Professor Shayna Maskell offers an engaging scholarly look at the origins of the DC hardcore scene with “Politics as Sound – The Washington, DC, Hardcore Scene, 1978-1983.” She introduces us to foundational bands like Bad Brains, Teen Idles, Minor Threat, State of Alert (S.O.A.), Government Issue (G.I.) and Faith, examining their buzzsaw sound and aggressive, often alienating lyrics.
But she also examines at length how they were shaped by their D.C. backdrop, a setting that sharply contrasted power and poverty, with starkly defined lines for class and race as well as deeply ingrained notions of masculinity.
Many of these themes get chapter-length examinations in the book, with quotes from scene leaders and fans ranging from Henry Rollins to Ian MacKaye. The book also offers a chronology of the scene as it grew and splintered from 1978 to 1983. Maskell carries us along as bands form and dissolve at the same lightning-style tempo of their music. As she does, she shares a sense of a growing cultural movement, one that struggles to find venues to welcome it and that is accompanied by surprising violence, both near the stage and on the streets.
“Politics as Sound” is an academic book at heart–an accessible one, to be sure, but one with extensive analysis of social theory and topics like hegemonic masculinity. As a layperson, I wasn’t familiar with all the language and terminology, but the author did a great job bringing the reader along with her, even in the denser sections. It was like being in class with a favorite professor when she outlined the differences between subculture and social movements or explored how straightedge is an alternative form of dominant masculinity.
If you’re interested in D.C. hardcore or the forces that shape musical subcultures, you will find her book to be an appealing, thought-provoking read.
Quotes
“Straightedge as both a subculture and social movement worked to reinscribe not only what it meant not to imbibe (drugs, alcohol, cigarettes) but also what it meant to be a teenager. The cultural narrative of coming of age and the concurrent expectation of rebellion via excess, the rituals and rules ascribed to high school, were subverted and reworked by straightedge.”
“Being a (straightedge) male meant not drinking, which aligned with the traditional masculine directive of doing your own thing, being an “inner-directed male” instead of the less manly “other-directed” approval-seeking male. The point is not to undercut the significance of straightedge’s no-drinking practice…such temperance was a meaningful and perhaps even risky choice to make as a young man being constantly regulated and measured for one’s manhood. But it is equally important to note the ways in which one form of hegemonic masculinity is traded for another form.”
“For MacKaye and larger swaths of the DC hardcore scene, ‘The structure of society is an oppressive concept. I don’t see self-destruction as a valid form of rebellion.’ Instead, straightedge became that rebellion.”
“Straightedge, from its inception in the heart and soul of Ian MacKaye and its infancy years in the DC hardcore scene, was always-already both a subculture and a social movement. What is the difference? Why does that matter? Who cares if we label it one or the other? To put it simply, what is at stake–as with many a semantic struggle over labeling–is power, agency, and legitimacy. Subcultures are frequently relegated to the realm of youth, and in doing so, afforded with less social and political legitimacy and therefore power. They are just kids. Resisting. Rebelling. They’ll grow up, become adults and change their identity. And if these subcultures do pose a threat to the status quo and to hegemonic norms in some way, those threatening subcultures will be culturally neutered by either commercialization and commodification–what I call, tongue-in-cheek, the Hot Topic-ization of subcultures–or delegitimized by the media, politicians, or adults in general–or both. Social movements, on the other hand, are more often understood as the purview of adults. They are constructed as formal organizations with formal political goals and thus represent a more formal and legitimate type of power. They can still be neutered by the dilution of their values and beliefs into political platforms, but they are still imagined having more (direct) influence on sociopolitical outcomes through their use of more institutional means. Yet, to use a good ole cliche, subcultures and social movements are different sides of the same coin. By understanding subcultural practices as a part of social movements, we can include noninstitutional arenas in which loosely connected individuals enact social change and recognize the resistance of personal value identities connected to collective identities.”
“This identification was not necessarily generalized or nationalized, but instead specific to the often marginalized substratum of DC. Teen Idles’ and Minor Threat’s music, their sound, signified the building of frustration and overlooked disconnect between the upper-class facade of DC and the disparate reality of those less privileged. Repetition and monotony in the bands’ music act as a symbol of the sameness and ennui of working-class tedium. The aforementioned duplication of the same chord progression contributes its part; the recurrence of E/B/G/D/A/E operates as routine and ritual–not only the accessibility of basic chords as classlessness but also the repetition as the slog of everyday life.”