The producers of Beautiful Losers have created a new video series called DIY America with the first episode Skate and Create now up on their website.

The episodes feature interviews and excerpts from the Beautiful Losers documentary that never made it to the final edit.

Skate and Create focuses on the relationship between skateboarding, punk rock, creativity and ‘outsiderness’. It includes interviews with Shepard Fairey, Harmony Korine, Ian Mackaye, Glen E. Friedman, Larry Clark and Tony Hawk.

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’.

by Jayson

One of the most rad things about both growing up in the woods then moving back to live there is I never ever have any idea what is going on. This was actually somewhat true when I lived in Cleveland and went to hell of shows. I probably had no idea what was going on then, but now the combination of isolation and blogging makes it a lot more interesting. For a couple years I existed in a real vacuum, living only on Pandora and whatever Hydra Head was putting out, now I’m reading a lot more.

I’m suffering from the early onset midlife crisis myself. I’m now old enough to have seen several scenes come and go and the music I listened to as a teen has it’s own ‘classic’ station on XM. So here is a list of the notable bands, scenes, whatever musically that I failed to get either by not listening to the right things or listening to the wrong ones, due to age, general stupidity or both. Based on what the internet has taught me and in no specific order:

Radiohead: I know basically no one cares about Radiohead in 2009, but remember when they were geniuses? I never got that. Sad, whiny, English music played over some ambient, that’s genius? Ok…

Wilco: Likewise, 2009, no one cares. But still, remember when these guys were geniuses? All you have to do is abandon being an alt country band and play some gutless rock n’ roll with a few samples here and there? This shows that no matter how much birth control is out there, you’ll always have a few people that take Rolling Stone seriously in every generation. Jeff Tweedy sucks compared to Jay Farrar anyway.

Mastodon: I love Mastodon. What you have to realize about me, is that in my heart I’m a lightweight. I spent my youth listening to Grunge or Alternative or whatever we were calling it. Alice in Chains were the heaviest thing I owned for a really long time. Mastodon pretty much suits my general ‘not up for much’ tastes.

Grindcore: Again this happened while I was asleep. I didn’t really listen to metal until 1999. I’m 32 and just getting into grindcore.

Gangsta rap: When I was 17 or whenever this got big I hated it all. On one hand I give myself a break because I was going to school with kids who lived on farms and were pretending to be in the Bloods. (objectively hilarious, subjectively a joke that gets old fast) On the other I took myself way too seriously. Of course now basically I think all this southern bounce and what have you sounds terrible compared to what was big 15 or more years ago. Ice Cube was better when he hated white people though, that’s just being factual. Listen to The Predator and Laugh Now, Cry Later back to back.

AC/DC, Thin Lizzy, Zeppelin, et all: Thank you very much Kurt Cobain, you drug addled idiot. I was Nirvana super fan #1 in the day and while I won’t say anything about the music I have to come realize that I had effectively played myself by listening to Kurt’s opinions on music. (and a lot of other stuff really, every Nirvana album came with a No Fun Club enrollment form) Sure, the Pixies and the Melvins are pretty good, but the whole “corporate rock, cock rock, whatever” line was in fact, complete bullshit. Really to be fair, I can blame pretty much everyone who made independent music in the 80s except the Ramones and the Butthole Surfers. Ian MacKaye basically ruined music and fun and people like Kathleen Hannah and Kurt just perpetuated the nonsense.

Post-Metal: I love every boring post-metal band. All the time I don’t spend on Hydra Head’s website I spend listening to Isis and many bands that sound just like them. All the time I don’t spend on either of those two things, I spend shaping my beard.

Thrash revival: I’m giving everyone a pass on this. Thrash, to my ears, is way less shitty and awful than anything the kids have been into for like… a decade. While it’s touch disconcerting to see kids half my age dressing the way kids did when I was in jr. high, I can’t be moved to hate it at all. I mean, we could always go back to listening to songs written by people who think Korn invented music in 1995.  I know everyone hates this because it makes them feel old, but what doesn’t these days? The singer from Warbringer told me you could get white high tops “on the internet” if you Google for “thrash metal high tops.”

3 Inches of Blood: This is one of my favorite bands. I listen to them almost non stop. This is, again, partially a reaction to nearly a decade of being unable to escape music written by stangry bros about their feelings and being misunderstood. The other part is because I am a huge dork and really enjoy music about warriors and monsters and crap like that.

There’s more, but I forgot the rest of it.

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.

I think Kyla’s nostalgia is rubbing off on me, so I’m going to start documenting my Memory Lane Travels as well. I’ve been browsing the internet looking at Kathleen Hanna photos, reading old zines and basically just scrounging up old memories and listening to Julie Ruin’s “The Punk Singer” on repeat for the past hour. I am absolutely swamped at work, can’t you tell?

ANYWAY, getting back to my Punk Rock Nostalgia:

Here’s a photo I came across and had to share because it struck a chord with me. It’s also pretty funny. I do not find it surprising that it’s a picture of Ian telling you NOT to do something because his first and lasting impression on me when I saw Fugazi years ago was that he was a big whiner.

(Ian MacKaye, Minor Threat/Fugazi)

Now there’s a guy who got his panties in a knot. I remember this day quite well, I remember being super stoked to see Fugazi. We wanted to rock out. He didn’t want anyone to move during their set, which was the stupidest thing I had ever heard. I remember Mikey and I laughing hysterically at his hissy fit and moving off to the side and eventually leaving. It would have been one thing if he had just mentioned he preferred no one get out of hand and refrain from starting a mosh pit, but he threw a tantrum about it after one kind of started anyway.  I understand that having a crap load of kids being a bunch of morons, getting out of hand and accidentally punching someone out is something we want to avoid happening. But, kids will be kids. Tell them not to do something the way he did and you’re provoking a bunch of rebellious teens to do exactly the opposite. Anyway, his tantrum was hilarious, pathetic, and it also made me never want to pay money to see Fugazi again. Wait, did I pay money that time? I can’t recall completely, but I don’t think I did. Another thing you have to note here, I was a rebellious teenager myself. Mikey and I may not have witnessed a certain something that made him flip out. Yet, I still view him as a giant baby.  I may have a lame impression of Ian MacKaye, but I will always get a kick out of Minor Threat and Fugazi. Always, always.

‘D.I.Y. or Die: How to Survive as an Independent Artist’ é un documental de baixo coste dirixido por Michael W. Dean en 2002. O título do filme e os nomes dos capítulos xa din todo sobre o que se trata, non hai máis. 

Inclúe entrevistas a Ian MacKaye, Lydia Lunch, J Mascis, Ron Asheton ou Mike Watt entre outros.

Listado de capítulos:
1. What Is D.I.Y.?
2. Purpose
3. Integrity
4. Commerce
5. Self-Definition
6. Dealing With Adversity
7. Giving Back
8. Who Did What

VERSIÓN ORIXINAL

As requested, a short clip of awesome by Mr. Mackaye and crew. And even though Fugazi has already been posted, you can never have too much of a good thing. Plus these are 2 of my all time favorite songs.

Thank you, Glen, for the heads up.

Rolling Stone, you take the cake:

…so we can pretty much pin the entire state of emo at this point on Minor Threat.

Why do I even bother? Do the folks at RS even know what music is anymore? They’re probably too busy catching up with The Beatles circa 1966 to even try to recognize what music is being made now, never mind back in ‘82.

This news byte by Daniel Kreps landed on the site about a half hour ago and references yesterday’s Drowned In Sound interview with Jim Suptic of The Get Up Kids. Obviously, this is a little side snipe that is supposed to be funny, but considering the entire article is based off of a snippet from another interview, there’s no stopping the nitpicking on this one.

Because it’s not just that one sentence that display’s RS’s inability to perform as the kind of magazine it advertises itself as, it’s the entire article. The entire article is based off of another person’s hard interviewing skills, and the fact that Rolling Stone merely ripped off a few questions from that person’s interview (and it may have taken a lot to get that out of Suptic), made it the basis for a big news article, AND STILL CONSIDERS ITSELF THE TOP OF THE MUSIC JOURNALISM HEAP is absolutely ridiculous. Sure enough, I wrote an entire post based on the same responses, but I don’t pretend to be the source of important music information today. And, I beat RS to it to boot.

And as for Kreps, the auteur of this fine piece of RS BS? The one who insinuates that Minor Threat is the reason emo sucks today, simply because Suptic referenced Fugazi as an influence and Ian MacKaye was in both bands? (As an aside, I’m sure Suptic would have something to say about Kreps’ idiotic pandering.) Well, who knows much about him, but, if this happens to be his Twitter account, the following isn’t unsurprising:

Is the “bio” comedy through Irony? If it is, I can’t say that I entirely get it.

Minor Threat – “Filler” (live):

the tabloids have been having a field day with kristen stewart and her unfortunate joan jett mullet haircut. in this photo, kristen stewart stirkes a pose with a mid-drift revealing minor threat t-shirt as if to see, not only, ian mackaye i love you but also, f-you people magazine, i’m neither pregnant nor fat.

but the real question is, where did she get the minor threat t-shirt and does she even know what it means? does she wear it because she’s still sort of a minor. well, not really, isn’t she 18? or is she a minor threat/fugazi straight edge kinda gal?

but it’s good to see that she apparently has got better taste in music than her vampire co-star, robert pattinson ,whose been known to way poetically about the greatness of van (gag gag) morrison. we won’t even include a tag for van morrison here as that would be far too painful.

but the real story at comic-con is that ashley greene told e! that chris weitz was great and there was no screaming on the set. was she alluding to catherine hardwicke? was she a screamer? well, what about MICHAEL BAY? guess greene won’t be getting cast in hardwicke’s next movie.

“Music is a gift. Just pass it on.”

Music is sacred. Music has the power to mend when we can’t do it ourselves, or unite when we’re too convoluted to do nothing but trip over ourselves and cause more strife.

Music transcends conflict, language, race, everything. You can’t separate music from this essence.

Music is not a commodity. This isn’t open for debate. Negotiate religion and business and technology and science. Preserve music.

We haven’t. We’ve allowed it to disintegrate. Millionaire pigs earn a livelihood perverting art.

Enter Ian MacKaye. He transcends punk rock, hardcore punk, post-hardcore – all genres – to embody everything that is important about the industry. Everything that is lacking in the industry.

The legacy is incontestable: Minor Threat, Fugazi, The Evens. I can imagine he scared the record labels straight out of their tailored suits when he successfully launched Dischord Records 29 years ago: unconventional, independent, sometimes surviving on 12 employees, and a brilliant business model of what the industry should be. Do-It-Yourself ethos at its best.

His unyielding dedication to the music is what makes Ian so critical to the music world right now. Documentation, he calls it. Take care of it and pass it on.

I can go on and cite a hundred examples of his importance or why people like him matter. But his words below paint a perfect picture. (Full interview by Holmes Wilson here.)

“Art doesn’t need profit to qualify it or justify it. This will always be the truth.”

If someone’s selling downloads and collecting money for our songs, I would be unhappy about that. But if they’re trading it, I don’t mind. At the end of the day, I’d rather people hear the music.

The idea that somebody in wherever, whether they’re in a small town somewhere in the middle of America or in Pakistan or whatever, if they’re interested, and they want to check out Fugazi, I want it out there.

I don’t want them to have to pay some service to get to it and listen to it. And hopefully that would compel them to do further research.

I mean, how cool would it be to know that there’s some kid in Pakistan who downloaded all our records and listens to them all the time? I’m happy – I don’t give a damn.

The argument against it is always just monetary, and again, that’s the least interesting aspect of music for me.

If people lose their incentive to make music because they’re not making money, they’re not musicians. They’re business people. Musicians don’t have a choice in the matter: you gotta make music.

Music is like air; you can’t sell it.

I see music as a river, and the water in a river is there for everyone. Anyone that wants to have a sip can have a sip and have some water.

Now somewhere along the line someone came up with the idea of putting the river water in bottles and selling the bottles of water. That’s the record industry. Music is water, and the bottling company is the industry.

At some point it becomes, “This is our industry, we need to make money, and how can we increase profits?”

Well, the way to increase profits is to try to discourage people from going to the river, and having them buy the bottled water.

And they’ll start with that but eventually what they’re going to get into is they’re going to start blocking the river or they’re going to poison the river.

But water is always moving, and it’s very difficult to poison a river, very hard indeed.

And that’s the good news about music: it can’t be stopped. It will always happen, people will always make music, and regardless of whether or not there’s money to be made from it. It can’t be stopped.

When people who are songwriters say, “That’s my property, and if you give it away for free, then I lose my incentive,” – well, good riddance.

Rob Gordon in High Fidelity (book or film, you pick) was onto the right idea with the above quote, but I like to ask: What came first, the writer or the music they listened to? Did the down-and-out junkie poetry of Lou Reed inspire countless scribes like his band The Velvet Underground supposedly inspired anybody who listened to them to start a band? Or did anybody start writing poetry after finding out that Leonard Cohen the songwriter was (and is) an accomplished poet, prior even to his first album?

This question is visited a few times in Heavy Rotation: Twenty Writers on the Albums That Changed Their Lives (Harper Collins) by some well-picked names who chose a wide variety of albums to praise by the pen. James Wood picks The Who’s Quadrophenia, Mark Grief of N+1 writes on Fugazi’s self-titled EP debut, and John Haskell picks Remain in the Light by the Talking Heads. In Grief’s case, I am happy that a person involved with what might be one of the most important lit-culture journals would choose to discuss an album of such significance. His analysis of what the band, and to a greater extent leader Ian MacKaye, stood for is exceptionally elegant. And books focusing on punk or hardcore music–the genres Fugazi fits into–have a tendency to fall sadly short on elegance.

Grief’s N+1 colleague, Benjamin Kunkel, also weighs in on The Smiths album The Queen is Dead, an album considered to be the magnum opus of one of the most important English bands of the last forty years (alongside Meat is Murder, I’ll let you judge). And while magazines like Mojo or the always reliable 33 1/3 series have covered, pontificated, and placed Moz, Marr, and Co. upon both cross and pedestal, Kunkel does them the justice of paying tribute as a fan who just happens to be a great writer – a feat which I am assuming is the mission of the entire book. There are sweet remembrances of folks who can be connected to soundtracks (Sheila Heti on Annie, and Claire Dederer on Hedwig and the Angry Inch), mainstream rock and pop (Joshua Ferris on Pearl Jam’s Ten or a Gloria Estefan album as Asali Solomon talks about) or the virtually unknown (Todd Pruzan’s moving piece on his love of Kiwi lo-fi soundtrack Topless Women Tallk About Their Live is totally under this category, and almost made me a little misty-eyed). Whatever the case, each entry is an honest embrace of a connection to music, and a more serious music book than those wasting our time trying to define a specific genre or period.

So it’s been a while since I’ve done anything with this blog. To be quite honest with you, I have no excuse, except being lazy/having other things to do. But I’m off from Uni now and have far fewer things to distract me, which should mean I update this more often. Plus, Tom and Apryl have been nagging me to update this, and I would hate to upset them. I won’t waste time with going on about what I’ve been doing in the last few months as that’s fucking boring.

There are a few things that are not so boring though.

I have printed and sold most of the first pressing (60 copies) of issue 2 of the ‘zine.

This time around it’s still £1.50, I still haven’t bought a stapler, and hopefully it’s still pretty interesting. I have interviews with…

Ian MacKaye

Doomriders

Throats

Maths

Manuscripts

SSS,

and the usual ‘zine crap.

This is what it looks like…

If you want a copy, you can buy one at my brand new Big Cartel. www.whatwouldhenryrollinsdo.bigcartel.com

Hopefully I shall be printing some more copies in a few weeks, when I can get to a photocopier and have the money/time to sit around printing them out for a few hours. I’m also planning to reprint some of Issue One for those who were too uncool to get one last time.

I’m looking at starting a little bit of a ‘zine distro with ‘zines i have accumulated on there as well, and possibly releasing tapes and what not.

What else is new? Well, i put on a second house show a few weeks ago, but this time with 8 bands. It ruled. I’ll post something about it here soon.

Well thats about all for now, but i will endevour to update this more regularly, with my thoughts on records (i’ve got loads and loads to listen to as i have been without a record player for a while) and live reviews, and probably some other crap i post for the sake of it.

Non starò qui ad annoiarvi dicendovi di come consideri i Fugazi un gruppo incredibilmente figo, cazzutto all’ennesima potenza, in tutti i sensi: etici ed estetici.
Volevo solo segnalarvi l’intervista a Ian MacKaye, il loro leader (già nei Minor Threat) che si trova su VBS.TV, in cui ovviamente si dicono cose cazzutissime ed estremamente intelligenti per tutto il tempo, quindi guardatela, è anche divertente.

Bonus: un mash-up Fugazi-Talib Kweli (?!?) realizzato da uno che si autocolloca “da qualche parte tra NWA e DC“.

Before the Super Secret Summer Surprise mishaps went down at the ICA the other night, I had the chance to peruse the Shepard Fairey exhibit before it closed for the night. I’m a fan of the guy’s work, so I certainly enjoyed the exhibit. But I couldn’t help but smile when I saw this piece:

Obey MacKaye

Right smack dab in the middle of the show. Well, everything is “in the middle of the show”: Fairey’s peices seem to stand out in the museum like none other. That may be a tribute to Fairey’s skills at creating images that really captivate and jump out at people, which may or may not subvert what he was trying to create with the whole Obey campaign. (Now I’m really on a tangent here, so, if you’re lucky enough to see the exhibit, do, and if not, the idea is relatively complicated to explain in a short sentence so you might want to read his manifesto.)

I’m interested to see if Ian is aware of this print. Who knows really (though my guess is that he might have been, as all the proceeds from the print were donated to charity). I have to admit, it was pretty great to see Ian’s likeness in the museum, all potential ideological complaints aside. If part of the value of Fairey’s art is to spread the ideas of the people he transformed into art, then hopefully some curious museum-goer without any idea of  who MacKaye is will give thought to looking him up and maybe become a fan of Fugazi, The Evens, Minor Threat, or maybe even Embrace. And that’s pretty great.

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