SIMON JACOBSEN: The writing was on the wall for SOA just prior to Henry leaving for Black Flag. In fact, when SOA played in Philadelphia and when Henry was asked to join the Los Angeles band, it was like a scene from the cartoon The Road Runner—just a beep-beep and a puff of dust. The termination of SOA was the right time. I left the band to go to school because I was just so punk I couldn’t read, Michael Hampton was becoming a very serious guitar and lick-smith that was becoming dissonant to Henry’s animalistic bowel-grinding voice, and Wendel was looking for something a little more ultranational. There was also a new drummer named Ivor whose talents would be better matched with Hampton later on.
WENDEL BLOW: When I think back to when Henry left for Black Flag, I have many mixed feelings. Surely, he made a career move that so many back then would have made in a heartbeat—Black Flag being the premier US punk band of that time. But in that same light, SOA was a force of nature that, if given the time to mature, I believe would have eclipsed Black Flag’s role and established itself as something way more powerful in its ability to deliver the much-needed messages of the day. I think that there were many sides of Henry that I just didn’t know or understand, and that his choice to leave entailed a lot more than he was willing to try to explain.
Wilson Center, DC, 1981 (MALCOLM RIVIERA)
IVOR HANSON: My dad’s last posting in the navy had us living at the Observatory. Michael asked me to be in the band, since he knew me from Georgetown Day School and the band needed a drummer. Before I agreed to join, Michael gave me a copy of the SOA record and he asked me to listen to it and tell him if I wanted to be in the band. I remember putting it on and listening to it with my twin brother and being totally convinced that I was playing the record at the wrong speed, since all the songs were way too fast.
So the next day, I told Michael I would join the band, and shortly thereafter the band showed up at the Observatory gate for the first practice. The uniformed Secret Service guard at the gate called me to tell me, “Ivor, some young men here at the gate are claiming you are in a band with them, and they are here to practice with you. Is that correct?” “Yes,” I told him, “that is correct and I’ll come and get them”—all our visitors had to be okay’d by the guards at the gate. From then on, Michael, Wendel, and Henry could come to my house unescorted.
WENDEL BLOW: In the past, I think I really made too much of all of it [SOA breaking up], but in my own defense, my relationship with Henry was one of some kind of mentorship, and, as I had believed in him, I was certainly left in a state of disillusionment when he left.
Without a band meeting or consultation, or really any honest projection of his interest in what he wanted to do with SOA (after we’d gone and replaced Simon and were hitting our next gear in the music), he pursued and found his place in Black Flag.
IVOR HANSON: We weren’t that surprised when he told us he was leaving. By that I mean that when Henry told us he was going up to New York to hang out with Black Flag, we jokingly told him that when he came back he would be in Black Flag.
I wasn’t in the band for that long—only a few months. Indeed, my first and only show with the band was its last show and it was a drag. But I think it was a bigger drag for Michael and Wendel, since, of course, SOA was much more their band than it was ever my band.
WENDEL BLOW: Our last show in Philly was a nightmare, and should never have happened. Henry knew better than to do this half-cocked, last-minute show in one of the worst neighborhoods for a punk rock show in the country. Of course, it ended in a battle, with many of us being caught in a situation that could have easily ended up with one of us getting killed . . .
I do contend, though, that of all of the things Henry has done and said, the words he so powerfully screamed in SOA may prove to be his most prophetic.
Ian MacKaye, wilson center, dc, 1983 (Jim Saah)
“All I ever wanted then—and now—Was to get the whole room singing.” —Ian MacKaye
When the Extorts broke up after playing just one show, vocalist Lyle Preslar found himself without a band. By November 1980 The Teen Idles had broken up as well, and bassist Ian MacKaye decided he wanted to sing for the next band that he and drummer Jeff Nelson were envisioning. Knowing that Preslar was a guitar player, they asked him to join the new project. He recommended asking Brian Baker, a friend of his from high school, to play bass, and barely a month later they played their first show as Minor Threat. The band would come to represent DC hardcore to the world. They had the benefit of their own label, Dischord Records, which was run by Ian and Jeff. They would be the first DC band to tour extensively. They had speed, rage, chops, and authority. The stance they took on “Straight Edge,” from their self-titled 1981 debut EP, would name and codify a way of life that at times did not sit well within the band.
The records, however, are marvels, better produced and recorded than almost any other punk band this side of the Sex Pistols. The Baker/Nelson (and later Hansgen/Nelson) rhythm section thumped out a foundation as fat as any early-seventies English glam record. By their farewell single, Salad Days, Minor Threat was so good and showed so much promise, you cursed the band for destroying it by breaking up.
MacKaye would go on to form another great band in Fugazi, after making music with Embrace, Egg Hunt, and Pailhead. He remains active these days with The Evens. Preslar played with Samhain and The Meatmen before going into A&R at Caroline Records and later becoming a marketing director for Sire Records. Nelson joined MacKaye in Egg Hunt and also played with Three and The High Back Chairs before settling into graphic arts and political activism in Toledo, Ohio. Baker’s guitar has elevated Government Issue, The Meatmen, Dag Nasty, and Junkyard, with Bad Religion now being the steadiest gig of his career. Steve Hansgen went on to produce Tool’s debut EP, Opiate. But for all their outstanding endeavors over the years, it might be what these gentlemen did as Minor Threat that will truly endure. —Tim Stegall
Ian MacKaye, Wilson Center, DC, 1981 (MALCOLM RIVIERA)
STEVE HANSGEN: The first time I saw Minor Threat was when they opened for Black Market Baby at the old 9:30 Club in 1981, along with SOA, and we’d heard in Virginia about both bands, and we were really excited to see these new bands that had come out of the ashes of the original DC punk rock bands, and we weren’t disappointed. That night was pretty remarkable, and I’ve heard other people who had seen them before—and they’d only been playing since December at that point, and this was like April or March—I’d heard that this show was something different. I remember they came out and announced that they were no longer Minor Threat, they were called Fifth Column, and they went into their set, and they were shockingly tight.
IAN MACKAYE: All I ever wanted then—and now—was to get the whole room singing. I never stopped singing when I’d put the mic out in the crowd. I remember seeing bands do that and thinking, Now you’ve fucked up. We’re all supposed to be singing—when you just put the mic out and stop singing, you’re just leading, it’s not about the music anymore.
Lyle preSlar (Jim Saah)
SIMON JACOBSEN: When we used to play shows with Minor Threat, I used to scowl to myself because they were just much more talented