Life > March 20, 2008

By Erik Forseth | Staff writer

“We all have a plan on how to die. It’s Guy’s and Terry’s idea. We thought it was a cool idea. When we’re really old and we’re in our 70s, we’d shave our heads, get in an airplane, take all our clothes off and jump naked down onto RFK Stadium during halftime when the Redskins are playing the Dallas Cowboys” said Rites of Spring bassist, Mike Fellows, in Banned in D.C.

Much has been written about Washington D.C.’s early-1980s punk rock community. Mark Andersen’s Dance of Days does a particularly good job of conveying what was so special about one of the few musical movements that the Washington area can call its own (go-go stands out as the other). For my money, though, nothing quite approaches Cynthia Connolly’s stunning and until-recently out of print document of these six pivotal years in alternative music. The photographs and quotes presented in Banned in DC, compiled by Cynthia Connolly, Leslie Clague and Sharon Cheslow, do more to capture the passions and contradictions of this diverse and yearning bunch of kids than any narrative history could hope to accomplish.

Originally published in 1988, Banned in DC — which takes its name from the iconic Bad Brains song — has been tough to find. As long as I’ve been aware of it, used copies on Amazon.com have started at $60. All things considered, that’s probably a fair price to pay if you’ve got any interest in the subject. Luckily, Dischord Records, the celebrated independent record label started in the early ’80s in D.C., has been offering a limited run of the book for only $20.

My impression is that “limited run” really means limited run—I’m somewhat embarrassed to admit that the $20 copies may not last until this article’s printing, although it does appear that the book’s primary photographer, Cynthia Connolly, is also selling cheap copies directly. More information about direct orders can be found at www.southern.com/southern/band/CYNTH/.

So, even if the re-release isn’t being accompanied by much fanfare, it was all the excuse I needed to write about something which has been out there for many years now and which really is a document of startling power and insight. The book has about 175 8’’x11’’ pages of gorgeous black and white photographs, supported, as the subtitle suggests, by quotes and stories from those involved.

The reader might be surprised to note the number of women and black musicians that appear; in contrast to the contemporaneous Los Angeles punk scene, which at times embodied the homophobia, racism and sexism for which hardcore punk was often criticized, the D.C. community — though not without problems of its own — stood out as a generally positive affair.

That sentiment is articulated in a quote on the back cover of the book, which features a large photo of the Bad Brains’ (an all-black group who cut their teeth learning to play jazz fusion) lead singer H.R., who calls the experience of playing music at that place and time “a universal transcending of bodies and minds and souls who have followed on a mission.”

You’ll often hear that sort of language repeated by artists like the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

While that group’s members have always been outspoken fans of the Bad Brains and other D.C. bands like Fugazi, it’s clear that Flea, H.R. and other musicians are getting at some much more fundamental and collective artistic experience that may or may not be limited to the rock and roll era of the last fifty years.

This book does a compelling job of capturing one microcosm of that era and of that experience.