9:30 CLUB, DC, 1983 (Jim SAAH)
BOYD FARRELL: Albums like Highway to Hell were just as important to us as Road to Ruin at the time. I think that’s what made us different.
JOHN STABB: Black Market Baby were one of my biggest influences. I almost think of them as the DC’s answer to The Heartbreakers or The Damned. They had much more of a NYC vibe to them. But their crowd could be scary. You didn’t wanna get in a fight with those guys.
KENNY INOUYE: I never wanted to miss a Black Market Baby show.
TESCO VEE: Black Market Baby was a hard-rock band and a damn fine one at that. Though lumped in with the “punk” scene, these bumpkins from the Maryland suburbs sported stellar players, crafty songwriting, and were always a rockin’ great time live. Though never fitting into or qualifying for inclusion in the Dischord catalog, BMB remains one of the all-time great rock combos to emerge from the DC area. Period.
BOYD FARRELL: I was a redneck from PG County.
MIKE DOLFI: In lieu of payment, we would play for beer.
BOYD FARRELL: I gotta say, we probably cultivated our crazy, drunken redneck punk reputation a bit. It suited us—because it wasn’t too far from the truth.
IAN MACKAYE: I loved Black Market Baby. They were inspirational. I saw them every time they played. But they were guys who were older than us and coming at it from a different place than we were. They had managers and they used contracts. People used to ask, Why aren’t they on Dischord? But when they were big in ’83, ’84, we were a tiny label. I think largely they thought we were a joke. We were the little kids doing a little label.
BOYD FARRELL: I remember being a little peeved when we weren’t asked to be on Dischord. But looking back, I can understand why they wouldn’t have wanted us representing them.
Boyd FarrelL, Mike Dolfi, Wilson Center, DC, 1983 (Jim SAAH)
MIKE DOLFI: I used to use squirrel sperm to spike my hair.
DANNY INGRAM: The thing that always impressed me about them, aside from their songs and skill as musicians, was the gang-like mentality that they had as a band. They didn’t seem to care how people perceived them. And I think this served them well, because my perception was that, for some, Black Market Baby were not immediately accepted as part of the nascent DC punk scene—even though they had created their footprint before many of us.
BOYD FARRELL: I remember doing an interview and somebody asked us if we were part of that straight-edge movement and I just said, “No, not really, we are a little bit more bent edge,” and then we started hearing bent edge all the time. I think when the straight-edge thing started to happen, that’s when it kind of split—it seemed like all the sort of malcontents, more like the guys who liked to do drugs and drink and all that stuff, they sort of drifted to us and we became their band.
MIKE DOLFI: I think when the straight-edge thing came around, that really split people into two different [camps]. “I still love your music but do I show up there because I have been drinking, or do I show up there because I haven’t been drinking?” That’s when, for me, the whole punk community started going its own way.
9:30 CLUB, DC, 1983 (JIM SAAH)
MIKE DOLFI: We used to piss in the back alley of the 9:30 Club when we’d play there. It wasn’t until years later I realized I was pissing on the back wall of Ford’s Theatre.
Henry Rollins, Wilson Center, DC, 1980 (Susie J. Horgan)
“I was too angry to be nervous. I’d get onstage and just explode.” —HENRY ROLLINS
Forming IN 1980 from the ashes of The Extorts, after singer Lyle Preslar picked up a guitar and joined Minor Threat, State of Alert (SOA) will forever be known as Henry Rollins’s first band. But SOA deserves far more credit than being a mere dry run for then–Henry Garfield’s ascent to Black Flag legendhood and eventual conquest of all media. SOA’s sole release, the ten-song No Policy EP (Dischord No. 2), reveals how they were the fastest and most brutal of vintage DC hardcore bands, the entire unit attacking like a relentless rain of fists in a street fight, Rollins’s sore-throat bark already firmly established. Dissolving nine months after their formation, leaving behind No Policy and their three contributions to Flex Your Head, SOA’s tentacles would weave through Faith and Embrace (guitarist Michael Hampton and drummer Ivor Hanson) and even Fugazi (via Hampton’s time in One Last Wish with Guy Picciotto and Brendan Canty), as well as Iron Cross and Lethal Intent (bassist Wendel Blow). —Tim Stegall
Henry Rollins, in work attire at HÄagen-Dazs, DC, 1980 (SUSIE J. HORGAN)
IVOR HANSON: Henry was definitely the one in charge, it was definitely his band, he was the leader.
HENRY ROLLINS: I never had stage fright and was never nervous. I was too angry to be nervous. I’d get onstage and just explode.
MICHAEL HAMPTON: Henry was a very charismatic guy. He was five years older than the rest of us and he had a job, so he used to give us quarters to play video games at the arcade.
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IVOR HANSON: While Henry was the leader of the band, Michael, you could say, was the “musical director” of the band. He would make clear what a song needed and we would work to make that vision of the song happen.
MICHAEL HAMPTON: Henry had an amazing record collection. I learned more about music in three weeks at Henry’s house than in my entire life before that.
HENRY ROLLINS: Those SOA shows were so chaotic. The gigs were like eleven to fifteen minutes long or something. A good seven minutes of which was, “Are you ready?” “I’m ready, are you ready?” Live tapes of that band probably just sound like this wall of noise with a guy barking over it.
MICHAEL HAMPTON: We practiced for the first time in September and then by December we went into Inner Ear to record a demo.
IVOR HANSON: Henry made clear to my mom and dad that he would totally look after me (and Michael and Wendel) since we were in a band, and that’s what bands do! My dad was a bit puzzled that Henry wore a heavy chain for a belt, but Henry pointed out that it came in handy in case he was gonna get beat by, say, a marine, since Henry’s shaved head ticked off some marines since they thought he was trying to look like one of them.