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I Am a Patient Boy

Ian MacKaye & Amy Farina

It’s often said that trumpeter Miles Davis earned his colossal status in part because he was ever evolving and ultimately changed the shape and path of jazz several times. The same might be said of Ian MacKaye and his place in American punk and underground music. Few figures loom larger than MacKaye in indiedom, and he’s still going. The ripple effect of his work, both on stage and off, is still rippling. From the Hold Steady to Pearl Jam, many of today’s most significant acts owe a debt and continue to show allegiance and affection for MacKaye.

Born and raised in the transient world of Washington, DC, where administrations were ever changing and no one stayed for long, MacKaye found consolation and friendship in the tribal spirit of the city’s burgeoning punk scene. He joined Teen Idles, a band fuelled on Los Angeles’ brand of fast, short and sharp punk, as bassist.

Hardcore punk, a phrase which MacKaye and his crew helped to coin, was an unbridled offshoot of traditional punk that embraced the DIY spirit but eschewed the fashion and posturing with which the mainstream was eroding punk’s spirit. Hardcore often teetered on violence, pushed by angry, nihilistic lyrics, slamming mosh pits and pubescent testosterone and adrenaline.

The hardcore punk movement and the undeniable inertia behind it is captured in the just released documentary American Hardcore, which is based on the 2001 book of the same name by Stephen Blush. MacKaye’s voice figures heavily in both. As MacKaye says in the book, “When the band [Teen Idles] broke up we had this money in a cigar box. We could have split up the money and had $150 each or we could put out a record. Everybody said put out a record.”

That was the start of Dischord Records, one of punk rock’s longest-running and most influential labels and, 25 years on, still run by MacKaye.

Following the dissolution of Teen Idles in 1980, MacKaye and drummer/Dischord cofounder Jeff Nelson were still in their teens and started Minor Threat, a lightning-fast quartet with equal zeal for music and personal politics—a band that, Blush states, “set the standard for hardcore.”

While MacKaye had once embraced the cementhead attitude among the bloodthirsty moshpit mongrels, he was soon pushing young punks to “flex their heads” and be conduits for change. Captured in the song “Straight Edge,” his clean-living lifestyle unwittingly set a template that contrasted rock and roll’s drugs, booze and sex as conquest credos. The band’s entire catalog is captured on the 26-song Complete Discography (Dischord), which remains one of the most important documents in any genre of punk.

Minor Threat

Minor Threat broke up in 1983 and MacKaye focused on Dischord, along with short-lived, one-off projects like Embrace and Egg Hunt, until 1987 when he returned with the band Fugazi. Again, MacKaye (along with Guy Picciotto, Joe Lally and Brendan Canty) changed punk’s paradigm with dissonant guitars, dynamic arrangements and boundless experimentation and growth. It came to called “post-punk” and remains a stylistic totem in indie music.

As road warriors, Fugazi made their reputation touring and continued to stick to the guns that MacKaye always brandished: keeping the tickets around $5, refusing to sell tour merchandise, stopping shows when violence broke out and insisting on all-ages venues. Following years of touring, seven groundbreaking albums, a film and soundtrack and several EPs, the band went on an indefinite hiatus in 2002.

Not that Ian MacKaye has slowed down a bit. He continues to run Dischord, and—while other labels large and small have folded—the label continues to thrive in the digital age.

The downtime for Fugazi also meant that MacKaye could focus on the Evens, a band that he formed in 2001 with former drummer for the Warmers, Amy Farina. With MacKaye on baritone guitar and vocals and Farina’s textured drumming and vocals, the duo are breaking ground with two albums in two years. A Washington Post critic pondered if this music could be called “post-post-hardcore.” 2005’s Get Evens (Dischord) touches on social issues and the breakup of neighborhoods and general political cartoonism of Washington, DC.

And, thankfully, some things never change for Ian MacKaye. While he continues to evolve, grow and inspire change, he still adheres to some old rules. As the Evens tour, the shows are always all-ages and the tickets are still $5. More great artists should be this “out of step.”

For more investigation: www.dischord.com, www.americanhc.com.

The Evens play this Monday, June 11 at Soundlab. Their set starts at 8:30pm sharp.