Dear Friends,
Happy Friday, faithful readers.
I had a lovely time with the gents last night. We had pizza and wings and salad along with some pool time. Felt good to get in the water after a bunch of hot days.
Today I will be working on the bathroom. It feels like a never-ending job at this point, but the end is in sight. I also get to visit the dentist. If you need a good dentist, ask me about mine. He’s awesome.
Other than that, I have zero plans for tonight and that feels good after five straight days of being out of the house. It’s really nice to feel like you don’t have anywhere to be. All week long I’ve kind of looked at today as the day I have been really excited about, even though I had a blast each night being out playing music or hanging with the fellas.
Life is full of change, always, and one of those changes that I’ve really liked is being at ease with the idea of not always having to do something.
*****
I’ve told this story before, but it needs telling again. In 1986, my buddy, Mark, tried really hard to get me to listen to Minor Threat. I wasn’t having it, though. As a dedicated party guy, the idea of listening to a straight edge band seemed absolutely foreign to me. It also just seemed wrong.
How could I support this band that was anti-drinking and anti-drugging? Blasphemy.
The honest thing was, I hadn’t ever given them a chance because of my misperception that the band would hate someone like me because I wasn’t a straight edge. How dumb was I? If I would have just gotten on the internet and read about them, I would have known that they could give two shits about what I was or wasn’t into.
Of course, there was no internet to hop onto in 1986 and by that time, Minor Threat was already long broken up and the dudes in the band were off doing other things. Like Ian Mackaye sings in “In My Eyes,” and I’m taking this out of context from the song, but he sings, “Don’t you fucking get it?” I ask myself this question today.
Clearly, I didn’t.
Then one day, he put them on anyway and I loved what I heard. For a while, I stuck to my guns and continued to publicly disavow them, but secretly, in my heart of hearts, I wanted to hear more. I was pretty vocal, too, about not liking them. How could I do a complete reversal. How could I admit that I claimed to hate a band that I had never listened to at all.
Ahh the days of teenage hypocrisy…how I do not miss you. There is nothing more freeing than honesty. I came clean with Mark and stopped dissing Minor Threat. He made me a tape.
In 1989, they released their entire discography on a CD, and I snatched it up. I’ve got a few different pieces of Minor Threat vinyl now, too. I don’t have to be ashamed about liking them anymore. In fact, living the straight-edge life these days feels pretty good.
The irony is not lost on me today.
I have to thank Minor Threat, too. The reason I love the band Wire is because of Minor Threat covering “12XU” which was probably my favorite song off the discography when I first got it. If I had never heard the song, I might have waited a lot longer to discover Wire’s brilliant, Pink Flag.
“Small Man, Big Mouth” is another favorite from back then. It got me quite riled up many times. “What the fuck are you fighting for” gets me going every time. The song packs such a punch in less than a minute, much like “Straight Edge.”
I think “Stumped” is great, too. It’s kind of one of those ‘when is a song not a song’ moments of studio brilliance that just works. Note to future self: play the riff during a soundcheck and see if people catch on. It’s just kind of silly and fun and it sticks out like sore thumb when most of the other tracks just seem so angry.
Speaking of anger, I happen to believe that Minor Threat did angry punk as well as anyone. Their songs had meaning behind them that was inherently positive most of the time, but the had legitimate gripes for such young dudes. There were brains behind Minor Threat.
Sure, some of their focus was on dumb decisions other people were making, but not all. “Look Back and Laugh” is about the pain of growing up and growing apart, for example, from the people you think are your friends. I borrowed a little from this in The Father Figures’ song, “Transparent.”
I hope that kids will continue to discover Minor Threat for years to come. Hopefully there will be some dude or dudette out there like me who gets past their misconceptions about the band and just enjoys the music because Minor Threat fucking rips. There is a ton to share, too. The discography has twenty-six tracks of goodness and since it came out there have been some demos and live stuff that have been released, too.
“I’m taking a walk on the yellow brick road,
only walk where the bricks are made of gold
My mind and body are the only things I've sold
I need a little money 'cause I'm getting old”
From “Cashing In” which is still the best song about selling out ever.
*****
See you tomorrow.
AI is not good at hands. This one is called "A Man With No Plans for the Evening."
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