In Michael Azerrad’s biographical account of Revolution Summer, he quotes a Dischord employee, ‘Ok, this summer we’re going to do it, summer ’85, Revolution Summer,’ blurted out Dischord employee Amy Pickering. And the phrase stuck. Soon an anonymously posted sign began appearing around town: “Be on your toes…This is Revolution Summer” (Azerrad 379).
Squip says that “Revolution Summer is putting the protest back in punk” (Anderson 190).
“Suggestion” begins with funky guitar riff that leads up to a quick punk rock-like detonation before the 1st verse. Joe Lally’s bass guitar is the instrument that carries the verses, but the guitars come together in a flaring emotive confession for the chorus: I’ve got some skin / And you want to look in. After the chorus, a smooth, funk guitar riff sounds shortly only to fall apart into shrieking notes that slide down the fret boards eventually leading into a chaotic outburst of power chords and feedback which brings the song back to the main riff and to the 2nd verse. After the 2nd chorus, the song slows down even further for the outro. The instruments quiet, the drums softly tap and the bass faintly sounds while the guitar is barely there. MacKaye continues to softly sing the lyrics only this time around he picks up the pace, and establishes a smooth rhyme pattern, as if he’s rapping: She does nothing to deserve it / He only wants to observe it …We sit back like they taught us / We keep quiet like they taught us…She does nothing to conceal it / He touches her cause he wants to feel it. No complex metaphors or embedded messages are used in this straight-forward song. MacKaye makes it crystal clear that male oppression of women should not be tolerated; a woman should be able to walk down a street without sexual suggestion thrown at her. “Suggestion” is played tastefully, putting aside the volatile Punk façade. MacKaye sings the song in a clear way, making certain that the listener hears the lyrics, for it is the most important part of the song. “Suggestion” exposes the unjustness of the male dominate role being socially acceptable. The song ends with a sad, yet truthful conclusion – We are all guilty.
“Fugazi staked out the Indie scene as the moral high ground of the music industry; from then on, indie wasn’t just do-it-yourself, it was Do the Right Thing” (Azerrad 377).
“Fugazi’s Eighties output also played an important stylistic role in modern music, being extremely instrumental in fostering the rock-funk fusion that eventually dominated Nineties alternative rock” (Azerrad 377).
“The band strove to avoid what MacKaye called ‘established ritualistic patterns’” (Azerrad 391).
On playing at obscure, nontraditional places, “It gives them an idea that this band is moving in a different kind of network and that things can happen in a different fashion” (Azerrad 391).
“The bands sinuous funk and reggae beats defied the notoriously inbred punk sound…even Fugazi’s trademark startling stops and starts kept listeners on their toes” (Azerrad 392).
“Spoke” expresses the sorrow of a retrospective viewpoint, looking at something that wasn’t supposed to end they way it did – or end at all. Skinhead violence has taken over the D.C. hardcore scene, turning hardcore shows into a pathetic warzone. Drugs, drinking, violence, and general apathy has replaced the get-up-and-go, think for yourself mantra of hardcore’s younger years. Bands members left for college, preparing to fill the roles of lawyers and doctors, lifestyles that they once rebelled against. MacKaye can’t “Look Back and Laugh,” watch his scene crumble into nothing, and move on without a glance back: It won’t go away / This driving force / That makes me speak / And care and care / And try to change, rearrange / Make sense of this mess. “Spoke” allows Embrace to move onward, maintaining the ideals of unity and freedom of thought, but this time around their sound heads in a new direction.
Post Hardcore had more emphasis on words and lyrics than just screaming them. Hardcore in 85 got smarter. Along with its aggressive style it scared people away who were costumers of the pop music scene. Hardcore didn’t want consumers, they wanted people, as Ian MacKaye says in Instrument: “It’s not worthwhile for me to play for just heads and bodies because that just represents consumers. I don’t want to have nothing to do with that. I want to play to people. In that way we can respect each other as human beings, and afterwards we can take care of each other since. Otherwise it won’t make a difference and that’s bullshit” (Instrument).
The typical hardcore method carried itself over, but with a new bravado.
Guy Picciotto says, “For 30 years we’ve had protest music and not a lot has changed. If a band is going to act politically, it (the music) has to be more in-lined with what they do, than what they say they do.” (Instrument).
“Rites of Spring had a constant frictioin between what you see, and what you want to achieve and things that you know are right. That rub is what creates the pain and the emotion and then there’s the hope that maybe you can overcome it, make it happen. It’s the same politically and personally – to me it’s all one issue because the same problem’s keep coming up over and over again – lack of commitment, lack of caring.” Said to Flipside magazine by Guy Picciotto (Azerrad 380).
Picciotto says, “From thirteen on there wasn’t a single fucking thing that existed that I didn’t want to undercut or question in some way” (Azerrad 379).
“The outpouring of emotion was so intense that people actually wept at their shows” (Azerrad 380).
Rites of Spring played only 14 shows – all in D.C.
Picciotto makes it clear. To him hardcore was more than just a motley bunch of punks with nothing to do on the weekends. Hardcore offered a way around conformed culture with its half-hearted rhetoric and prejudice attitude; he won’t let D.C.’s scene die: You better learn to believe me when I say / I’m going to build a wall around this town / Around these hearts and hands
Picciotto says, “The reaction we got was incredible, at least with the words I wrote, my main goal was to be honest and real about everything. And when we played, it wasn’t anything we worked out; it just clicked. It always seemed to me the way music should be played was the way we were playing it” (DoD 166).
Anderson writes, “Unlike most hardcore lyricists, Picciotto wrote about love, but in multi-leveled ways that allowed for a wider interpretation…in the place of unfocused anger, they had a soulful passion that suggested that any given song could be about the end of a relationship – or the beginning of a new world” (DoD 167).
The main riff has a chord progression that goes: A#, D, C, E, played ing power chords. The chorus offers a break to the riff with an E chord that rings out and a funky bass line fills the gap. Guy Piccoitto and Eddie Janney become more melodic and open to a new terrain in riffage with this chorus. Compared to Janney’s prior years in Faith, with songs like “Trapped” and “Subject to Change,” the tonality of the guitar is bassier, which blankets the tracks with the main riff and chorus. Also, even ignoring Alec MacKaye’s sharp, screechy voice, Janney’s riffs impose a callous edge to the songs, making Faith a nasty, angry hardcore band.
Concerning major Radio stations, J. Buttom says, “Theodor Adorno claimed in one of his most dated Marxist rants against the West’s commercialized culture. In this case Adorno was right. The appearance of a huge industry seeking new products, trying to both predict and create shifts in popular taste, gave rise to a wild acceleration of the cycle of sophistication and rebellion”
Music should never stop at entertaining; it has evolved from pure entertainment. Music expresses ideas and emotions, outrages and solemnity, arguments and agreements; it is a legitimate form of expressive art just like painting and poetry. Every song has a story that reflects an intrinsic belief of the creator, whether intentionally sewn in or accidently dropped, trying or not, a part of the artist is sneaks into a song like a Freudian slip. What comes out in an expressive art form such as music cannot be separated from the system of beliefs that the musician holds. Music is itself an emotional medium.
The beliefs in music surpass those that are in literature in their ability to be conveyed. The music acts as a substitute for thoughts and feelings that words fall short in describing. The emotion comes out in the way someone sings a song, strums a guitar, batters a drum, and thumps on a bass. Language is a barrier that music can sometimes manage to climb over.
Major record Labels didn’t even want to touch Hardcore in the early 80s, even the labels that signed Punk bands. Hardcore was a new offshoot of Punk. Punk rock was aggressive and in-your-face and certainly fresh to the ear –being amongst popular music of the 70s and the hand-me-down music of the 60s. However, while Punk exhibited ferocity and passion in their performance, their lyrics and beliefs were empty and nihilistic; they smelled the bullshit in the air but were too drugged up to care. Hardcore took the foundation of Punk and propelled it even further in a lightening speed pace with a tougher, angrier attitude. While Punk was a new, volatile substance drilling its way into the music scene, Hardcore was even more unstable and had almost no place in the music scene other than its local following. By default bands would have to adopt the DIY (do it yourself) mentality. They set up labels and paid to have the records pressed using money earned from their minimum wage jobs. Tours were planned based around wherever they could play and whoever would let them play. Hardcore bands were hard working and persistent, but their music remained unscathed by the industry; thus, their music remained hardcore. Later on, Hardcore music would maintain this ideal, choosing artistic freedom over a massive audience allotted to groups on major labels. Fugazi remained on Dischord for 10 plus years, despite repeated efforts from major labels at getting them signed. Ian MacKaye founded Dischord records when he was a teenager, releasing the Teen Idles Minor Disturbance EP and then Government Issue, Deadline, Scream, and Minor Threat records.
