Here’s young Adeline hearing Bad Brains for the time. The song is “Attitude.” She’s got some attitude!
As YouTube uploader dudeabides671 writes, “Some things you just can’t teach…”
h/t Jeff Albers
I meant to post this festive Bad Brains meets the Peanuts crew video last year around the holidays but somehow spaced on it. So here’s a big “THANK YOU” to Lawrence LaFerla for reminding me!
So this mysterious, undated photo of Bad Brains frontman H.R. and an allegedly young “Brooke Shields” smokin’ the good shit is currently being passed around Facebook and websites like a wildfire. Just to set the record straight, I’m 99.99999999% certain this is not Brooke Shields. That’s not her hairline. It’s not her.
However, if it were, this would have made for the best random photo on the Internet ever.
UPDATE: A rep for Shields tells The Huffington Post “It isn’t her.”
Via BuzzFeed and Facebook
H.R. takes flight
There are folks who think H.R. flipped his wig a long time ago. That may be true - but if this is what being crazy looks like, I’ll have a hit.
H.R. is making the rounds to drum up some excitement for the terrific new Bad Brains documentary, A Band in DC.
Previously on Dangerous Minds: Dangerous Minds interviews H.R. about new film ‘Bad Brains: ‘A Band In D.C.’
Aside from the obvious— they were the first all-black punk band— two additional things must be said of the early Bad Brains: they were the most ferocious musical tornado ever unleashed; a frantic, thrashing monster of a group that had absolutely no competitors for the crown of being the most hardcore of all of the hardcore bands in Washington, D.C.
They were also the best, most skilled musicians of any of their compatriots. Sure, they played buzz-saw punk rock music that sounded like a Black Sabbath album spinning at 45rpm, but they actually came from a jazz fusion background (think Return to Forever and Mahavishnu Orchestra!) before the energy of the D.C. hardcore scene turned their attention to punk.
Lead vocalist H.R. was, simply put, one of the greatest frontmen of the punk era, up there with Johnny Rotten or Jello Biafra as a presence so incendiary, so crazed and so utterly unhinged that you wondered if he was possessed. Backed by Dr. Know (guitar), Darryl Jenifer (bass) and H.R.‘s younger brother, Earl Hudson, on drums, the Bad Brains would explode onto the stage like a nail bomb had gone off. If that prospect seemed worrisome, well, stand back!
It wasn’t long before the group found they weren’t able to play shows in their hometown, hence their famous number, “Banned in D.C.” which has been appropriated for the title of the new film about the group, Bad Brains: A Band In D.C. co-directed by Mandy Stein and Ben Logan. The film actually started as an offshoot of another project about CBGBs, but as Stein told us “What director wouldn’t want to tell this story?”
The 30+ years of the Bad Brains’ existence has been fraught with interpersonal conflict— one epic argument was caught on video by the directors— but it’s that tension that makes the band so great that also, perhaps, prevented them from being as big as they might have otherwise been. Band in DC features some fierce archival footage, more recent live performances and interviews with Henry Rollins, The Beastie Boys, Fugazi’s Ian MacKaye, British black punk DJ and filmmaker Don Letts and The Cars’ Ric Ocasek, who produced the band in the studio.
In the clip below, co-director Mandy Stein and Bad Brains singer H.R. discuss the film and the energy of the early Washington, D.C. punk scene.
Proshot high quality video of the Bad Brains playing in Florida on March 20, 1987. Shorter clips from this show have appeared on the Internet but nowhere near this quality. This is the Bad Brains’ performance in full and it looks and sounds great.
The Chevrolet banner hanging from the stage declares that “This is the heartbeat of America.” I agree. But the college kids on spring break that make up the audience seem clueless.
Setlist:
1. Intro
2. I
3. House of Suffering
4. Daytripper/ She’s a Rainbow
5. She is Calling you
6. The Youth are getting Restless
7. I against I
8. At the Movies
total runtime 24:49:21
Steven Blush, author of American Hardcore: A Tribal History, has uploaded 911 hardcore tracks of his favorite bands for free. Some of the artists include: Flipper, Minor Threat, Bad Brains, Minutemen, Hüsker Dü, Dicks, Butthole Surfers, Cro-Mags and more!
Travel on over to 24 Hours of Hardcore compiled by Steven Blush and download the goodness while it lasts.
Side note from Steven: “COPYRIGHT HOLDERS: I will delete your tracks at your request.”
(via Das Kraftfuttermischwerk)
Here’s the classic Bad Brains video culled from 4 hours of footage shot over the course of 3 nights of performances at CBGB in December of 1982. Hardcore rock/reggae doesn’t get any better than this. While most of this footage has been available in bits and pieces of varying quality on Youtube, here’s the entire video with superb sound and visuals.
You can buy this on DVD from MVD Visual here.
More badness from Bad Brains after the jump…
Attention good people of California, the mighty Bad Brains are coming our way for a whirlwind six day tour.
Bad Brains in California tour dates:
Aug 19 @ Ventura Theater, Ventura, CA
Aug 20 @ House of Blues, Anaheim, CA
Aug 21 @ Sunset Junction, Los Angeles, CA
Aug 22 @ Belly Up Tavern, Solano Beach, CA
Aug 23 @ The Catalyst, Santa Cruz, CA
Aug 24 @ Slim’s, San Francisco, CA
The band is giving away tickets at their website for each of the shows. Register to win here. If you win the free tickets, I guess you won’t have to, ahem, pay to cum! (Ha ha ha ha. I’m so darned funny, I just slay myself).
Note that the above video of the Bad Brains playing Black Sabbath’s Paranoid, shot at CBGBs, also comes from the InnerTube cable access series, circa 1982, that Marc wrote about here.
Photo Credit: Glen E. Friedman
Photo Credit: Glen E. Friedman
Photo Credit: Glen E. Friedman
Here’s a really wonderful interview with one of my favorite photographers and artists, Glen E. Friedman. Do yourself a favor and watch the video. From State Magazine:
It was then that I found that the most beautiful, gripping color photographs were taken by just a single photographer, a very young teenager, by the name of Glen E. Friedman. Glen would go on to take these skills he learnt as a kid and apply them to his other great love in life, music. What you’re about to hear is an interview I did with Glen, who describes for you, some of his favourite shots from the last four decades. It’s a journey which has taken Glen from the mosh-pits of American punk-rock with bands like Black Flag and Fugazi to the suburban streets with hip-hop where Public Enemy, Beastie Boys, Run DMC, LL Cool J, A Tribe Called Quest and Ice-T all became subjects in front of Glen’s lens. So, less talk, more action; press play. After all, they say a picture is worth a thousand…well, you know…
