Politics, protests and punks are three things perfected in Washington. However, in our brief time at GW, we’re primarily introduced only to the first two.
D.C. punk was born in the late 1970s at the height of the punk revolution when The Clash and The Ramones were bringing this underground musical scene to the forefront of rock and roll. However, to a group of unlikely musicians, their perfected pop-punk anthems were too similar to mainstream music. Unlike music created by these bands, D.C. punk rockers in the late 1970s took lessons from the hardcore rockers of Southern California.
The hardcore movement, named for the stripped down sound and musical technique, produced songs that were as quick as they were aggressive. The new documentary “American Hardcore: The History of Punk Rock 1980-1986” traces hardcore history from its birth in the basements of middle-class Southern Californian homes.
In these basements, socially awkward yet politically aware, male teenagers were taking their aggression out on musical instruments they barely knew how to play. Despite their lacking technical skills, hardcore musicians had enough political angst to fuel the entire movement. Led by Black Flag and the Minutemen (named for the Revolutionary War soldiers not the short length of their songs), hardcore spread throughout the country acclimating to each city. The film tells stories of musicians in each of these cities through in-depth interviews with many musicians from Southern California, Seattle, “Tex-Ass”, Detroit, Boston, New York and D.C.
When hardcore came to D.C., the genre quickly found it’s musical messiah in Ian MacKaye, then a student at Georgetown Day School. His seemingly normal upbringing in the affluent neighborhood of Glover Park sparked much of his anguish. At the age of 16, MacKaye and fellow students started The Teen Idles, and Minor Threat 14 months later.
In thorough interviews with MacKaye and others, “American Hardcore” explains how hardcore bands perfected the punk D.I.Y. (do it yourself) model. All across the country, bands were networking to create an unwritten database of venues (usually a basement or an abandoned house) and floors to sleep on from city to city. Hardcore bands acted as their own booking agents, designers (for posters and album covers) and concert promoters. MacKaye recalled gluing 10,000 seven-inch album covers for Minor Threat’s first EP in his living room.
The interviews with MacKaye and others perfectly document the short-lived hardcore movement by allowing a rare sentimental perspective to a musical movement known for slam dancing (the more violent predecessor to moshing). Where other documentaries use intellectuals or academics to tell a history, Keith Morris of Black Flag, Mike Watts of the Minutemen, HR of Bad Brains and other hardcore musicians assume the roles of educators.
Interspersed between interviews, rare performance footage clarifies why and how hardcore was central to the lives of everyone involved. The musicians, just as dirty and violent as the audience, did what no one was willing to do for the kids involved. They traveled from city to city without sleeping or bathing, without any hope of a record deal and without any second thoughts to putting blood, sweat, and … well, more blood into each energetic performance. n
American Hardcore begins its weeklong stint at the E Street Cinema on Friday.
