In 1984 I was 16. I played guitar in a punk band with some friends from school. We had ABSOLUTELY no idea what we were doing. We had decided, earlier that year, to start a band and basically each of us called “shotgun” on the instrument we didn’t yet know how to play. I already had been fooling around with guitars (some borrowed from other friends) for a few years. I can thank Jimi Hendrix for that.

As a self-proclaimed punk band, who struggled even to tune up let alone make any noises that might resemble anything like our new found heroes made on the import & mail -order records we bought. Crammed into a wood paneled tiny room in my friend’s basement, we screamed and banged our way to nowhere…but it was a blast. Mail-order was the way we could reach out to now famous labels like SST, Mystic Records, Dischord and Alternate Tentacles. We knew these “labels” were created by kids like us, in basements like us, making noises just the way we liked.

In 1984 some very important records arrived in my mailbox:

Minutemen: Double Nickels on the Dime

Hüsker Dü: Zen Arcade

Minor Threat: Minor Threat

Then there was the cool, once -a-month trip to downtown Chicago to visit Wax Trax! records. We didn’t always have the money to buy all the weird imports and new punk records we wanted. In 1984 we connected with the bands we liked directly through the mail, and saw their shows if they came to town. I feel like an old man romanticizing the past like this, but that is the privilege of growing old.

Double Nickels on the Dime

This record changed everything for me. The first “punk” music I remember hearing were the Ramones and the Sex Pistols. A friend of mine was into The Jam too, they seemed so English and exotic. I liked it, and connected with what I heard, but only as an outsider observer. I didn’t see myself pogo dancing and spitting at Johnny Rotten, or pretending to ignore The Ramones as I smoked a clove cigarette in the doorway of CBGBs. When I heard the Minutemen, it all clicked for me. These guys were me, and I was them, through those weird little songs. They obviously understood me, made jokes, kept it fast and hard, and on to the next one. I still listen to this entire album (or at least big chunks of the more than 40 songs) all the time.

More than reminding me of my youth, the Minutemen, epitomized on this record, made me feel like I was understood (if that makes any sense). It made me want to play more guitar, not to imitate, but to live more, they way they did. To me, this album is one of the most “Punk”- real punk. As a kid who felt out of place and detached from what was then (perhaps the worst collection of garbage on the radio) popular, this meant everything to me. A year or so later “hardcore” punk quickly became a self-glorifying genre, and although I had attended, and nearly was beaten at several hardcore shows, the scene had already failed me by the time I graduated High School in 1986.

Favorite Songs: Corona, Political Song for Michael Jackson to Sing, It’s Expected I’m Gone…too many to list. Who else can cover Steely Dan so well?

It’s simultaneously great and a bit annoying that one of my favorite songs, Corona, was used as the theme song for the MTV show Jackass in 2000. People who never would have known Minutemen music enjoyed their tune, but for me the association was like a insult to my teenage self, and my mail-order magic.

Zen Arcade

Two words here:

Minne-sota

I loved/love The Replacements and yes they too felt the sting of the cold winter wind as it whipped across the prairie. In 1984, Hüsker Dü were a known entity to me and my friends. They hit it hard, and we respected the force from the North. This album showed us they were actual artists, and they had more than rage and speed. Perhaps you had to be there at the time, but there was a subtle structure to the songs that make up this record. The double record format was also something very special at the time. I bought this record just before Double Nickels on the Dime, which I was also pleased to see came on two discs.

The song, What’s Going On, sounds like a snapshot of the line of kids waiting to get into an all-ages show outside the Cubby Bear (sports bar/popular punk club in Chicago) in 1984. You can hear the trash on the sidewalk, smell the clove smoke, see the cool new Descendents logo that that tall guy with a mohawk just painted on the back of his motorcycle jacket earlier that afternoon.

And for us sworn devotees, a song like Hare Krsna (sic.) was curious and smooth. Hearing it today it sounds so different from what it seemed like then. To my 16 year old ears, it was thoughtful, strange, and told me the Du were not afraid of playing anything. The phrase “Touching me with lotus feet” is burned into my brain as a result. It is the perfect thing to say to yourself in some situations. This record, in some ways, is the 80’s Punk equivalent of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. Both records will always be cool, and rewarding to hear again.

Minor Threat

I know many people, just a few years younger than me, who really love Fugazi. Before Fugazi, there was Minor Threat. Also just kids, like us, but more so. These kids took their own lives over, made their own music, but also made their own rules for life. We read about them in Fanzines like MAXIMUMROCKNROLL. These guys didn’t drink, didn’t smoke, and wouldn’t have sex (or wanted to but couldn’t, like most teenage boys in the 1980s). This “Straight Edge” way of life, like monks, shaving their heads and dedicating their whole beings to their art, really was impressive.

Honestly, my friends and I were too easily tempted by a cute girl, or a can of Old Stlye beer stolen out of the garage fridge, to maintain any such dedication. But we sure felt the intensity of the tunes.

By now, perhaps too much has been written about Ian McKaye. Back then, he (at least to us) was just another kid, like us, except he could thrash hard. Similar to the Minutemen, the direct, short, fast and intensity of these songs struck a chord with me. This was the “real” hardcore any other had to be compared to. I dare you to search for any derivative influences in these songs.

The next time you are mad about something, really mad, trying blasting the song Seeing Red or Screaming at a Wall. If your heart doesn’t explode, or you manage not to bleed to death after punching out a mirror, you may feel a little better knowing Ian and the boys have captured your ire perfectly on vinyl.

You can hear the sweat and feel the broken glass under your Chuck Taylors with these songs. Intensity like this is what punk, more than punk, art – rarely, but sometimes, can do. It is good art.

So put that in yer smoke and pipe it!