS:** After GI broke up, it dawned on me that all the great bands out there had started from scratch. I had joined GI when they were already an established band. So what was _my_ scene going to be? That's when I knew I wanted to start a band—and Kim and I started Jawbox.

**KIm COLETTA:** I never really saw any kind of misogyny at the shows that we'd play. But Jawbox had a few shows early on with hardcore bands and I remember feeling that with a few of the sound guys. This one guy was so patronizing, like, "Do you know where to plug that in, little lady?" And plenty of the "You play really well for a girl" comments.

kim coletta, black cat, DC, 1995

**ADAM WADE:** Being on Dischord definitely opened up doors for us, but on the other hand, we played out-of-town shows and they'd put us on these total hardcore bills and we were like, _What the hell?_ It was frustrating to be put in that bin just because of where we were from. The tension—the downside of our legacy—came from musical expectations. A lot of early shows were full of fans expecting harDCore, and that wasn't really us. So while DC earned us an audience, I think a lot of them were disappointed that we weren't playing faster and that we generally got irritated instead of appreciative when a pit started. Seriously, the second we'd start a faster song like "Impossible Figure," the crowd would come alive, but not in a very healthy way. I know that might sound snotty, but that's just not what we were about creatively and it seemed like as soon as the "action" started, we might as well have been up there doing Big Boys or JFA covers.

**KIm COLETTA:** I remember I was working at Dischord for a while and Jawbox was ready to put out a record. I asked Ian if Dischord would be interested and he said, "Yeah, but you would learn more if you put it out yourself." And that's how I started DeSoto.

zach barocas, black cat, DC, 1995

**BILL BARBOT:** The DC scene at that time, from my perspective, was undergoing a transition into its adolescence. When we did our early gigs as a four-piece in early '91, the first generation of DC hardcore bands had all split up for the most part, and with their sunsets came the first inkling that the angry energy and abandon of the early days was slowly being replaced by a more pensive, nerdy, and, on the downside, stolid and judgmental tenor . . .

On the one hand, I think we all had a deep appreciation of the fact that almost out of the gate, we had a national audience. _Jawbox, featuring J. Robbins, ex–Government Issue_ opened a ton of doors for us, but even if J. weren't in the band, just being a band from DC in 1991 made it possible to put together a national tour. I took a lot of it for granted at first, but as we went around the country and met more and more bands, I soon realized how much we had going for us just by virtue of our hometown and its history.

**J. ROBBINS:** On Dischord we might've sold twenty thousand copies of our album. Which, to us, was a real success. We never got real numbers from Atlantic, but say we sold sixty thousand copies. To us, that was huge. To Atlantic, it was an abject failure.

bill barbot, J. robbins, 9:30 club, DC, 1992 (all photos jim saah)

**BILL BARBOT:** We were very wary of becoming "product" and an "artist" on a "roster." There's a horrible story about a photo shoot we did for _Details_ magazine that basically involved us riding in an RV to suburban New Jersey in the middle of the night to take fashion pictures with David LaChapelle in a supermarket, where we were to pose as a band playing a staged "grand opening" sale. At one point in the night J. pretty much lost his mind at the inanity of it all.

Our PR guy from Atlantic at the time, Ken Weinstein, knew that it sucked for us and that we were on the verge of walking off the set. He scrawled, _This SUCKS,_ on a piece of paper and made an airplane out of it. He flew it across the RV to Zach, but his design was poor and the plane veered left and it hit LaChapelle. LaChapelle picked it up and read aloud: _"This SUCKS._ Who thinks this sucks?!?" He was not amused.

**KEN WEINSTEIN:** Jawbox had come from Dischord, which was pretty much the Vatican City of the Us vs. Them indie aesthetic. Where the band's tightrope walk was with their fans, mine was with my employers. I was definitely brought on to do my distinct thing and be the conduit to the younger artists, but I still had many bosses to whom I had to answer. My direct one is the one who handed the _Details_ magazine assignment to me. I had no idea what I was getting into, but once in deep, I saw how terrible a decision it was and had no idea how to get out of it. The band was melting down. Heck, _I_ was melting down. And I was too inexperienced to take control. The only way I knew how was very fifth grade—make a paper airplane and throw it at the photographer!

florida, 1991 (suzanne smith)

**J. ROBBINS:** When our A&R guy Mike Gitter took us to meet Danny Goldberg [president of Atlantic Records], Danny essentially said, "I don't know why you're on my label, but I trust Mike Gitter, so have a great time."

mike dolfi, black market baby, 1983 (jim saah)

**Meghan Adkins:** Vocalist (Special K, Mavis Piggot)

**Mark Andersen:** Author of _Dance of Days_ and _All the Power_ , Positive Force cofounder, activist

**NATALIE AVERY:** Guitarist (Fire Party)

**Brian Baker:** Guitarist (Minor Threat, Dag Nasty, Meatmen, Government Issue, Bad Religion)

**Chris Bald:** Bassist (Faith, Embrace), guitarist (Ignition)

**Bill Barbot:** Guitarist (Jawbox)

**onam ben-israel/Tomas Squip:** Vocalist/guitarist (Beefeater, Fidelity Jones)

**Wendel Blow:** Bassist (SOA, Iron Cross, Lethal Intent)

**Pat Bobst:** Guitarist (King Face)

**Shawn Brown:** Vocalist (Dag Nasty, Swiz)

**Brendan Canty:** Drummer (Rites of Spring, Fugazi, Insurrection, One Last Wish, Happy Go Licky)

**James Canty:** Drummer (Nation of Ulysses), guitarist (The Make-Up)

**Lloyd Stuart Casson:** Guitarist (The Psychotics, Dove, Meatmen)

**Sharon Cheslow:** Guitarist (Chalk Circle, Bloody Mannequin Orchestra)

**Kim Coletta:** Bassist (Jawbox)

**Cynthia Connolly:** Artist, photographer, curator, cocreator of _Banned in DC_

**Peter Cortner:** Bassist (Protem), vocalist (Dag Nasty)

**Scott Crawford:** _Metrozine_ editor, filmmaker

**Alex Daniels:** Drummer (Swiz, Severin)

**Mike Dolfi:** Bassist (Black Market Baby)

**BUBBA DUPREE:** Guitarist (Void)

**Boyd Farrell:** Vocalist (Black Market Baby)

**Jason Farrell:** Guitarist (Swiz)

**Dante Ferrando:** Drummer (Iron Cross, Gray Matter, Ignition)

**ALEXIS FLEISIG:** Drummer (Lünchmeat, Soulside, Girls Against Boys)

**MICHAEL GALINSKY:** Filmmaker

**TIM GREEN:** Guitarist (Nation of Ulysses)

**SAB GREY:** Vocalist (Iron Cross)

**SKIP GROFF:** Producer (Slickee Boys, Bad Brains, Teen Idles, SOA), owner of Yesterday and Today Records

**Dave Grohl:** Drummer (Scream, Nirvana), guitarist/vocalist (Foo Fighters)

**Mark Haggerty:** Guitarist (Iron Cross, Gray Matter, Severin, 3)

**Michael Hampton:** Guitarist (SOA, Faith, Embrace, One Last Wish, Manifesto)

**Steve Hansgen** : Bassist/guitarist (Minor Threat, Second Wind, Government Issue, Modest Proposal)

**Ivor Hanson:** Drummer (SOA, Faith, Embrace, Manifesto)

**Stuart Hill:** Bassist (Shudder to Think)

**HR:** Vocalist (Bad Brains)

**Danny Ingram:** Drummer (The Untouchables, Youth Brigade, Strange Boutique)

**Kenny Inouye:** Guitarist (Marginal Man)

**SIMON JACOBSEN:** Drummer, guitarist **** (SOA, King Face)

**Eli Janney:** Producer, keyboardist/bassist (Girls Against Boys)

**Shawna Kenney:** Writer

**Joe Lally:** Bassist (Fugazi)

**Nathan Larson:** Bassist (Swiz), guitarist (Shudder to Think)

**DAMON LOCKS:** Vocalist (Protem, Trenchmouth)

**Tom Lyle:** Guitarist (Government Issue)

**Alec MacKaye:** Vocalist (The Untouchables, Faith, Ignition)

**Ian MacKaye:** Guitarist, vocalist (Teen Idles, Minor Threat, Embrace, Fugazi, The Evens), cofounder of Dischord Records

**Mike Manos:** Drummer (Artificial Peace, Marginal Man)

**Roger Marbury:** Bassist (Dag Nasty, Bloody Mannequin Orchestra)

**Scott McCloud:** Guitarist (Lünchmeat, Soulside, Girls Against Boys, New Wet Kojak)

**ThuRston Moore:** Vocalist/guitarist (Sonic Youth)

**Robert Moss:** Bassist (Artificial Peace, Government Issue)

**Peter Murray:** Guitarist (Artificial Peace, Marginal Man)

**Jeff Nelson:** Drummer (Minor Threat, Teen Idles, 3, High Back Chairs), cofounder of Dischord Records

**Ted Nicely:** Producer (Fugazi, Girls Against Boys, many others)

**Steve Niles:** Bassist (Gray Matter, 3)

**Amy Pickering:** Vocalist (Fire Party)

**Steve Polcari:** Vocalist (Artificial Peace, Marginal Man)

**Bert Queiroz:** Photographer, bassist (Youth Brigade, The Untouchables, Manifesto)

**Andy rapoport:** Bassist (King Face)

**Barbara Ann Rice:** Editor, _Truly Needy_ fanzine

**J. ROBbins:** Bassist (Government Issue), vocalist/guitarist (Jawbox)

**Henry Rollins:** Vocalist (SOA, Black Flag, Rollins Band)

**Jim Saah:** Photographer, _Uno Mas_ editor

**Colin Sears:** Drummer (Dag Nasty, Bloody Mannequin Orchestra)

**Dave Smalley:** Vocalist (Dag Nasty, DYS, All, Down by Law)

**Fred "Freak" Smith:** Guitarist (Beefeater, Strange Boutique)

**Jim Spellman:** Drummer (Velocity Girl), guitarist (High Back Chairs)

**John Stabb** : Vocalist (Government Issue)

**Franz Stahl:** Guitarist (Scream)

**Pete Stahl:** Vocalist (Scream)

**CHRIS STOVER:** Bassist (Void)

**Nathan StrejCek:** Vocalist (Teen Idles, Youth Brigade)

**Bobby Sullivan:** Vocalist (Lünchmeat, Soulside, Seven League Boots, Sevens)

**Mark Sullivan:** Vocalist (Slinkees, King Face)

**IAN SVENONIUS:** Vocalist (Nation of Ulysses, The Make-Up, Weird War, Chain & the Gang), author

**Bruce Taylor:** Drummer (Hate from Ignorance, Beefeater)

**Johnny Temple:** Bassist (Soulside, Girls Against Boys, New Wet Kojak), publisher of Akashic Books

**Nicky Thomas:** Drummer (Fire Party, Mavis Piggot)

**Kristin Thompson:** Vocalist/guitarist (Tsunami), cofounder of Simple Machines

**Skeeter Thompson:** Bassist (Scream)

**Chris Thomson:** Bassist (Lünchmeat, Soulside, Ignition), vocalist (Circus Lupus)

**Jenny Toomey:** Vocalist/guitarist (Tsunami, Geek), cofounder of Simple Machines

**Geoff Turner:** Guitarist/vocalist (Gray Matter, 3, Senator Flux, New Wet Kojak)

**TESCO VEE:** Vocalist (Meatmen)

**Adam Wade:** Drummer (Jawbox, Shudder to Think)

**CRAIG WEDREN:** Vocalist/guitarist (Shudder to Think)

**KEN WEINSTEIN:** Publicist, Big Hassle Media

**Jon Wurster:** Drummer (Superchunk)

**Don Zientara:** Engineer, Inner Ear Studios
THANKS!

Special thanks to photographer Jim Saah, whose iconic images vividly capture the spirit of the punk DC community—his many contributions to this book are invaluable. Big thanks also to: my family, Maclay, Owen, and Chloe Crawford, Noreen Moriarty, Jason Farrell, Glenn Griffith, Steve Kiviat, Shawna Kenney, Tim Stegall, Kenny Inouye, Lucian Perkins, Susie J. Horgan, Tiffany Pruitt, Athena Angelos, Tesco Vee, Pete & Franz Stahl, Dave Grohl, Damon Locks, Peter Muise, Cynthia Connolly, Todd Gallentine, Jenn Izza Fox-Thomas, Ian MacKaye, Jeff Nelson, Andy Rapoport, Ben Lambiotte, John Stabb, Mina Devadas, Boyd Farrell, Mike Dolfi, Roger Marbury, Meghan Adkins, Pete Murray, Steve Polcari, Mike Manos, Steve Hansgen, Nuit Hansgen, Ellie Moran, Nicky Thomas, Onam Ben-Israel, Bill Dolan, Amy Pickering, Mark Andersen, Jim Spellman, Alexis Fleisig, Colin Sears, Joseph Henderson, Bobby Sullivan, Scott McCloud, Simon Jacobsen, Ivor Hanson, Alec MacKaye, Brian Baker, Johnny Temple & Akashic Books, Michael Galinsky, Bernie McGinn, Lori Carns Hudson, Tom Lyle, Michael Horsley, Malcolm Riviera, Bert Queiroz, Jill Heath, Ilisa Katz, Lydia Ely, John Falls, Rebecca Maury, Nicole Jean Digiorgi Chavez, Benjamin Tice Smith, David Sine, Brian Simmons, Marce Sterner, Leslie Clague, Suzanne Smith, Charlie Rother, David Seltzer, Chris Carilli, Camp Childers, Naomi Petersen, Peter Landswick, Sab Grey, Wendel Blow, Jon Wurster, Sharon Cheslow, Henry Rollins, Thurston Moore, Amanda MacKaye, and you! There are seven photos in this book for which we couldn't identify the photographers, so we extend our apologies; we thank you for your contribution and please know we exhausted all efforts to figure out who took each shot. Additional thanks to all the flier artists who spent countless hours designing, photocopying, and posting the fliers everywhere; your hard work is part of the punk rock tapestry, and unfortunately I can't thank each of you individually since in some cases I don't even know who designed them. _—Scott Crawford_

Jim Saah
_Dedicated to John "Stabb" Schroeder_

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the written permission of the publisher.

Published by Akashic Books

©2017 Scott Crawford

The copyrights of all photographs in this book belong to the individual photographers.

Front cover photograph by Jim Saah (Ian MacKaye, Minor Threat, 9:30 Club, DC, 1983).

Back cover photograph by Jim Saah (John Weiffenbach, Void, Wilson Center, DC, 1983).

Book design and layout by Scott Crawford

ISBN-13: 978-1-61775-500-2

eISBN-13: 978-1-61775-508-9

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016935086

All rights reserved

First printing

Printed in Korea

Akashic Books

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About Akashic Books

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