MRR #271-DC Hardcore
A few years ago I wrote in this column about how I felt some lackluster bands from the 80’s who were from major music scenes like LA and NYC had been elevated to the status of legend, while great bands from lesser known scenes languished in obscurity. I think I used NOTA and Koro as examples of first rate hardcore bands whose material far outshone second tier bands whose material had remained in print and were from more prolific scenes. Another factor I’ve touched on is the acceleration of culture in the information age. I feel the intersection of these trends today has resulted in some interesting trends.

My hypothesis is that in a lot of cities with big scenes, especially those known for a particular style, it’s probably a little TOO easy for a band to get noticed and get a record out and tour. This serves as sort of a subsidy to lackluster bands and discourages innovation and improved songwriting and recording. In towns known for a particular genre say Portland or Minneapolis for Crust or Boston for Straight Edge Hardcore there are probably TOO many labels, places to play and other similar bands to play with and network with. I think this can lead to a certain sylistic rigidity and the ease of playing to certain style results in some pretty generic records. On the other hand, the over identification of scene or label with a style might lead people to dismiss a few truly great bands. This is where I think foreign record collectors can have a leg up on locals. A foreign collector just deals with the music and lyrics detached from any prejudices about a band, scene or style. If you telescope out by a few decades you find the collector of the future unearthing over looked bands that no one cared about in their day.

Here in Minneapolis which has long been known for Crust I think the two best bands are those which are doing something different. In my opinion the two best local bands are Formaldehyde Junkies-a Thrash band, and Soviettes-a pop punk band. As much as I love crust, when I’m around crust punk all the time it all starts to sound the same. But these bands really get me amped and fill me with scene pride. The Soviettes are by now pretty well known Fat Records recording artists. But despite being on a label known for serving a heaping helping of weak sauce, the Soviettes are truly outstanding melodic punk. Their latest album LPIII capitalizes on their ability to write super catchy melodic punk songs with a hard driving rock edge and especially fantastic vocals. Three female and one male singer lead to some really impressive vocal harmonies, choruses and rapid fire trade offs between singers. I probably would never listen to a band like this if they weren’t locals but I love this bands catchy and anthemic records and go see them live whenever they play a small energetic room. I’m sure their records are easy to find and they are worth checking out if you can see them playing with good bands in a good room.

St. Paul’s Formaldehyde Junkies have a 7” out that was a real surprise. After seeing these guys live I thought they were a mess, drunk, sloppy and barely in control of their instruments. But they definitely honed their skillz and got it all together in time to record this 7”. Raw, primal, back to basics 82 style hardcore. I love blasts of pure energy like this that are stripped down, simplistic and all adreneline. Bands like this and Direct Control are what hardcore was supposed to be about. No frills, raw and direct, sick riffs and lyrics about hating society.

One of the best books written about hardcore punk is Mark Anderson’s Dance of Days about the Washington DC hardcore scene. I’ve discussed this book in this column before, but what struck me is that this book does a great job of telling the story of DC hardcore without really specifically discussing many of the records. And it also fails to mention, or only mentions in passing some pretty good and interesting bands. So for the next few months I’m going to write about DC hardcore RECORDS, a critical discography if you will. Not the scene or the history so much as just some of the artifacts. I grew up in DC and followed the scene closely. I am biased about some bands but I will try to be kind of objective.

It’s common fare in record stores, tour vans and on message boards to get a group of people to name their “top five” records of any given genre. This practice was of course immortalized in the halfway decent, but tragically flawed motion picture “high fidelity.” What surprises me so much about the answers you get to such queries is the wide regional variation in the answers. Indeed, almost NO two punks list the same 5 records in their top five. And the bands named always seem to differ greatly if the person is from the East Coast, West Coast, Midwest or somewhere in or near Texas. However, I’m willing to gamble that if you asked hundreds of punks their top 5 US hardcore records, a pretty large plurality would name at least one, if not several Washington DC hardcore releases. Notably, Minor Threat s/t 7”, Bad Brains ROIR cassette and Pay to Cum 7”, Void/Faith split LP and possibly Minor Threat In My Eyes 7” and Out of Step LP. Minor Threat and the Bad Brains are both such amazingly awesome and important bands in the history of hardcore that they have somewhat obscured several other outstanding DC hardcore bands such as Government Issue, Youth Brigade, SOA, Scream, and Void.

I’d like to start our discussion with the band that really paved the way for the DC hardcore scene. The Slickee Boys. The Slickee boys were playing “alternative” or “underground” rock in the mid 70’s before NY or UK punk had any following or impact on the DC music scene. The Slickee boys mixed rock, psychedelia, 60’s garage and punk. Personally, I don’t think their records are very interesting, but no one can deny they were very talented and wrote good rock songs. Most importantly they helped carve out a network of small clubs that were doing live shows in an era of recorded music and arena rock and gave a lot of the early hardcore bands a leg up with gigs and recording.

The Slickee Boys cranked out a steady stream of singles and LPs from 1976 to the late 1980’s. A good place to start with this band is the Cybernetic Dreams of PI LP on Twin Tone. This includes their 60’s pop/surf influenced local radio hit “When I go to the beach” listening to this LP you can hear influences from bands like the Replacments to the Cars and of course 60’s garage and psychedelic rock. This record was on a big alternative label and well distributed and is easily found in used record bins for 5$ or less. If you like it, you might want to dig deeper with this band. But for most people into hardcore punk, the Slickee Boys are probably only of marginal interest. If you do go further with this band I recommend the early 7”s like the self titled third 7” and the live tracks on the ten year anniversary 7”. This band can jump from soul ballads to wild garage punk, so if you don’t like one record, get another one!

Limp Records was the label run by Skip Grof whose store Yesterday and Today records was an important facet of the local rock scene. Skip was instrumental in helping the young hardcore bands get into the studio and release records. We have to remember that when DC Hardcore started, there was no hardcore scene or record labels. And it’s only the vision of a few that kept this scene from going down in history as strictly a “live” form.

There are three compilation LPs on Limp that are of interest to collectors. :30 seconds over DC, The Best of Limp (the Rest of Limp) and Connected. These comps each feature an overview of DC underground bands from rock, to punk to new wave to rockabilly. The best of the three is The Best of Limp which features the amazing 1979 recording of “Don’t Bother Me” by the Bad Brains. To my knowledge this is the only song from the March 79 session with Kim Kane (of the Slickee Boys) and Don Zientra released to this date. But allegedly 7 songs were recorded in this session. Other bands of note on the Best of Limp comp are the Penetrators and the Shirkers, who would now be called Killed By Death Punk, but at the time hardcore was taking over were usually just called slow. Another early DC punk/new wave band which appeared on the Limp compilations worth mentioning is the D.Ceats. Member of the this band and the Penetrators went on to form Black Market Baby.

There are a few genuine KBD punk killers from DC that predated the rise of hardcore. Ebenezer and the Bludgeons 1978 Peer Pressure 7” and the Shirkers, 1978 Drunk and Disorderly 7”. The Shirkers song is featured on the Limp records comp above. It’s raw dirty punk in the late 70’s style, crude and trashy but still pretty rockin’, the flip side Suicide is arguably a better song, but lacks the insouciance of the title track. The two tracks also on Killed By Death 9 and 17 respectively. Ebenezer and the Bludgeons is a band I don’t know much about. Although I grew up in DC I never heard of this band until their inclusion on Killed By Death Volume 3. Truly demented punk “Weekend Nazi” and “Oh I love this weather” are catchy, snotty punk rippers. The two songs on the flip side though are pretty weak. Another band, sometimes lumped in with the KBD classics is the father and son duo White Boy. This band released three 7”s, and I don’t think any of them are very good. S/T 7” 1977, Spastic 7” 1977, and How Safe are you 7” 1980. Demented and strange with “sick” lyrical content and some fuzzed out guitar. But something about the lack of really rocking songs makes White Boy come up just short of being “punk” and falls more into novelty or experimental territory. It is telling that, despite the bottoms of many barrels being scraped for tracks, none of the White Boy songs have managed to make it onto a Killed By Death or Bloodstains compilation.

The first real hardcore record from DC was of course the Bad Brains Pay to Cum 7”. And along with Middle Class Out of Vogue 7” and Black Flag Nervous Breakdown 7” Pay to Cum really set the stage for the hardcore explosion of 1981. By the time the Bad Brains recorded this 7” the song Pay to Cum had already been recorded twice in demo sessions. But each time it was set to tape the speed and intensity were increased. Listening to the Kim Kane sessions version, the Don Zientra Sessions (aka Black Dots) version and the 7” version you can hear the progression from punk rock to hardcore unfold before your ears. The flip side “stay close to me” is pretty weak, but the A side is worth it alone. I don’t really need to tell the Bad Brains story as it’s been related elsewhere. Suffice it to say they are one of the most influential and important, albeit sometimes controversial hardcore bands ever. Which brings us to the beginning of 1981 and the great hardcore takeover, and the end of this months column! Next month, DC hardcore 81-82!

Publication Date:
January 1, 1984

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