El programa The Sound Of Young America entrevistó a la leyenda del DIY Ian Mackaye, pasen a checarla.

The Sound Of Young America: Ian Mackaye

by Jayson

“We’re still dealing with the fallout of Ian MacKaye accidentally ruining music.”

This is a quip I quipped over at Reign in Blonde in response to Elise’s post on defining metal in opposition to other genres. This is something I’ve alluded to here too, I think… Since this was something I wanted to write about back when Jason and I started this, I thought today was a good day for it.

Going back in the day to the era of punk, you had the initial American punk being the result of people not liking the music they heard on the radio and going out to play the sounds they wanted to hear, which in turn transitioned to angrier, more political sounds over time. Punk was birthed and defined as being in opposition to mainstream music genres, but unlike the hippie bands that started the same way, punk failed to actually become the mainstream. I’ve always felt there was some cognitive dissonance on the part of the punks here. On one had you can understand it, rock n’ roll has several successive decades of transitioning from edgy, outsider music  to supplanting whatever was popular and becoming the mainstream. On the other hand with maybe a handful of exceptions, punk was completely unpalatable to a wider audience in ways that Elvis, The Beatles and Hendrix never were.

Of course a lot of punks started their own, regional record labels. This was really nothing new, I mean, Motown, right? Where the problem starts is with Ian evangelizing the DIY ethos. This is why I say he accidentally ruined music. There is nothing wrong with anything he ever said or did, namely you can make music and put out your own records and you don’t have to approach music with a profit motive. You don’t have to play what is going to sell, you can play what you like. The problem develops with what people did with that. What it turned into is dogma stating you must to put out music independently and you must not make any money at it in order for you to be considered a legitimate, credible recording artist.

Eventually this attitude became a self-reinforcing cycle in the late 80s, given the public hostility to a lot of independent music, musicians and fans adopted the attitude as a defensive posture. Ironically the few bands that wouldn’t have minded a few bucks, like Sonic Youth and the Butthole Surfers were the least likely to see a platinum record. Even when ‘alternative’ blew up in the early 90s there were major issues with a lot of the popular artists because they didn’t put out any records on an independent label before signing to a major. In fact, to a lot of people, the very act of signing to a major label was tantamount to selling out. While Pearl Jam are seen as these elder statesmen of independent rock today, I remember them as no good sellouts, releasing their first record on a major. How dare they try and fool us…

All of this is quantified in discussions of how punk or indie or metal something is. When the measured level falls too low, people will stop listening to the band. When it is hovering at a certain threshold, people will attempt to convert the level of ‘punk’ or ‘metal’ -ness of a given artist or scene to individual scene points by informing you that they heard of the band first, have the bootleg, etc. The math involved in this process is highly complex.

So one man’s good intentions have been warped into a dogma of exclusivity and quantifiable credibility in every genre of guitar based music since the 1970s. Given that the internet exists for porn as a force magnifier for talking shit add the fact that people are desperate to identify with something, but too lazy to build their own personal brands and you get the logical result. Someone will be along any second to tell you how you, your favorite band, your city, and anything else you might care to have evaluated aren’t metal/punk/whatever enough. That and people have no lives and take everything way too seriously.

That being said, if you aren’t 8th grade, you probably don’t give a shit about any of this.

If you are a normal, non obsessive person, this might not be for you. If you are the kind of person that adores Fugazi to the extent of geekiness, this will be perfect.

A compilation of 45 minutes worth of Fugazi stage banter from across the years. It’s been lovingly compiled and waded through for the best stuff. I’m pretty sure it has the ice cream eating motherfucker thing on here (i’ve only just started listening to it as i write this) which is probably the greatest thing ever said on stage.

Download link here-  http://www.electrical.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=46630

I think this is the perfect way to break months of not updating this properly.

Ian MacKaye of Minor Threat fame was just one of the members of this influential band. Aside from writing great music and intense live performance, Fugazi strongly regulated the price of their CD’s often printing the price directly on the artwork to prevent retailers from price gouging fans. They had a huge, dedicated fan base despite the fact that they sold no merchandise at live shows or received any notable radio-play outside of college stations. They were dedicated to the music, and that’s what they did well.

Fugazi “Repeater”

Like what you see feel free to email me at tad@creativesquall.com and don’t forget to become a fan on Facebook. Check out the Creative Squall website to see how sketches grow up to be complete ideas.

Way to rip off "And Out Come the Wolves", asshole.

This is the kind of music that makes having powerful speakers a worthy and noble goal. Before Ian MacKaye was busy being the over-achieving father of post-punk, back when he was a teenager and age hadn’t dulled his fury, he was the frontman for Minor Threat, a hardcore punk band formed out of the ashes of a band he had been involved in earlier (Teen Idles). Starting in 1980, right at the beginning of the hardcore punk explosion in the United States, they would achieve moderate success in their region but later be recognised as one of the best examples of hardcore in its primal state.

And it is primal. Pure rage, distilled anger. Thrillingly furious with the way things are in his world, and shouting about how it. There’s just something about angry music that makes it beautiful. So now I shall review their self-titled and debut EP.

Filler

Opens slowly, with a drum fill to Ian screaming What happened to you, you’re not the same. There’s something in your head, made a violent change. Apparently he wrote this about a close friend who turned into fundamentalist. He also blasts people looking to fall in love and live happily ever after: Was she really worth it / She cost you your life / She’ll never leave your side / She’ll be your wife … You call it romance, you’re full of shit. Right away, one of my favourite songs on the album, as it tackles that kind of absolute devotion (to a person or a religion) that warps a person – the kind of devotion I tend to find disturbing, so I can entirely agree with him on this. One thing you notice immediately is that these guys rock: not content with just playing fast and shouting loud, they also play effective riffs and have a good interplay between instruments.

I Don’t Wanna Hear It

Ah, my favourite song from Minor Threat. Bass opens, guitar smashes everything, Ian tells us he doesn’t want to hear it. The verse describes those lying, self-aggrandising, ego-stroking people who just don’t ever shut up. The chorus sees the song get a little sparser, with the refrain: I don’t wanna hear it, know you’re full of shit / I don’t wanna hear it, no it’s bullshit. I think the first is the correct lyrics but the second certainly have something going for them.  Unbelievably, in the third verse they amp up the rock again, with even more direct lyrics: Shut your fucking mouth, I don’t care what you say. The telling-off of a lifetime in When the fuck are you gonna realise and the song closes with an amusing Aww, shut up! Can squeeze one more mention of how much these guys rock? Also, the bassline for the chorus kicks ass. Listen to it, hear it, love it.

Seeing Red

Ain’t nobody making hardcore music like these guys. Continuing the theme of bass starting the song, we get a few bars of the bassline before the heavily overdriven guitar comes in over the top. The guitar develops into its riff and Ian starts screaming, almost incoherently and a little out of step with the band. Hehe, out of step. Sorry, Minor Threat joke. After fumbling through the verse the whole song just snaps together with the chorus: Red! I’m seeing, Red! I’m seeing, Red! More incoherent rock into the chorus again, then the coda turns the chorus on its head by extending the Red! into Reeeeed! I am a big fan of that all-out finish, where they take the chorus and pump it full of extra energy, add lines, or add complexity.

Straight Edge

Has a band ever regretted a song as much as Minor Threat regrets this song? In just 45 seconds of music they single-handedly created an entire subculture – straightedge. And what a subculture. Don’t drink, don’t smoke, don’t do drugs, don’t fuck. At least, don’t fuck promiscously. Okay, fuck heaps, but don’t do any of that other stuff. You would think that telling people not to have sex would turn them away from the movement; it didn’t. Edgers soon began to refuse legal drugs such as painkillers, stimulants like the caffeine in coffee (these guys pretty much drank water at shows and got their high from beating people up) and probably refused medical treatment with drugs, knowing those crazy guys. Ian never wanted to start a movement; Minor Threat’s message was to think for yourself instead of following the crowd and doing drugs. Instead, in a very short time, angry and physically imposing punks were running with Xs on their hands, swatting bottles and cups out of peoples’ hands. It must have been like giving birth to a baby and watching it turn into an Alien that eats your husband. The song itself is pretty simple – I’ve got straight edge so if we come up against each other in the pit, I’m sober and clear-headed and you’re wasted off your face, I am going to beat you.

Small Man Big Mouth

Clearly Ian’s met a small man who tends to boast a lot, and it pissed him off enough to write a song. Seems like it doesn’t take much to rile him up. Why does he feel like he has to yell at everything he doesn’t like? Surely it’s enough to simply dislike it. Empty barrels make the most noise, Ian. You better be happy with what you got. Ian stands five feet nine inches tall according to Wikipedia. Maybe he was wearing 5 inch heels? Some people think this song is unintentionally self-directed. I couldn’t tell you what they are talking about.

Screaming at a Wall

You won’t hear my words, no matter how loud I shout. The guitar fumbles around the riff, with rough transitions. The bass doesn’t seem to be able to quite keep up, and the drums are just mental. Musically there is a small improvement over the beginning of the album: we get a breakdown in the middle! For some weird reason it reminds me of We’re Only Gonna Die’s breakdown. Even though Bad Religion came after. The breakdown in this song, though, is pure music: Ian starts his mangled shouting up at the end and they kick it back into top gear for the finish.

Bottled Violence

More anti-alcohol attitudes – get the drunk punks out of the pit! Lose control of your body / Beat the shit out of somebody / Half shut eyes don’t see who you hit / But you don’t take any shit. A tirade against alcohol-fuelled aggression. Amusingly enough, this song starts with the sound of a bottle being smashed – the only sound effect on the entire album.

Minor Threat

The entire ideology of the band can be summed up in the first lines of their namesake song: We’re not the first, and I hope we’re not the last. This song is a youth anthem in the purest sense, warning the young ones not to rush into adult life. The time is so little, the time belongs to us. They coin their own name in the pre-chorus Try not to forget / We never will / We’re just a Minor Threat! The song’s riff is decent enough, and they derive their chorus from it by speeding it up sloppily. Even though it’s only 1 minute 30 seconds long, it’s longer than most songs on the album and with the transitions, feels too long for band. It is nevertheless powerful and energising throughout. The play on words is between a minor threat – nothing to worry about – and minor threat – the threat of young people (minors) having some sort of youth-oriented revolution. The song ends chillingly with the spoken words: But it’s a promise and a half-hearted, almost menacing laugh.

An extremely powerful album – not moving or compelling as much as it makes you want to scream and shout too. The rage directed at everything bad is refreshing – he’s not trying to change it, not trying to justify it or show that it’s wrong, he’s just venting his hatred of it. More than anything else, this music is cathartic, and a listen-through of the record leaves you feeling exhausted but with a slow-burning hate, like a well-stoked fire.

The summer was just the beginning with Summer Camp pool parties. Not even two months later BYT struck  back with the Bentzen Ball, a 4 day long comedy festival injecting a new kind of excitement into the 14th and U Street like it’s never seen before. All of the main venues hosted stand-up comics from all over the country. Some of them you might have heard of – Patton Oswalt, Todd Barry, and Mary Lynn Rajskub to name a few. If you weren’t at Lincoln Theatre, Black Cat, or Bohemian Caverns you were in the wrong place. You gotta hand it to BYT for once again doing good for the city with the help of Tig Notaro, who was instrumental in rallying the talent together and kicking off the opening night at Lincoln Theatre. Any festival isn’t complete without special appearances. Caught floating around were Ian MacKaye and Mathew Lesko.

clickr to flickr
read post on BYT

I’m happy to post a selection from the ongoing email interview I’m having with one Darren Walters, co-founder of Jade Tree Records.

As a majority of my America Is Just A Word interviewees happen to be musicians, it’s great having Darren on board to give some perspective of the other goings on that helped transform emo through the decades. (Of course, an exception to all this is Ian MacKaye, who’s role as a musician and Dischord Records co-founder gives him a completely different perspective than most folks involved in the book.) When it comes to emo in the 90s, Jade Tree was one of the few places where things were really popping. The record label quickly rose to fame with The Promise Ring and continued to soldier on from there, releasing music from numerous indie emo “big names” (whatever that oxymoronic phrase means) such as Hot Water Music, Texas Is The Reason (a split with TPR), Lifetime, Jets To Brazil, Joan of Arc, Pedro The Lion, Cap’n Jazz (the label introduced many people to the band with their double-disc discography) and many a popular non-emo act such as Fucked Up and My Morning Jacket.

But, I’ll let Darren explain it all himself. Enjoy:

How’d you get into music and, more specifically, punk music?

Darren Walters: “A few things happened around the same time that finally got my fully into punk once and for all.
I had been into new wave, alternative and the like and eventually met a few people who were also into the same type of music, including punk.  In and around the same time, my best friend ended up being sent to military school where he became immersed in punk.  His friends at military school helped him stock up on great records which he brought home during his breaks and left with me.  Him and I quickly became 100% into punk rock in about 1985 or so and began going to shows and seeking out as much info as we could on punk rock and watching movies like Suburbia and Decline of the Western Civilization over and over again.

What was it like growing up in Wilmington?

DW: “Wilmington is at the northern tip of Delaware and the biggest city in the state.  Essentially, it is a suburb of Philadelphia as it is only about 25 minutes outside of the city.

It was-and is, for the most part, devoid of any culture during my childhood and continues to be so to this day.  It’s basically your typical American suburb and it’s the place that I still call home and have form most of my life.

Having spent most of my life here I’ve come to like it, which is interesting considering I spent those formative punk years trying to think of a way to get out.  Growing older and being able to leave, I got used to the idea of being in Delaware.  It also became advantageous for Jade Tree to remain in Delaware as it was inexpensive compared to cities like NY or SF where Tim and I had often discussed moving the label to (in fact, Tim lived in NYC for many years).”

On the Jade Tree site, it says that you and Tim were pretty involved in the DC punk community. Considering Delaware isn’t exactly a walk away from DC, how did you balance a life at home with going to shows and building on a community in DC?

DW: “I was involved in the DC scene in the sense that I was going to shows an awful lot in the MD/DC/VA area and Jade Tree worked with plenty of bands from there over the years.  DC was one of our support systems and one of our scenes and we of course looked up to many of the people involved in it both past and present.

It was easy enough to go back and forth from DE to DC.  Tim had grown up in DC and still had family there, I had a girlfriend there at one time, Jade Tree had bands there, tons of friends and so on.  It was just something that we did without thinking.  And it’s less than 2 hours away.  I used to be able to get to the Damnation house in an hour and 10 minutes on a good day. Granted, I was doing 90+ mph, but the point is that this was a drive that Tim and I made almost weekly, or at least monthly, for years.”

How did you and Tim meet?

DW: “My best friend growing up attended college in MD and met Tim at a show in DC.  They started a label called Axtion Packed together and that’s how I met Tim, through him.

Once my label, Hi-Impact, was beginning to fall apart, coincidentally so was AP, so Tim and I decided that perhaps it would be best if we combined forces to work on new label.”

What was it like being in high school and then college, trying to balance the life of a student and the work needed to run a label (be it Hi-Impact or Jade Tree) and a band as well?

DW: “It was crazy of course!  At times it would be fairly simple because there wouldn’t be much to do in the very beginning.  However, when there would be a new release in production or a record would need to be mailed out to radio or to all of the awaiting orders, it would take hours, if not days, to do so.  That could be intense.  Especially because for the first few Jade Tree releases, many of the records were put together by hand.  You can imagine how long it takes to hand assemble 4000+ 7″s & CDS for instance.  We would enlist every one we knew to come on over and enjoy free pizza, get the latest release and help us out.  It was a community thing and it helped Jade Tree get off its feet tremendously.”

Anche lo skateboarding, un po’ come l’hip hop, inzia ad avere una vecchia scuola proprio a livello anagrafico, non più solo per qualche anno di militanza in più nel giro. Oggi lo skater e regista Stacy Peralta infatti compie 52 anni. Nel 2002 al Torino Film Festival ho visto il suo Dogtown and Z-Boys. Il seguente articolo, su quel notevole documentario di Peralta, lo scrissi all’epoca per la rivista cinematografica on line ENOL – Effetto Notte On Line.

Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, prima metà degli anni Settanta: nelle ville in cerca di acquirente, temporaneamente abbandonate, le piscine sono vuote anche a causa di una grande siccità. Qui, dopo un’accorta ricognizione, s’intrufola un gruppo multirazziale di adolescenti provenienti da Dogtown, quartiere malfamato e fatiscente della metropoli californiana. Attrezzati per svuotare e pulire le piscine (all’occorrenza anche attaccandosi di nascosto alla corrente elettrica della villa limitrofa), i ragazzini sanno che da un momento all’altro potrebbe arrivare la polizia. Perché sono qui? Beh, la loro tavola da surf si è rimpicciolita, ha messo le ruote e da qualche tempo le onde che cavalcano sono diventate d’asfalto. Dogtown and Z-Boys è la storia degli ingenui pionieri delle evoluzioni sullo skate (loro sono arrivati a scoprire vertical e aerial), veri rivoluzionari nel loro ambito, in primis perché, puntando tutto su uno stile “radical”, hanno definito le regole di un nuovo sport anche infrangendo la legge. Una crew nata attorno al negozio di surf dei mentori Jeff Ho e Skip Engblom, i cui membri diventano presto gli idoli di Ian MacKaye dei Fugazi o ancora di altri personaggi del mondo musicale come Henry Rollins e Jeff Ament dei Pearl Jam, che li scoprono grazie alle foto pubblicate sulle pagine della rivista ‘Skateboarder’.
È Stacy Peralta (1957), uno degli z-boys (dove z sta per Zephyr, come il nome del negozio), l’autore di questo orgoglioso e appassionato ritratto di un team di skater da molti visto come l’equivalente di una qualsiasi gang di strada, ma che applicando le tecniche del surf, ha determinato la sorte di quella tavola supportata da ruote in uretano. Proprio questa sostanza chimica ha costituito un aiuto fondamentale per la crew, la cui peculiarità principale può così diventare la completa torsione del corpo con le mani che automaticamente vanno a poggiare, senza controindicazioni (con altri materiali il rischio caduta era nettamente maggiore), sul terreno, non più sul mare. Una storia coinvolgente, con numerose e preziose immagini di repertorio che restituiscono il sapore e, soprattutto, i colori di un’epoca rimpianta da più parti. Una storia rovinata dal violento ingresso degli sponsor, dall’avvento del professionismo o, è il caso di Jay Adams (attualmente in carcere), dall’abuso di droga. Proprio Adams e Tony Alva sono ancora considerati dal resto degli z-boys i membri che meglio incarnano lo stile del gruppo, tutto grazie a un talento puro e alla capacità di trovare e sviluppare nuove tecniche con una pratica costante. Mentre i due si raccontano non si può fare a meno di notare i loro denti scheggiati, e il nesso causale con le acrobazie che facevano sullo skate, spesso senza alcuna protezione, è automatico.
L’albero genealogico del surf ha dato vita allo skateboard e, più recentemente, allo snowboard. Stacy Peralta ha portato sul grande schermo una storia collettiva creatasi attorno a questa famiglia e il suo documentario, che si apre sulle note di Ezy Ryder di Jimi Hendrix, riesce a divertire e interessare anche chi non ha mai avuto niente a che fare con questo mondo. Dogtown and Z-boys funziona, un po’ come tutti i racconti riguardanti persone che, quando si mettono in gioco per una passione, lo fanno senza mezzi termini, spesso correndo dei rischi sulla propria pelle; attributi spesso latitanti in chi sceglie di fare cinema, a parte rare eccezioni come quella di Werner Herzog che, proprio con un documentario autoreferenziale (Kinski – il mio nemico più caro), ha definitivamente svelato questa sua attitudine.

Henry Rollins and Ian MacKaye photographed by Suzie Horgan at a Georgetown Häagen-Dazs ice cream store.

Reportaxe emitido na sección Snub TV do programa de cultura alternativo Night Flight da televiión americana sobre a primeira xira inglesa da banda de Washington DC Fugazi en 1988. Inclúe entrevitas a Ian MacKaye e Guy Picciotto e a interpretación en directo do tema ‘Suggestion’.

EDGE: PERSPECTIVES ON DRUG FREE CULTURE documents both the negative and positive aspects of the Straight Edge scene today. Screening takes place on Wednesday, November 4th at 8pm followed by a Q&A session with the directors.

Below is my interview I did with Ian MacKaye of Minor Threat and Fugazi this morning. He is a really awesome guy and it was cool to chat with him. He had a perspective on punk rock that I didn’t really expect, it was a really cool insight.

Guy Picciotto (back), Joe Lally, Brandon Canty, Ian MacKaye