Secret History of Rock. The Most Influential Bands You've Never Heard (58 page)

Kate Schellenbach, Luscious Jackson:

Bad Brains was one of the bands that I – along with other kids my age like Jill and Gabby [of Luscious Jackson] and the Beastie Boys – would see every time they played. Not only was seeing them very exciting, it was also this social event. I met a lot of my good friends there... When I was in the Beastie Boys, their songs were some of our favorites to try and figure out. They were very accomplished musicians, so they inspired us to step up on our musicianship.

Adam Yauch, Beastie Boys:

The Bad Brains influenced me more than any other band in the world.

Though Bad Brains first recorded as early as 1979, it wasn’t until 1982 that they finally released a cassette-only debut album on ROIR. The tape (with liner notes written by Yo La Tengo’s Ira Kaplan, then a music critic) mixed high-energy classics such as
Big Take over
and
Sailin’ on
with reggae tracks like
Jah Calling
for a sound that was as fast and ferocious as any hardcore album (if not more so), while maintaining tight structures and quick changes. As the band’s reputation grew, it stepped up a touring regime that brought them to California, where they headlined a show featuring the first-ever gig by Bad Brains fanatics, the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Dave Grohl, Nirvana / Foo Fighters:

My goal has always been to be as powerful live as the Bad Brains. We’re not that close yet, but we’re getting there. [Allstar Daily Music News, 1/26/98]

Having garnered enough attention to warrant a full-scale LP, Bad Brains released
Rock for Light
in 1983. Though it contained some of the same songs as the ROIR cassette, the material was rerecorded by Ric Ocasek of the Cars. The album’s slicker sound did little to detract from the music’s power; it even added greater dynamism. Within a year, though, H.R.’s desire to pursue reggae exclusively led him to quit Bad Brains for a solo career, and the group entered a two-year period of inactivity.

After an H.R. solo album, Bad Brains re-formed in 1986 and released
I against I
on
Black Flag
’s SST label. Both a triumphant return and stylistic departure, the record was not explicitly hardcore and not at all reggae, but rather a seminal album in the development of the black rock style typified by Living Colour, the grunge sound of bands like Soundgarden, and the funk-inflected metal of later bands like Rage against the Machine. But after a lengthy 1987 tour yielded three live albums, H.R. quit the band again (along with Earl) to record a second solo album.

Chris Cornell, Soundgarden:

I against I
was a record that everyone in the band poured over. Everyone in the Seattle scene, we’d sit around in rooms and listen, song to song, and talk about them.

Determined to continue Bad Brains without H.R. and Earl, Doc and Darryl briefly recruited members of Faith No More and the Cro-Mags to tour, though H.R. returned once again for 1989’s metal-oriented
The Quickness
. Disbanding once again, the group remained inactive until 1993, when they were signed by Epic, a major label that had been successful with Living Colour. Joined by a young H.R. sound-alike named Israel Joseph I, Doc and Darryl made Rise, a record that augmented their recent metal funk leanings with cheesy synths and dancehall beats. The album was unsuccessful both commercially and creatively, and Epic soon dropped the band.

A second chance at revival came in 1994, when Madonna’s Maverick label reunited H.R. and Earl with Doc and Darryl to record
God of Love
. Ric Ocasek was producing again, and the band was invited to join a Beastie Boys’ tour. Bad Brains seemed poised for another comeback. However, early into the tour H.R. showed signs of instability, due possibly to anxiety, drugs, or a more serious mental condition (or what Doc laments as H.R.’s “fear of the big time”). After dropping off and then rejoining the Beasties, the group embarked on their own tour.

While performing in Lawrence, Kansas, H.R. became agitated by an audience member he believed was heckling him and he smashed the heavy steel base of his microphone stand over the kid’s head. The victim sustained severe head injuries (but survived), while H.R. spent over a month in jail before being released. Not surprisingly, Bad Brains split up again, this time perhaps for good. Meanwhile, the musical style that Bad Brains invented now fills arenas.

DISCOGRAPHY

Bad Brains
(ROIR 1982, 1996)
; the classic debut cassette that captures the band’s early sound, recently reissued on CD.

Rock for Light
(PVC 1983, Caroline 1991)
; their first widely available album, featuring slicker production by Ric Ocasek.

I against I
(SST, 1986)
; a strong comeback album of all new material, including some of their best songs.

Live
(SST, 1988)
; a concert recording from the band’s 1987 tour.

Quickness
(Caroline, 1989)
; the most consistently metallic of Bad Brains albums, but retaining hard funk elements.

The Youth Are Getting Restless
(Caroline, 1990)
; a live recording from the 1987 tour.

Spirit Electricity
(SST, 1991)
; yet another live album recorded in 1987.

Rise
(Epic, 1993)
; featuring new singer Israel Joseph I and drummer Mackie, the band’s uneven and ill-considered major label debut.

God of Love
(Maverick / Warner Bros., 1995)
; H.R.’s return (and perhaps the band’s swan song) is one step better than
Rise
, but a far cry from the ‘80s recordings.

Black Dots
(Caroline, 1997)
; the band’s first recordings, from D.C. in 1979, including early versions and some never-released songs.

MINOR THREAT

Ian MacKaye, Minor Threat:

All I ever wanted was to belong to a community. D.C. is a very transitory town. The main industry is government, which I have no connection to, and the people who come work for the government are gone within a few years. In the black community there’s a deeper sense of community, because it’s larger and people don’t split. But in the white community you can feel very marginalized. So growing up there was a real desire – maybe even a necessity – to create something to belong to, some way to measure life.

Minor Threat was among the most passionate and exciting – as well as most musical – hardcore groups of the early ‘80s, but the band’s chief significance came in its relationship to its community. The Washington, D.C. punk scene – an insular society made of bands, labels, zines, skateboarding teens, and high school misfits of all sorts – wasn’t the first of its kind. But through the efforts of artists like Minor Threat’s MacKaye – who fostered at the local scene that could sustain itself through shared interests and common ideals – D.C. punk became a template for the entire punk subculture.

Mac McCaughan, Superchunk:

Minor Threat was probably the first hardcore record I bought. I heard other stuff on the radio and thought they were pretty cool, but those first Minor Threat 7 inches are so catchy, so raw and fast... Once I started thinking about the aesthetic of running a label – down to the ads and album covers, how to keep records cheap – Dischord [Minor Threat’s label] definitely influenced Merge [McCaughan’s label]. Their idea of being a label not so much centered around a band, but around a community. The idea of putting out bands you like and keeping it for people who are into this music.

Though MacKaye has long been agnostic and disdainful of organized religion, it’s easy to see how his church background informed the ethics he later applied to punk. MacKaye’s father, a theologian and former religion editor for the Washington Post, was a leader in a liberal inner-city church involved with grassroots political action. Following the King assassination in 1968, six-year-old Ian marched with his parents and church members.

With his earliest exposure to rock coming through church functions and activism, Ian always tied music to politics and social gatherings. After seeing the Woodstock film 16 times, MacKaye decided he wanted to throw a free music festival of his own someday. As a teen, Ian loved Ted Nugent’s music, wildman image, and outspoken sobriety, but discouraged by the professionalism of ‘70s arena rock, MacKaye instead took up skateboarding. With a group of D.C. kids that included his best friend, future
Black Flag
vocalist Henry Garfield (Rollins), he formed a completely independent, unsponsored skateboard team.

MacKaye started getting into punk bands like the Ramones and the Sex Pistols when he entered high school in 1977, though it wasn’t until his junior year that he discovered his calling. At a college radio benefit concert featuring the
Cramps
, MacKaye and his friends got a first taste of live punk rock and it forever changed the way they viewed music. Feeling like a participant – as opposed to a faraway spectator at arena rock shows – MacKaye found the social/musical community he’d been looking for. From there he discovered a small underground of punk outcasts he could identify with (as one of the few socially active high schoolers who didn’t drink or do drugs, he felt like a deviant himself). Though D.C.’s older art punks viewed MacKaye’s crowd as “teeny punks,” they soon established themselves as the heart of the local scene.

With the support of his parents, MacKaye decided to skip college and form a band instead. After playing bass in a short-lived group called the Slinkees, MacKaye and Slinkees drummer Jeff Nelson formed the Teen Idles. During its year-long existence the group managed to arrange a West Coast tour (with Henry Rollins as roadie) in search of early hardcore heroes like
Black Flag
and the
Dead Kennedys
and put out a single on its own label, Dischord. When the Teen Idles folded, MacKaye and Nelson regrouped with guitarist Lyle Preslar and bassist Brian Baker to form Minor Threat. Along with bands like Henry Rollins’ State of Alert (Dischord’s second release) and Government Issue, Minor Threat pushed the D.C. hardcore scene into motion.

Minor Threat built on the sounds of
Bad Brains
and
Black Flag
with Preslar’s high-tempo reverb guitar riffing, Nelson’s impulsive drum pounding, and MacKaye’s melodic yet sneering vocals. They perfected a hardcore style bands still copy. Balancing power and intimacy, songs like
I Don’t Wanna Hear It
and
Small Man, Big Mouth
attacked blind followers, liars, and bullies, and spoke directly to and about the lives of band members and people around them.

Jenny Toomey, Tsunami / Licorice:

There’s a lot of heart in what Ian does, he really challenges himself. Minor Threat just had perfect songs. It’s no surprise an entire genre of punk has grown up to copy them. [Simple Machines, Toomey’s label] gets demo tapes to this day of fifteen-year-old boys and girls singing in that exact same style.

The Minor Threat song that probably had the biggest impact was
Straight Edge
. As D.C. punks connected with lyrics such as, “I’ve got better things to do / Than sit around and smoke dope. / Always gonna keep in touch / Never want to use a crutch,” they began to advocate sobriety as an act of rebellion against mainstream society’s rampant substance abuse. Though it never constituted a majority in the punk scene (or even a majority of Minor Threat fans), “straight edge” became the name and rallying cry of a drug- and alcohol-free punk faction that spread across the country (and world), and still exists today.

Eric Wilson, Sublime:

I loved them even though I wasn’t straight edge. I wouldn’t even listen to the lyrics, the music was so good. I’d be riding to school with a Walkman cranking, “I don’t drink, I don’t smoke,” while I was smoking a roach. The music was just so pure and full of energy.

MacKaye resisted the straight edge tag once the movement showed signs of becoming tyrannically fundamentalist, but because he remained outspoken in the punk community it was difficult to separate the message from the original messenger. Idealism aside, though, straight edge had an important pragmatic role. While getting into shows was a problem for MacKaye and his still-underage friends, the young punks convinced venues to let them in provided they didn’t buy alcohol. To alert bartenders not to serve them, the kids marked their hands with the “x” that later became a symbol of straight edge affiliation.

As Dischord resumed activity in 1981 and ‘82-releasing Minor Threat’s first two EPs
Bottled Violence
and
In My Eyes
– Jeff and Ian moved into Dischord House, their home and base of business operations. Following Minor Threat’s community-minded practices such as insisting their shows be open to fans of all ages and cost no more than $5 per ticket, Dischord kept its record prices low as well. After a brief breakup while Preslar did a semester in college, Preslar rejoined and Baker switched to second guitar, while Steve Hansgen joined on bass. With a bolstered lineup, Minor Threat recorded an album,
Out of Step
, in early 1983.

Showing a maturation from its earlier finger-pointing rants, Minor Threat’s lyrical concerns on songs like
Sob Story
and
Betray
focused on the punk scene’s own shortcomings, while
Look back and Laugh
revealed a new sensitivity. Indeed, as the D.C. punk scene grew in the early ‘80s and slam dancing (moshing) attracted more violent elements, it became increasingly difficult to maintain cohesion. Meanwhile, Minor Threat’s rising national prominence made it more difficult to maintain the band’s community orientation. When a major label record deal became a possibility, tensions flared within the band, and Ian and Jeff – unwilling to separate their band from their label – disbanded Minor Threat for good. A final single,
Salad Days
, pointed toward the future without relying on nostalgia for the past: “Look at us today / We’ve gotten soft and fat / Waiting for the moment / It’s just not coming back... / But I stay on, I stay on.”