MINOR THREAT - first two seven inches

Some days ago I went to a show / concert / party, I am not sure what, but because I had to get up the next day at six in the morning to be at work at a quarter to seven, I decided to not drink that night. All my buddies I met there were drinking, which is okay, but it ended with a little strange feeling. Nothing spectacular, but it got me thinking. When I asked them to not get a beer for me but some soda, they called it a “lady’s drink” and other minor jokes. I can stand a joke, that is not at all the idea, and hell, I have made a few bad jokes about my friends as well – but always to their face, so we can all laugh at them. People I call my friends usually have a sense of humour to go with our drinking habits, otherwise we would end up like boring old farts. Well, probably we’ll do anyway. But since I don’t smoke nor drink coffee, don’t eat meat and resisted the peer pressure that night about drinking alcohol, it dawned on me driving home with the subway that I am a straight edger. And I was thinking where to get some SxE-sweaters from without making myself look stupid. Well, I know I am not actually a straight edger because “if you ain’t now, you never were” and I have no intention to not drink alcohol ever again, why would I do that? So maybe I should have forget about that and call it by-gones.

Nevertheless I got out this little record from my collection because it compiles the first two seven inches by Minor Threat, a band from Washington DC who was part of a small scene of kids who made a point of not being into drugs, which included smoking and alcohol, and who coined the term “straight edge” with a song of the same name. It goes like this: “don’t drink, don’t smoke, don’t fuck, at least I can fucking think. I got straight edge. (repeat)”. It was fast, furious, loud and trashy hardcore, the way it was meant to be in the early Eighties. And listening to it now it, opposite to a lot of other bands and recordings from that time, hasn’t dated a single bit. It is still spewing and spitting with energy, kicking and screaming and in your face like it should be. It is all the good things about early hardcore rolled into green vinyl.

Minor Threat were around from 1981 to about 1985 and consisted of a bunch of people who would later go on to play in other well known bands, like Brian Baker on bass (Dag Nasty, now plays in Bad Religion), Jeff Nelson on drums (High Back Chairs, Three), Lyle Preslar on guitar (Samhain) and Ian MacKaye on vocals (Fugazi, Evens). Well, well known in the sense of well known to people who like Dischord Records and Mid-Eighties Hardcore. They broke about because of internal disputes about the direction of the music and because they kept on discussing in the practice room instead of playing music. Which is kind of strange because in my opinion this kind of hardcore never was so much about the music – play it fast, loud and ripping – but about the message and the energy. It doesn’t take too much talent or genius to do, which is a good thing. I remember, when I first happened unto hardcore in my teens I took my battered electric guitar and penned half a dozen hardcore songs in half an hour. And they were all great. To me, at least. Because it does take a lot of talent and genius to make them good and even more to let them rip on stage. Which is probably why I write about music and let others do it.

Back to this album, it has twelve songs on it total and they are the same. Short, fast, loud, ripping, screaming, kicking and dealing with the same thing: that self-chosen lifestyle and assorted issues. There is “Filler” about the evils of bible-thumping, which was later on covered by Slayer on their album “Undisputed Attitude”. Slayer also did covers of “Guilty of being white” and “I don’t want to hear it”, the first being quite clear what it is[1] and the second is basically telling someone to shut the fuck up because he or she is full of shit. Which is definitely a sentiment that badly needs musical expression still. “Bottled Violence” is about people who drink and start fighting. Then their “theme” song “Minor Threat” which is about that the kids already know what is going on. And so on. There is also a cover of “Stepping Stone” on there, which I believe is originally be The Monkees. Great great stuff all together.

[1] Actually, there was quite a dispute about this song, with Ian MacKaye having a shaved head and all, it was meant as being racist, when actually its source was the fact that Ian back then was on a highschool where white kids were a minority and hassled by black kids for the crimes of their race. The members of Minor Threat claimed that they didn’t like the fact that Slayer covered that song, even though they changed the lyrics to “guilty of being right”, which makes me wonder. I mean Ian MacKaye has refused and defeated Nike to not use a song by Minor Threat, why let Slayer go ahead and then complain afterwards?