Publication:
MaximumRockNRoll

Author:
Felix Von Havoc

MRR #224-dance of days book review
First of all everyone who is interested should check out my review of the book American Hardcore in this issue. I don't pretend to a book critic (although I did review books for Profane Existence) but I do know a few things about hardcore music and I think this book is seriously flawed.

So while we are talking about books on hardcore how about Mark Andersen's Dance of Days. Soft Skull: New York, 2001.

I was excited to read this book since I grew up in DC and got involved in the tail end of the great DC hardcore scene of the early 80's. I've written about DC hardcore before in this space and in Heart Attack but this month I'd like to offer a few insights into this book and my reaction to it. This is to date the best book written about Hardcore. Fucked Up and photocopied is probably the next best, although quite different. The first 79 pages of Get In the Van, Banned in DC, Hardcore California and All Ages are also recommended as is American Hardcore if you can read it critically and ignore the author's bias and dumb opinions.

I would start by noting that Mark Andersen is probably the best-qualified person to write about DC hardcore. He's not from DC; in fact he's from rural Montana. But he moved to DC in the mid 80's and quickly became involved in the local hardcore scene. Mark is a true fan of DC hardcore and knows most of the participants first hand. But his being an extremely well informed outsider makes him free of most of the biases that would cloud most works written by insiders. Indeed the tone of the book shifts a little bit when Mark starts discussing events in which he was a participant I liked the book Banned in DC a lot but in the end it was more of a photo album than serious analysis or history of the scene. Let me state my own bias here. I was born and raised in Washington DC, and later the Prince George's County suburbs of Hyattsville, Riverdale, Bladensburg, and Colmar Manor. I think hardcore is the best music ever and it was largely created in DC. I think DC hardcore is the most, and for a few short years DC had the best scene anywhere in the world. I also think it all went to shit incredibly fast. After revolution summer the scene in DC just fell apart. But for a few short years DC was the brightest star in the sky.

Dance of Days starts off with Mark's personal discovery of punk and politics as a youth in Montana. This does a good job of capturing every kid's first discovery of punk and rush of exhilaration with finding that beneath the surface of mainstream society there are other kids who feel like you. That there is a subculture of other outsiders, misfits and rebels who have this incredibly tough music and dress really cool. What follows is an overview of the late 70's punk scene that preceded hardcore. I remember hearing bands like the Razz and Slickee Boys on WHFS in the late 70's. Their style would barely be considered punk today, more like psychedelic or garage rock but they definitely helped to blaze a trail for hardcore and their story has gone largely untold. Mark introduces us to the personalities who will shape hardcore over the next few years, most notably the kids who would form the Bad Brains and the Teen Idles. Things really take off in chapter four as the DC hardcore scene takes off. The bands that came out of DC in the early 80's Minor Threat, Bad Brains, Government Issue, Faith, Void, Black Market Baby, Youth Brigade, Teen Idles, Marginal Man, Iron Cross, Scream, SOA etc are some of the best bands ever and Mark gives us the inside story of pretty much each band's rise and fall. Mark is right on in his analysis, offers both sides of most controversial events, and to my mind captures the spirit of those days.

The book really picks up for me when it hits 1983 because this is where young Felix Von comes into the picture. I was one of the legions of suburban kids who discovered hardcore in 83 and descended on the scene. Mark discusses the elitism of the scene's founders and I definitely felt that elitism as a young kid. Years later I discussed this with some of the older hardcore kids I knew. There was a feeling that what was going on in DC was unique and special and had to be kept sort of secret for really cool people only. No one wanted clueless longhaired 9th graders like myself coming to shows where everyone knew each other. Now that I'm older I can understand where some of that comes from but I've always tried to fight the natural desire to mock and dismiss the dorky poser kids who come to shows, since I was there too once and they are the future of hardcore. Madhouse's song Respect pretty much sums up the way it was. It was really fun to read about shows at the Wilson Center, Landsburgh, 9:30, Newton Theater and DC Space that I attended as actual historical events. Like "Hey I was at that Circle Jerks show that got the Wilson Center shut down!" As a teenager I was very, very radical politically. I was heavily influence by bands like Crass and Conflict and also the radical 60's groups like the Yippies, Motherfuckers and Weathermen. After I dropped out of high school I spent hours on end in the PG Community College library reading about anarchism, and various radical groups from the Spanish Civil war to the 1970's. You have to remember that this was the height of the cold war. Nuclear war with the USSR seemed inevitable. Reagan and Falwell and those goons were riding high. Invasion of El Salvador or Nicaragua was expected with young punk rockers being drafted by the newly formed selective service administration. As a result I gravitated towards radical groups in the punk scene notably No Business As Usual and met up with Kevin Mattson of SUPA. Kevin had finished high school and wanted to start an activist group that would address politics from the perspective of kids but go beyond his Bethesda student group. We started meeting at the Washington Peace Center and Mark Andersen showed up and the next thing you know DC positive force was formed. We organized events like the War Chest Tour, Stop the Arms Bazaar, Resist the Draft and Mark with all his scene connections hooked up bands to play benefits and set up cool events like showing Another State of Mind. PFDC published a zine called Off Center which we distributed in local high schools. I was the kid who worked in a copy shop who printed and handed out a lot of the flyers and zines we distributed. We also did a lot of volunteer work in soup kitchens and with the CCNV at their shelter. I grew up in pretty poor white trash culture but for a 16-year-old kid, working at the homeless shelter and soup kitchen was a real eye opener for me. There was no Food Not Bombs back then but I remember cooking food and strapping it to the back of Jenny Toomy's scooter and taking it to the park to feed the homeless. I am sorry to admit that I was one of the radical kids who later wanted to kick Mark out of Positive Force because I didn't think he was radical enough, pretty embarrassing to admit today. After Kevin left for college Positive Force shifted more from a radical street perspective to a more mellow approach. Benefit concerts and low key social activism was emphasized over fucking shit up on the streets. Young radical hothead that I was I just couldn't handle this and I more or less dropped out of PFDC.

The atmosphere in DC in the early 80's was charged with excitement and energy but started to fizzle out in 1984. A lot of the best bands broke up, and the scene began to suffer under a wave of violence that Mark discusses in some detail. In those days there weren't many, if any, nazi skinheads. Those characters came later in the 80's especially after the Geraldo show and shit like that. But there were skinheads a plenty of the right wing thug variety. I remember arguing with skinheads who would deny up and down that they weren't nazi's but "pro-am" patriots who were just against gays, jews, immigrants, communists and peace punks. It didn't seem to make much difference if it was a nazi boot or a pro America boot that was kicking your head in back in the day. As one of the "peace punks" or "crassholes" I was a very frequent target of skinhead violence. To the point where I had to go to the infamous Dead Kennedys show at WUST incognito wearing a trenchcoat and a fedora and watch from the balcony so I didn't get my ass kicked for the tenth time. I was one of the instigators behind the anti skinhead flyer Mark talks about on page 203. I'm pretty sure I was one of the kids who tried to bring a baseball bat into the peace center too. The DC hardcore scene started to die out in 85 and Revolution Summer seemed like an attempt to stage a comeback to me. But instead most of the people in bands decided to go in a different musical direction from hardcore. This is one area where I really disagree with Mark Andersen and most of the DC hardcore establishment. DC hardcore was worth saving. The older scene founders saw the violence in the scene and thought it was revolting and not what they had in mind back in 1980 and began to either drop out or play lighter post punk music that they felt would attract a less violent crowd. I think those people should have shown some leadership and helped kick the violent assholes out of the scene. All they did was postpone the inevitable as the nazi skinhead thing took off in the late 80's and dealt a crippling blow to the scene nationwide that it didn't recover from until the early 90's. By that point a lot of people my age had decided enough was enough with the boneheads and organized to keep them out of places like Gilman. It took some work but there were always more of us than them and now hardcore is going strong with very few violent thugs because of it. I liked Right of Spring and Beefeater but the rest of the bands after about 85 were just boring. I think that post punk music all pretty much sucks and just because the scene founders turned their backs on hardcore doesn't mean that it's fire burned out. I'll never forget going to shows and seeing 10 or 20 skinheads intimidate 200 punk kids into total terror and submission. I remember being outside a show at Hung Jury where the skinheads waited in the alley outside the door and rolled kids for their doc martins and bomber jackets as they came and went. (I wore zipper boots and a leather jacket in those days, less desirable and more stylish). I remember loving hardcore but having to run in large gang and carry knives, bats and mace at shows. We were teenage kids who loved punk rock and what it stood for but had to fight to enjoy it with a bunch of miscreant thugs too chickenshit to pick on people their own size. I'm still really bitter about the fall of DC hardcore. The elite of the scene pretty much abandoned the kids who supported them and created a new scene lumping the true believers in with the skinheads. Minor Threat and Rites of Spring members went on to form Embrace and later Fugazi. I remember going to one of the first Fugazi shows at the Wilson Center and being like "what's this, shit?" Government Issue, Dag Nasty and others tried to play REM style radio pop music (along with Seven Seconds and Youth Brigade) Scream went rock, and Bad Brains after their awesome comeback so at WUST released "I against Hardcore" By 1986 no one in DC was playing true DC hardcore anymore.

Dance of Days continues for another 200 or so pages after the end of the hardcore period. It's slow going unless you are into bands like Ignition, Fire Party and Fugazi. The exception is the parts about Riot Grrl. While not strictly a DC thing, the Riot Grrl movement had serious DC connections and is probably the most misunderstood and unnecessarily derided elements of the punk scene. Probably the last chance punk had at living up to its revolutionary potential. In fact I would like to see a book length treatment of Riot Grrl, with someone like Mark as a contributor. Mark gets really fired up about bands like Fugazi and writes about their shows with the same sort of raptural enthusiasm guys like me have for thrash nights. The later part of the book starts stretching things a little thin following the careers of Nirvana and the Rollins band which have only distant connections to DC hardcore. In the commotion I think Mark sort of lost touch with the hardcore scene, so there is no mention of the late 80's youth crew bands from DC or later DC hardcore/punk which actually isn't surprising since there really haven't been many good hardcore bands from DC until quite recently. I don't want to dis something that obviously a lot of work went into but I think most people are mainly going to be interested in the first 200 or so pages of this book and skim over the later part

In 1987 and 88 I didn't go to many shows in DC. There weren't many good shows to go to. The music scene in DC was oriented more towards post punk and the few hardcore punk shows that went on were either terribly commercial or over run with skinheads and thug punks. I started listening mostly to foreign bands, cross-over and the emerging NY and LA "youth crew" hardcore bands. I kept getting into it with the skinheads, which led to some trouble with the law forcing me to relocate to Minneapolis in 1988. DC Hardcore is still the most crucial and I'm still bursting with DC hardcore pride. I make a point to represent whenever possible and I feel sorry for people who get me started talking about Government Issue, the Faith or Bad Brains as that shit is definitely not going out of style. I strongly recommend Dance of Days along with Banned In DC it's a nearly complete overview of one of the most vibrant scenes in the history of rock music. We are lucky to have someone as dedicated and Mark Andersen to chronicle it.

I have to wonder what goes on in the heads of the other 2000 or so people who were at those big WUST shows like the Bad Brains or Dead Kennedys in 84. Where are they now? I am honestly the only person I know of from the early 80's DC scene who is still 100% dedicated to hardcore. In American Hardcore Stephen Blush makes one of his few valid points that hardcore is one of the few artistic movements whose creators turned on the scene they had created. Consider that by 1986 almost every one of the original hardcore bands and most of the second wave were no longer playing hardcore. Many went metal, others went towards pop. The few that continued to play hardcore (Poison Idea, MDC) slowed down and added many rock and metal elements. Hardcore in America definitely hit a low point in 87 or so and some areas of the scene didn't recover until the mid 90's. But hardcore certainly never died and today is stronger than ever. If you don't believe me go see Nine Shocks Terror, DS 13, Lifes Halt, or Spazm 151. It's hard to grasp that all those scene pioneers have moved on to other forms of music or left music altogether. That those people whom once cared so much have faded away. But the music they made and the words they wrote continue to inspire 20 years after they sold out and got corporate jobs, OD'd or got married. On one hand I want to write them off as poseurs who weren't "true 'til death" on the other I wonder if they know something I don't. I just can't understand how you can be exposed to hardcore punk rock and not want to be a part of it forever. Everything else is such total shit, society, the system, the shit on the radio, the squares around us, someone kill me if I ever become like one of them. Until next time, Hardcore Rules!

Publication Date:
January 1, 1988

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