Dischord Records

I'm thinking about ordering from Dischord Records.

Fugazi


Rites of Spring


The Nation of Ulysses


Gray Matter


I don't have the time to go through their whole catalogue - anything else worthwhile picking up?

If you're not crazy about the real early DC hardcore sound and are more into the mid-late 80's stuff, the bands you've listed are pretty much the cream of the crop. Dag Nasty's first album Can I say is also a personal favorite, and if you like Fugazi and Rites of Spring you'll also dig One Last Wish which was a band Brendan and Guy were in between the two. Given your tastes, I think you might like Lungfish as well. Holy Rollers and Jawbox are pretty good too.

There was a lot of great stuff coming out of Dc back in the day. I lived in DC as a teenager and while I'm too young to have seen Rites of Spring or Minor Threat I did get to see all the rest of the bands numerous times. Fugazi's actually the band I've seen more times than any other; probably more than 25 times, and amazing almost every time.

All of these are great, and good call on 13 Songs over Repeater. 13 Songs is their best record.

You might also consider:

Void- Sessions 1981-83- one of the lesser known Dischord acts...dark, deathy early HC. This is everything they ever recorded, I believe. This is a preorder item though, releasing 10/24. Long awaited for me.

Government Issue- Boycott Stabb- another great unsung US HC band. There's a complete discography, but this album is their best. ANd it's on Dischord.

Flex Your Head- the definitive Dischord comp. It has everything. SOA, Teen Idles, Rites of Spring, Untouchables, Youth Brigade, Iron Cross, Deadline. Absolutely essential, and I like it better than the 20 Years of Dischord comp.

Yeah, you really can't beat the early Dischord bands for hardcore. The Faith Void split is one of my all time faves. Hell, a slew of my all time faves are Dischord releases. It seemed that Schweig was a little more interested in the later stuff. I agree that for my tastes anyway Flex Your Head is better than the 20 yrs comp, but the latter is still amazing as a primer of some of the original emo acts and some of the less hardcore bands coming out of DC in the late 80's and 90's.

Barnes, I've got some old unreleased and live Void stuff lying around somewhere on cassette. I'll get it to you if I can dig it up.

Cheers, guys. I've only listed the 80s stuff yet because that's what I've listened to. Well, except for Minor Threat of course.

+1 on Faith/Void, I can mostly ignore the later shit.

Those compilations aren't a bad place to get a taste of some of the other stuff from those days. I'm not as big a fan of Dag Nasty as Jay but I think I prefer them over Nation of U [they were just terrible both times I caught them live]. I'd emphatically second Barnes' recommendations on both Void and that Government Issue record. (I got turned on to GI through a friend who was a skate photographer in Toledo, Ohio, in the 80s. She was a big fan of GI, who were staples on that scene.) Ultimately, though, I kind of fall back on early Bad Brains for my dose of DC.

I'm not a big fan of the DC proto-emo stuff as I think it can be overly pretentious even by the standards of the genre. After nearly 20 years here, I'm convinced that we're just overloaded with people who take themselves just a little too fucking seriously. It's not at all surprising considering that the only industry in town is government and all the trappings and parasites that go with that, but I find it exhausting at times.

Edit: Confused Nation of U and Rites of Spring. Never managed to catch RoS, which I kind of regret. It was NoU I saw a few times and they just didn't work for me at all.

Yeah, Faith is really good too.

NoU is interesting...I never seriously got into them, but I had a friend that worshipped those guys.

I forgot how good Gray Matter is...all on Spotify!

Yeah, some of the proto-emo is awfully self-important...but hell, look at Fugazi. I've always like Minor Threat better because they weren't so damn serious. I wouldn't call them the best American hardcore act (that would be almost unquestionably Bad Brains), but for me they are _the_ sound of angry, passionate youth. And all the good and bad that entails.

I believe Nation of Ulysses is more Noise than Hardcore. I mean they've got a trumpet.

Schweig! wrote: I believe Nation of Ulysses is more Noise than Hardcore. I mean they've got a trumpet.

They can go careening off toward Albert Ayler-like free jazz at rather unexpected moments. I appreciated the unpredictability but I just couldn't wrap my head around their musical "point" when I caught them live. The only word that kept coming to mind over and over was "disjointed." (And I'm actually a big fan of jazz artists like Ayler, Ornette, and Sun Ra as well as bands like the Swans and Chris & Cosey, so I'm usually OK with that sort of musical free association. I was so sure I'd dig them...)

Check out their media player. Quick and easy way to find which of their bands you may be interested in.

Personally I would recommend Autoclave, an all-girl math rock band with the wonderful Mary Timony. It's a bit amateurish-sounding, but quite good.



Also, while not a Dischord band, check out Helium, Timony's band after Autoclave.

Funny you said that about Ayler. A few DC guys who were totally up NOU and Ian's ass formed a band called Aylers Angels. Pretty unlistenable in my opinion, but I really hated all of that neo avante garde crap that was coming out of Washington then. The whole scene was pretty crappy and pretentious.

I wouldn't call myself a Dag Nasty fan per se. I hate everything other than their first album which I consider a hardcore classic. Check out the recently released version with Shawn from Swiz (another amazing DC HC band) on vocals. Great stuff. The Rites of Spring LP is the best thing that ever came out of the District aside from the Bad Brains. I really wish I could have seen them, but they were just a bit before my time.

just get the rites of spring record.

actually, just get the rain cd that they reissued.

also, get some fucking hoover.



p.s. yes, i know this song is not on dischord, but it is their best song.