All language subtitles for Foo Fighters.Sonic.Highways.S01E02

So, Scream is from
Bailey's Crossroads,

which is right down the street.

"Put together with a troubled groove,"
is Trouble Funk.

This is all about the Revolution Summer
that happened here.

That's the reference
to the Chocolate City riots,

which started on 14th and U.

This is taken from a quote
from the Bad Brains.

They said their school
they went to was like a prison,

there were no
fuckin' windows in it.

It was one door in
and one door out.

And then "check yourself
and wreck your brains

like the Bad Brains.
Where's your 'P.M.A.'"?

- They're great.
- Pat?

Yeah, really good.

- Check that out.
- Wow.

That's a lot of fuckin' words.

Let's play.

What the fuck are we doing?

Everyone's just sitting around,
talking.

That's some bullshit.

Sync, corrected by icephoenix

Hey, how you doin', man?
How you doin'?

- Oh, yeah?
- Yeah, yeah...

Oh, really?

All right, come on in.
Come on in.

We're one big happy family here.
You guys good?

- Yeah, yeah.
- All right.

Where to, sir?

Club LeBaron.

Every city has its past.

Good gracious,
this place bring back memories.

But you have to know your past

in order to know your future.

Direct from our newsroom
in Washington.

In color,
this is the CBS Evening News

with Walter Cronkite.

Good evening.
Dr. Martin Luther King,

the apostle of nonviolence
in the civil rights movement,

has been shot to death in Memphis,
Tennessee.

Martin Luther King,
20 minutes ago, died.

It was insane.

I mean, I can remember
hearing about it in school.

My friends said,
"Oh," you know,

"there's gonna be a race war,

and we're gonna
get killed."

I just remember
everything going crazy.

Frustration just reached
a boiling point.

I knew when it happened,

I said, "Folks gonna
burn this town down."

How I happened to be
with my dad,

and we were going down U Street

and there were
just people fighting

in the middle of the street,

you know,
people being pulled from their cars.

You know, my dad was, "Don't even worry."
But I'm like, "Whoa."

They shut the whole shit down.
National Guard was in.

Tanks going up and down
the damn street.

Boys like that.

Their M-16s and helmets and shit.

We couldn't quite understand
why we couldn't go out.

So I have this memory
of smoldering buildings

and broken windows smashed out,

and police and firemen,
and I started to wonder

if maybe I had...
This was something

I had created in my mind
to tell a story.

When you're a kid,

your environment
is your main influence.

But you don't know that
until you grow up

and start finding out
about yourself.

Whenever I felt lost,

I would go back to Virginia.

To my mother's house.

To the room where I grew up in.

And it just pulled everything
back into perspective.

I remember that watch,
it was a Mr. Peanut watch.

- Oh.
- I liked that watch.

God, I couldn't just take
a nice picture, you know?

I always had to be the jackass.

- Pre-punk.
- And then, I lost all of my...

I never thought
that I would move away from Virginia.

I thought I would spend
the rest of my life there.

Like all of my friends
that I grew up with.

Charles Dickens, I think,
called Washington, DC

"the city of magnificent
intentions."

But the gap between
the dream and the reality

is excruciatingly wide.

DC is naturally
a transient town.

There's not that many people
who were born and raised here.

Even today, I was like,
"There's people from DC,

then there's
a 'Washingtonian.'"

People come and go.
And a lot of the money

and a lot of the change is from
the people that come and go.

I think so much of what
happened in DC makes more sense

when you look at the way
an often ugly reality

is juxtaposed so close
to this dream.

Growing up as a white kid
in Washington, DC,

I felt really marginalized.

Because...
Can you name a '70s...

Like, a popular '70s rock band
from Washington, DC?

Name one.

You grew up here.
Name one.

It's, like, very hard...
Like "Average White Band"?

No, they're not from here.

What's the one who did
"Afternoon Delight"?

Starland Vocal Band?

They're from here.
That's about it, right?

Gonna drop the bomb
on 'em, baby!

DC really didn't have a sound

until the go-go thing
broke out.

This is go-go,
the sound of Chocolate City.

If you had
to describe go-go

for someone that has
never heard it before,

- how would you describe it?
- Exotic drum patterns.

Raw and tribal,
that's all I can say,

just 'cause that's how I felt
when I first heard it.

It was just like
the rawest thing ever.

Bap!

The art form that should have
been popular instead of rap.

A lot of it is credited to Chuck Brown.

In the early '70s,
he was playing Top 40s.

All Top 40 tunes, you know,
you had to sound just like the radio.

People didn't like bands
doing their own original tunes

if they hadn't been played
on the radio.

He would play something by LTD

or O'Jays,

and in between those songs,
he wouldn't stop.

When you stop playing,
you lose the crowd.

He had a beat

that he played
in between those Top 40s.

It's like this.

That's the bottom...

of the go-go beat.

Everything else
is taken from that.

It's called a pocket beat, right?

A lot of drummers
still play it.

But mainly,
like myself and other drummers

of, I guess, the new era,
we kind of mix it up.

Instead of playing the basic...

we'll switch it up.

One of the things
that people don't understand

or recognize
about this go-go movement,

is that before it became a music,
it was just that.

It was a atmosphere.
You know what I'm sayin'?

The club was actually
what they called a "go-go."

I didn't fall in love
with the music

till I went to a go-go
when I was like 15, 16

and then like, saw it.
And I'm like,

"Now, like,
I completely understand everything."

Chuck Brown and the
Soul Searchers come on,

all these kids start
comin' from out of nowhere.

Before they can hit one note,
they goin',

"Wind me up, Chuck!"

- Wind me up, Chuck!
- "Wind me up, Chuck!"

And the drummer just...

"Mm-pow!"

Boom!
Right in the pocket!

Yeah!

That's what I'm talking about.

I was like, "Man, you know,
we need to try to open up for Chuck."

Sounds so good,
you gotta do it again for me now!

And... we did!

Come on, now!

My earliest memories of DC

and their sound and go-go
was Trouble Funk.

When a multitude of drums are
played at the same time in unison,

it becomes... hypnotic.

Mesmerizing.

And then you got
the call-and-response thing.

"Are y'all tired yet?"
They go, "Hell, no!"

"You tired yet?"
"Hell, no!"

"Do you want some mo'?"
"Hell, yeah!"

"You ain't ready to go?"
"Hell, no!"

It kind of made everybody

that came to see
a go-go act

feel like they were a part
of what was goin' on.

Chuck Brown went
to the owner and said,

"I don't want them boys
playing with me no mo'.

They stealin' my music."

We didn't steal his music.

We stole the idea.
You know what I'm sayin'?

It just kind of grew
just from the street.

You go to see a Chuck show or a Rare
Essence show or one of these shows,

these kids take their tape decks
in and they tape the show.

And all over the city,
during the day,

they're listening
to these local bands.

You can't stand
there and not pat your foot.

It had a certain
repetitiveness to it...

that just got you movin'.

Even the mayor
of Washington, DC

had Chuck Brown play
at his inauguration ceremony.

That says a lot.

The go-go sound,
which Chuck created

has helped to define

what Washington, DC...
What the District of Columbia is today.

The greatest city in the world!

Know what I mean?
DC is go-go.

Go-go is DC.
You know what I'm saying?

I mean, I would assure you
that even Obama

probably got a go-go tape
somewhere up in there.

You know what I'm saying?

Downtown Washington, DC
was alive with its own music.

But something else was happening
in the suburbs of Virginia.

- Should we go through here?
- Yeah!

One local Virginia studio

produced the entire soundtrack
of my youth.

- Was that in your back yard?
- That's the back yard.

That's Rites of Spring's
sessions.

Oh, wow!

There's Ian in dress-ups.

There's a good picture
of Henry with a dress.

- Look at that.
- Before tats.

These are all the heroes of like,
the Washington, DC punk rock scene.

This is sort of like a Hall of Fame,
this whole thing.

Inner Ear is the right person

in the right place
at the right time.

Don Zientara is that guy.

Don himself is an artist,
a musician, an activist.

He was a conscientious objector
during the Vietnam War.

I was drafted,
went through basic,

and they had a program

where you can get an education
through the army,

so I got an electronics training.
I was always involved in that.

I had a phonograph
and I had an amplifier,

and I needed a phono preamp,

which nobody needs anymore.

So I told my friend Bob,
and Bob said, "No problem."

He comes over with a paper bag,
just full of parts.

He says,
"Here's the drawings, make it."

And so that's how I learn.

When you see
Don Zientara's name

on the back
of every punk rock record

coming out of Washington, DC,

you just imagine him to be
this gnarly punk rock guy

with a mohawk and a leather
jacket and tattoos.

So when I first met him,

I was totally surprised

that he is a 6'6" surfer
with a nerdy voice, like,

"Hi, how you doing, I'm Don Zientara."

I took one look at him and thought,

"Wait, you're the guy
that recorded

the fuckin' Bad Brains?"

A lot of bands,
they had their songs and all,

but they're rocking and rolling,
having a good time.

To me, it was competitive.
Like, I literally said,

"If they think they playing fast,
watch this."

The Bad Brains were really

one of the first
hardcore punk bands.

They were the first band

influenced by punk rock,

taking it much further
musically.

Much faster.
Much more aggressive.

They brought me in a
homemade demo tape on a reel-to-reel

and they were accomplished musicians,
but they had

their own idea of what they
wanted their sound to be.

So did you grow up in the city?

Yeah, I grew up Southeast
Hartford Street. Projects.

What was DC like back then?

Separate.

DC's a weird town,
like this beltway that's around DC

is almost like a wall here.
DC is a very segregated city.

They built the
school that we went to.

- It was a brand-new school.
- Like a prison.

Well, that was
our frickin' school.

With the slotted
windows and stuff?

It was crazy.
They locked the back door.

Only way in and out was...
If a fire broke out,

everybody's dead.

You know,
we lived in the suburbs.

So downtown was a place

where you went on field trips
to the Smithsonian

and if you went
with your parents,

you know,
you had the windows rolled up,

and that was not a place
you got out of the car.

Only white people we saw
was teachers

or people who owned stores.

Here's all the governmental
white buildings,

and everything was black
all around it.

And I remember being in Hartford
Street as a kid in the '60s.

My mom had a Polaroid picture
of a house with a yard.

I saw this picture,
and I'm like, "Wow.

That's like The Brady Bunch and shit,"
you know?

I think sometimes
The Brady Bunch

had a lot to do with
what I thought of...

What the world...
You know, how it's supposed to be.

I mean,
everybody was in bands at the time.

When people wanted to make
a demo tape,

they saw,
"Hey, you've got a tape recorder."

So, I recorded
my friend's band.

The man who was

sort of the executive
producer for them,

he said, "Well, I've...
You know, I've got

a few other people
bring over."

I said, "Well,
you know, I'm open."

You know,
"We'll give it a shot."

I was impressed enough
with the Bad Brains

to pay for a recording session
over at Don's studio.

The night before,
where I'm working at the store by myself,

H.R. comes in...

Nobody else from the band...

and he sits there,
across the counter from me

with his hands
crossed like this,

staring at me...

menacingly.

And I freaked out.

I got this session tomorrow
with them.

I can't do it.
This guy's scaring the hell out of me.

What were your first
impressions of the Bad Brains?

I had to become acclimated
to their style of music,

which is... was quite a...
quite a shock to the system.

I remember when I was 14 or 15,

seeing a piece
on the Bad Brains

on the local, like,
news magazine show.

And they showed H.R. doing
backflips on the stage.

And I was like, "Wow.
Who the fuck are these guys?"

They started
playing in Madam's Organ,

which was this hippie commune
on 18th Street.

It was pretty much like
a flophouse, really.

You walked in,
there was people everywhere.

There'd be a couple
mattresses there, whatever.

Always beer, always pot.

People were throwing up.

That was sort
of their home base.

We saw these guys walk in...

The coolest-looking punk people
we'd ever seen in our lives.

These guys used to wear
suits all the time in high school.

Some "Cooley High"-type shit?
My man took the suit,

threw that shit...
Paint on that shit, glue.

Put glass...
All kind of shit.

Tear up everything.

Now we Bad Brains.

They'd walk around Georgetown,
to hand out these flyers.

"Are you ready? We are!
Bad Brains."

"The punk rock explosion

with the roughest punk band
in the world.

Bad Brains."

I remember the day I saw them.

I mean, we were all waiting

for them to start playing,
and then H.R.

just kind of busted through
the audience from behind us

and came right up
on that stage.

And then they just
kind of exploded.

So you had H.R. moving like,
you know,

Cab Calloway or whatever,
but on steroids.

H.R., like, you know, one of the
greatest things about watching him

was when he would
turn around to you guys

and do his little
conducting thing.

You know,
there was part of me watching that,

thinking like,
"Wow, is he... Like,

is he conducting the band
right now?"

- Yeah, it was that.
- Backflip.

But not even
in a contrived way.

Frenetic. It was insane.

When he start
doing that shit...

...then we
really poppin'.

It's like a weeknight,
I've snuck out

to go see the Bad Brains,
right?

We go and we're
probably two of...

Let's say, 10 people there.

It was the most amazing show
I had ever seen.

That was the greatest
band that ever existed

as far as I was concerned.

It's just like I realized

you know, I'd found my home
with the Bad Brains.

There was very little crossover I think,
between communities then.

They had no hang-up
about being black.

We're not on no black shit.

We're not on no "black punk" shit.
We're not no Afro shit,

we're just youth.
The shit turned into a youth movement.

It's this whole, like,
confusion about being "punk"

that they take it
into this "black" shit.

When I was a punk,
I was a punk.

I think they gave me a set list
of what they wanted to do.

It was 14 songs or 10 songs...
It was an enormous amount.

This is one afternoon.

They said, "Well, we'll probably not
get a chance to mix them today."

I said,
"Still, come on."

We were recording in his house,

so that's why you hear
on that recording...

I was in the basement
doing my tracks.

Original Inner Ear
was on Ivy Street.

I don't know what
the address was.

Don started his own
studio in his house.

You know,
just a regular suburban house.

I had the control room
on the side porch.

But then we ran a snake
down to the basement.

He was in
the friggin' bathroom.

Earl was in the living room.

H was...

Outside.

They had crickets and shit,

kids watchin' and talkin'.

He's in the back yard, like...

And he's jumping around
and dancing around.

I mean, you just have to wonder

what the neighbors
made of this.

You can't hear it
on the "Black Dots" record,

but I have this other version
where you can actually

hear the kids going like,
"What's going on here?"

Like,
then they'd cheer and stuff.

That is okay.

This is all happening
over 30 years ago now

that that stuff was recorded.

At that point in time,
people needed something new.

That is as fresh and dynamic

as the day
that they recorded it.

When I was a kid, I thought,

"I'm not gonna be
a musician."

You look at people
like Peter Frampton

or Jimmy Page or Jimi Hendrix,

like, they're just
at a level...

there's just no way.

So I became a skateboarder.

We just started skating.

Me and Rollins and all
of the neighborhood kids,

and we listened
to a lot of rock.

I loved rock.
And then Ted Nugent.

Have you ever seen footage
of him in the '70s?

He's got a beard and long hair

and he's wearing
a loincloth and a tail,

and moccasins.

And he is going crazy!
Screaming.

We would argue and argue like,
whether the Ramones or Ted Nugent...

Who was better?
And I said, "Ted Nugent!"

And I'd just argue
and they told me,

"What about The Clash?"
"Fuck The Clash. Ted Nugent."

Punk just seemed
kind of a joke to me.

If punks have a home territory,

it is here on the same street
that launched the miniskirt

and the look and mood
of the Swinging '60s.

Because the media
treated it like a joke.

Having seen the Bad Brains,

we decided like,
"We're gonna do this.

We're gonna fuckin' be
in a band for real."

That's George.

Jeff.

Ian.

And Nathan, this guy.
You have to introduce yourself.

What was the first
record that you made?

"Teen Idles."
I was in high school.

The reason we recorded

was to make a yearbook.
'Cause we were breaking up.

We knew we were gonna break up.

So we just wanted
to document the stuff

'cause it was important to us.

And the first
recording experience

was pretty terrifying for us.

And we were not good,
I can acknowledge that.

But, fuck, man.
We were trying.

So we were tracking
and another band

had come to see the studio.

And there was a small window
into the control room.

And the other band
would stand there with him

sitting at the control desk.

And we're playing,
and he's pointing

and they're all laughing at us.

And I remember thinkin' like,
"This is fucked up!"

There's so many people saying,
you know,

"Why don't you stop this noise
and play some real music?"

The punk music intensity,

or...
Call it what you want...

You had to break through
so many barriers

to get shows, to play,

to get people to listen
to your music.

So much of my work,
I think, really came

out of feeling
we were being dismissed.

So much of the energy, I think,
I was like, "Okay."

Like, "Fine,
I'm a piece of shit.

Watch what this piece
of shit's gonna do."

I was gonna keep on going.

In '79,
I had started going over

on buying trips to England

because we weren't
getting the fill

from our distributors
of the kind of records

that I knew were coming out
in England.

Henry and Ian would always be
among the first

to come out and help me
unpack the bags

so that they could get
the next copy

of the Satan Rats'
"You Make Me Sick" .45.

Or the next UK Subs .45.

I don't think these
punk rock music scenes

began as music scenes.

I think these scenes started

as a group of misfits...

People that didn't feel
accepted in society.

I was told
if I wanted to be a punk,

I should move to New York.

'Cause you can't really
be a punk in Washington.

Which I was like, "Well...

fuck that,
I'm not moving to New York."

Here's Ian.

Hey, Ian.
What's up, buddy?

We got in last night.

We got drums up
and we got sounds

and so we're just gonna
start tracking today.

Come by!

Okay, bye.

It's a challenge
to go into a different studio

every week and bang out a song.

Hey!

Guitars are too fuckin' loud!

Say what, Shifty?

- My guitar keeps getting really loud.
- The guitars are way too loud!

- Dave's guitar?
- Yeah.

Especially when you
haven't been in there before.

Hey, is there any way that, uh,

we could record?

James is gonna check one thing,

and then we're gonna
go again right away.

Everybody kind of has
to rise to the occasion,

adapt to the sound of the room.

What they're hearing
coming back from the speakers.

I've never met Don,
I've never been in to Inner Ear.

But I've been looking
at the name "Inner Ear"

on album sleeves
since probably 1983.

This is the studio

that I was most
looking forward to visiting.

It's like my bedroom
from when I was a teenager.

I knew about this place

and all the bands
that had made records here.

And then just being here today,
and Ian MacKaye comes

and hangs out all day, man.

- All right.
- Excellent, you guys.

God, dude. Queen and Thin Lizzy,
in one fuckin' night, dude?

My sister took me and we went down,
and I was 14 or 15...

My sister took me to
my first Queen concert.

so I sat down,
and then I looked behind me

and there was these kids
from my neighborhood.

Turn around and there's this one girl,
who's a little older than me.

And she said, "Hey!"
And she just has the word "fuck"

written across her forehead in Sharpie.
And I was like...

"Okay."

When that guy's around,
you just want to sit down

and listen to him talk, man.

When I was in 11th grade,

I went to the prom, with a...
A senior invited me to prom.

And the band that played

was a band called
"The Mighty Peacemakers."

And they were
a go-go band.

Then I realized,
"Wow, this is happening here!"

And someone said,
"Yeah, Friday night go-gos."

Every night,
like 4,000 or 5,000 kids

come out
to the go-go there.

Trouble Funk
and other go-go bands...

Experience Unlimited,
Rare Essence,

Chuck Brown
and the Soul Searchers...

They're playing
these giant shows.

The whites don't really know
what's happening, most of them.

But these bands had been doing
this thing for 10, 12 years.

No one even knew
it was happening.

It was really inspiring for us.

We thought, "Fuck, man,

like, nobody knows about it,
and yet they got it going on?

We can get it
going on, too."

No one would put out
Teen Idles.

No one would put out
Bad Brains at the time.

Some groups just were
simply unknown.

And a lot of people
wanted to keep them unknown

or considered
their music not music.

We just thought,

how many labels are lining up
to put out, like,

a pretty okay teenage punk
band from Washington, DC

that's already broken up?
And then someone said,

"Fuck it,
let's start our own record label."

I was like, "What?"

Because I didn't know
anything about

a fucking record label,
honestly.

The record business stinks.

But we're like, "Our necessity.
We gotta do this."

How many
18-year-olds are like,

"Let's start a fucking label"?

The ones who had no choice.

That's how many
are fucking doing it.

I can't even think
of another community

that preceded us
with that attitude

of, like, "Well,
we can put out our own single.

And we're gonna make
our own covers

and we'll press 100
or whatever."

- We took an English single.
- We pulled it apart.

Unfolded it to see
how the flaps looked.

Took it to a print shop.

And just said, "Can you
print a thousand of these?"

And then, we got them back,
and I'm using scissors and glue.

We fucking
hand-cut and folded

the first like,
10,000 to 12,000 records by hand.

I remember
hanging out at Dischord

and putting together
those Minor Threat records

'cause they'd have
the folding parties.

They were homemade.
I mean, they were like...

Not even totally shaped
like singles

and the guys in the band
would write shit on them.

And you know,
it was just 100% homemade venture.

It's an approach to life.

Do it yourself.

"P.M.A.,"
to quote the Bad Brains.

"Positive mental attitude.
You can do it."

Our first poster said,
"The Bad Brains,

the greatest punk rock band
in the world."

I don't think we ever even had a song.

If you see something you think
needs to be done, go do it.

Don't wait for anybody else.
Do it yourself.

Dischord gave to Washington

what it would not otherwise see

musically
or philosophy-wise.

I didn't have a problem
thinking that

you know,
we could do it in Iron Cross,

because I had just seen
the Teen Idles do it.

I'd just seen
the Bad Brains do it.

And so you get this sort of
snowball of creative energy

'cause people realize,
"He did that? I can do that."

We made records.
That's what we did.

These bands might not be

the most famous bands
in the world,

but these bands influenced

some of the most famous bands
in the world.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers,

Beastie Boys,

Jane's Addiction, Green Day.

We were all brought up
and influenced

by these bands
from Washington, DC

and Dischord Records.

How many records, in total

do you think
Dischord's has sold?

I dunno.
Four million, maybe?

- Fucking A, man.
- Yeah.

- I had no idea.
- A lot.

I just wanted to document music
that I thought was important.

And then to try to show
some responsibility about it.

I still feel that way.

Hey, Ian, when everything was,
like, you know,

"alternative rock" got
popular and all that stuff,

how many big labels came to you and said,
"Can I buy you?"

I mean, in theory, all of them.

- But we never had lunch with anybody.
- Right, you didn't...

They asked for lunch.
We got a lot of lunch requests.

- Yeah.
- But it just was nothing to talk about.

Right, right.

It's such a different world
than I'm from.

When I was a kid, I didn't know

that you could put a band together,
print your own records, you know,

I didn't really know
that that existed.

The only thing
I thought you could do

was, you know, play,
like, maybe in a wedding band

or go to Hollywood
and get the big record deal.

This is fucking rad.

Rad.

So there's a
certain angst I feel

when I'm here in DC.

We lived here for a while

to record
"Nothing Left to Lose"

and "One by One."

I struggled learning
how to record drums

on a record.

Everybody ready?

- Yes.
- Yeah, yeah!

I don't know
if I've learned yet.

Here we go!

Everybody thinks
we're from Seattle.

We're not.
We're from everywhere.

California, and Washington state
and Washington, DC

and Los Angeles.

But if there's anywhere
where you could say we're from,

to a certain degree,
would be here, possibly.

'Cause most of our germs
of our ideas

come from Dave
and he's from here.

I like it, but I can't hear me.

Come on in and listen, y'all.
Come on in.

Butch has a
Southern accent now.

"Come on in and listen, y'all.

We're in Shirlington,
Virginia."

If Dave had grown
up in Los Angeles,

he wouldn't be who he is.
I think in the nature

of him growing up in DC
and in Virginia,

you're sort of forced
to find your own path.

Pretty darn good, Dave Grohl.

I fuckin' hate what I just did.

Oh, God, it's perfect!

Most of the albums
from the Dischord label

were recorded
at Inner Ear Studios.

This studio was so important
to me as a musician.

Not only because it became
the soundtrack of my youth,

but these albums
were my teachers.

Ian MacKaye has been my hero

since the day I met him.

Dave told me
about your interview

was you were
schooled on Ted Nugent

when you started out, man.
That just fucking rules so much.

One of the most
honorable things about him

is his evolution as a musician,

from being the bass
player of Teen Idles

to being the singer
of Minor Threat

to being the guitar player
of Fugazi.

In the Teen Idles,
my proficiency...

It wasn't great, you know.
I was learning.

The Bad Brains, I think they really
were the ones who said, like,

"Don't waste time
on the stage."

Like, if you're gonna do it,
do it right.

I love Minor Threat.

I think the reason
they were so good

was most of the other
punk rock bands

were influenced
by English punk rock,

which talked about political
things and class struggle

and things that didn't really
apply to our American life.

And Minor Threat,
I think, was the first band

that talked about, like,
sociological issues

that really did matter to us.
"My friend lied to me."

You know... "You didn't do what
you said you were gonna do."

Much more personal
and relatable

and the stuff you could
really get behind.

Yeah, I remember,
like, Teen Idles

I was writing to 25 kids
in Washington, DC,

never thinking, really,
that it would be a song

that would ever be heard
outside of the city.

Because... let's face...

Who would ever listen to some
punk band from DC?

So this is the example

of the power of the DC
punk scene...

Its reputation reached
even Montana.

By the early '80s,
I knew about Bad Brains,

I knew about Minor Threat.

Henry Rollins, of course,
was in Black Flag at that point.

I bought Black Flag
records in Montana.

I actually came to DC

'cause I was going
to graduate school.

Looking back,
it was my effort to grow up.

Found an apartment
near Dupont Circle

September of 1984.

I put my stuff
in the apartment,

walked across the street to
the pay phone to call my mom

to assure her that, yes,
I was in Washington, DC,

but no,
I had not been killed yet.

I had not been robbed.
But what I saw

spray-painted on the wall
next to the pay phone

was "Nazi punks rule.
Oi, oi, oi!"

Honestly, I felt in...
In those moments

like it might have been better

if punk rock had never
been invented.

I went and visited
all those beautiful monuments

to our national idealism.

Everywhere I went...

there were homeless people,
people asking for money.

And I thought, "Wow.

'Government of the people,
by the people, for the people.'"

It's heartbreaking.

I'm not ashamed to say I cried.

Here we are in Washington DC,
probably the single most

affluent metropolitan area
in the entire country.

At the same time,

a community with a gaping
wound at its heart.

Thank you so much.

Good to be here.

I remember the
first time I met him.

Mark was like,
"I'm really disappointed in this scene."

And we're like,
"Who the fuck are you?"

"I'm Mark Andersen.
Punk activist from Montana."

Mark Andersen is really earnest,

and he loves everyone.

And he wants good
for the planet

and will fight for that.

Everything I believed in Montana
about punk rock was a lie.

You want the truth,
you don't want fucking lies.

That's kind of how I felt.

One of the very first signs
that made me feel

like I had some brothers
and sisters in this scene

was a little cassette tape
I picked up

at Smash! Records
in Georgetown.

A band called
Mission Impossible.

I remember Dave being just like

the most insane drummer
I'd ever seen.

When I listened to the tape,

I was like,
"I have to find these guys."

And then he fucking, like,
buys a demo tape of my band

and comes over
to our rehearsal space.

- Really?
- Yes!

I think I was 16.

What I discovered

was a window into a
universe of possibilities.

When Mark Andersen
came to Washington, DC,

all of a sudden we were
going to protests

in front of the
South African embassy.

This whole thing called
"Revolution Summer" was building.

There was definitely

a lot of political awareness
developing

with a lot of the people
in the music scene.

Sort of the politics of, "Well,
the world's a little bigger

than just our little subsect
of people

and maybe we should care
about that."

Revolution Summer
all came together

in the mind and the heart
of Amy Pickering

over at National
Planning Council.

The NPC had a summer program

to keep teens engaged
or something.

Somehow I fell into this job.

And I hired all of my friends

to come work there, too.

But I'm not sure
what we did all day.

It was very straightforward.

Mostly what they were doing
was fucking around

and getting paid for it.

We started making ransom notes.

I remember seeing
flyers around Washington, DC

that said
"Revolution Summer."

There were a lot of things

like apartheid
that we thought were wrong

and we should be
actually acting against.

She was watching TV one day,

and she saw pictures
from South Africa

and the incredible courage

of folks rising up
against apartheid.

But apartheid looked like a
system that would never fall.

That's how strong the South
African white regime was.

But what struck Amy
was the youth

of many of the protesters,
and their courage.

She was watching this and all of a sudden,
she started feeling ashamed.

The idea that we should act
for the greater good

outside of our own issues
in our community

inspired me and a number
of other people to say,

"This is Revolution Summer.
Let's do something about this."

Spring ended today.

And the Revolution Summer
began today.

One of the ways to
draw the community together

was to have shows.

I feel like half or more
of the shows that happened

a few years running there
were all Positive Force shows.

Seeing the gigs
go from 50 people

to 5,000 people

and all of them connected
by this message,

I guarantee you that the people

that were at these shows
were inspired

to go on and do something
with their lives

because of Positive Force.

It was the idealism
of Washington, DC,

it was also
the idealism of punk rock.

And Positive Force, for me,
was a way to live out all of that.

I remember going

to the local
punk rock record store

and finding the Scream album,

"Still Screaming."

There was a PO box address,

and it was
from Falls Church, Virginia,

which was only two miles
from where I lived.

Scream became one of my
favorite bands in the world.

Not just from my neighborhood,
but in the world.

So, when I saw a flyer
in our local music store

that they were
looking for a drummer,

I immediately called
that phone number.

We needed to find a drummer
because our drummer

was getting ready
to have his first kid

and he didn't wanna
go on tour anymore.

I was still in
fucking high school.

I couldn't imagine being
the drummer of Scream.

I was just in that moment,

jamming with my heroes.

When he abruptly left
to join Scream,

I understood why Dave did it.

Besides the fact
that they were his heroes,

he just wanted to tour
and go out.

Just be in a band that's
working and on the road.

My first show with Scream
was a Positive Force benefit

for Amnesty International.

And it was triumphant.

Great show.

I remember it.
I remember it well.

I remember the show.

The band and audience
all marched up the street.

Everyone brought a drum

and we stood across the street

from the South African embassy

and played as loud as we could.

We were protesting apartheid,

which made you feel
like a human being,

but you also felt like the
luckiest person in the world

because your hero
from your favorite local band

was standing next to you
with his drum

and we were all
doing it together.

It was about us

as a community taking action.

Mark took the sentiment
of Revolution Summer

and put it into action.

You were challenging
the world and yourself

to do something really hard.

Which is to live out
these glorious dreams.

Dreams that we like
to put on monuments...

and then kind of forget about.

You could never
live them out alone.

And by the time you came along,

there was like, a scene, right?

You could go fucking see
how many bands?

It was just like, a reality.

It didn't exist
five years earlier than that.

When you were young,

did you know much about
the local music scene?

When I was in my first band,

I was obsessed with finding out

about everything
from Dischord and DC hardcore

and, like,
we respect it so much.

But I just remember everyone
was following that model

and making their own CDs
and passing 'em around.

We learned from that.

You know,
we started doing that ourselves.

The way that like,
record labels work

like an antiquated process,

it slowed that band up.

I think that they're
on their way,

it's just that

they've got to go
touch the people, man.

Figure out who you are and establish
a rapport with your group

of people.

Music, it takes a
certain amount of willpower.

Not only us,
any band in this town.

We was, like,
recording this music, man.

We was putting out music
like every other week.

And the music was like,
spreading like a disease.

The DIY thing carries through

a lot of different
music scenes in DC.

I'm sure you've experienced this
where you run into some guy

who's like a jazz guy
or some funk player.

You're from the punk scene
and you guys relate

in a way that's very...

A Washington, DC-like
language.

I saw a real parallel
with the go-go thing,

but never could connect
with them,

'cause they were
a totally different world.

And then we decided, like,
"We should play with Trouble Funk."

They headlined,
we opened for them.

Big Boys, Minor Threat,
Trouble Funk.

Trouble Funk were
interested in it,

'cause they heard
about the punk scene.

We were into it,
'cause we loved the go-go thing.

Then there's
these punk-funk shows.

Yeah.

They both are like,
two underground type of sounds.

And it just goes together.
You know what I'm sayin'?

We got there...
This is real culture clashing.

I remember again,
Minor Threat playing

and just looking out
at the soundboard,

seeing all the
Trouble Funk guys,

just going like...

Look at us like, "What the...?"
Like laughing and pointing.

It was pretty amazing,
I gotta say.

Where the real power is...

The real revolution,
if you will,

is simply getting people

who otherwise might never
encounter each other,

to know each other.

Man, we should get
together and do something

- like a go-go/rock project.
- Tony, I'd love to.

I think it'd be so much fun,
man.

It'd sure be nice to do some
of them big money shows, man,

with the Foo Fighters
and stuff.

Welcome...

to Big Tony's birthday bash!
Everybody ready?

One of the best things
about growing up in this area

is the fuckin' music
and you know that's true.

If it weren't for Washington, DC
and the music scene here,

I wouldn't be standing up here
with a mic right now.

What we've done
is we've put together

an evening of entertainment

that celebrates generations
of Washington, DC musicians...

People that have inspired
the next to go on

and do better things
and keep the tradition alive.

And I consider myself
a Washington DC musician.

For life, no matter where I am.

Just so you know,
it's gonna be a long fuckin' night.

The experiences that
I had here in this city

from the age of 14 years old

set this foundation

for the rest of my life
as a musician.

The community,

the support,

the love

that was here
in the DC music scene

has carried over
into what I do now.

The way the Foo Fighters
work as a band,

we're like a family.

And we try to treat
everyone that way.

I honestly feel
like that comes from Ian,

that comes from Dischord
Records,

Don Zientara and all of the
bands I saw when I was young.

The message wasn't
"We were rock stars

and we are better than you,"

the message was that
"We're people

and we're all
in this together."

I got that from Washington, DC.

And it makes its way
into our music.

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Sync, corrected by icephoenix

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