These walls have been pissed on

An apology

Everyone who has ever written about music over a long period of time has at least one piece that haunts them. A bad take. A knee-jerk reaction. A profile that makes the subject look foolish. A review that’s misinformed, misguided, or just downright mean.

Twenty-five years ago I managed to accomplish many of these things in my takedown of Girls Against Boys’ 1998 release Freak*on*ica in Flipside.

There were some contributing factors. The band had left Touch & Go to sign with Geffen Records. By 1998 I should have been over the sellout wars, but it still mattered to me, albeit intermittently. I didn’t have a problem with bands that started out on major labels, but jumping from the indies to the majors was somehow worse, which makes no sense.

For me, it was unthinkable that the three members of Girls Against Boys (Scott McCloud, Johnny Temple & Alexis Fleisig) who’d been in the DC post-hardcore band Soulside and had put out records with Dischord could sign with Geffen—never mind that Dave Grohl did pretty much the same thing and I had no problem with that whatsoever.  

My main issue with Girls Against Boys, and Freak*on*ica in particular, was the way it leaned into electronic music. I didn’t have issues with electronic music. Electroclash was right around the corner and I was there for it. To my ears Freak*on*ica sounded like a mash-up of Chemical Brothers and Bush.

I’ll be honest, I still don’t care for this song, but that’s not why I was wrong. My column, yes I devoted an entire column to this mess, was misinformed, misguided and mean because I was mad at Girls Against Boys for not being Soulside.

Never mind that at no time in its ten-year history did GVSB resemble Soulside. In fact, I had almost no knowledge of the band’s extensive catalog but that didn’t stop me from spouting off like an idiot.

Part of the charm of the DC hardcore and post-hardcore scenes was how the bands, largely made-up of earnest young men, were defined by their creative intentions. When those vibes shifted the bands broke up. Because people were always going off to college and falling out of the scene, these bands were almost always short-lived. Sometimes there wasn’t even any beef within the band. Dudes just left and the remaining members started new projects. This is what made these bands so emo, to use the term in its original context. It also made them precious: rare, beautiful, and utterly unsustainable.

Girls Against Boys defied that trend. The band endured despite lineup changes, including the departure of founding member Brendan Canty. GVSB’s style evolved; its parameters expanded. The band grew and experimented and was rewarded with a contract from Geffen. I didn’t know at the time the band didn’t seek out this contract. One if its former (and current members) was working at the label. That didn’t stop me from tearing into GVSB like a no-nothing shitheel.

Ultimately, I couldn’t forgive Soulside for recording one of the best indie records of the eighties, Hot Bodi-Gram. Released in 1989 the album was recorded in Eindhoven in the Netherlands at the end of a European tour after the band had decided to break-up. Who does that? Who decides to call it quits and then creates something as powerful as this:

In an interview in the straight edge zine Double Cross, singer Bobby Sullivan discusses the meaning of the song, which is called “Clifton Wall”:

“Clifton Wall is a place in DC, right next to a high school where at the time of the song's writing, people bought and sold crack cocaine (the “rock on high”). It's next to a couple housing projects on a big hill overlooking the monuments. It's eerie at night with the monuments lit up in the distance and hooded characters doing their trade in the foreground. Scott (guitarist) and Johnny (bassist) moved into a group house a couple blocks away, so we were in the area a lot.”

It’s a perfect album. I won’t tell you where I was when I first heard it or what it meant to me because none of that shit matters. What matters is when Soulside decided to call it quits the band left behind as its final statement the last great punk rock record of the eighties.

Aside from meeting Johnny Temple a few times at the LA Times Festival of Books (he is always incredibly nice to me) I don’t know any of the members of the Soulside. I have no connection to the band or knowledge of its inner workings. I don’t why Soulside broke up or what made them decide to record Hot Bodi-Gram. But I think about what it must have been like to be in that room when that record was made all the time. Did they know they were making a masterpiece?

Available from Akashic Books

All this has been on my mind since I devoured Soulside: Washington, DC: 1986-1989, a photobook with captions written by drummer Alexis Fleisig and published by Akashic Books in 2019. As many of you undoubtedly know, Johnny Temple founded Akashic in 1999 and the press has been going strong ever since. The book provides an intimate glimpse of the band and includes shows in East Berlin before the wall came down. My only complaint with the book is that it isn’t 400 pages and doesn’t contain 100,000 words. (There I go again, evaluating a work based on what I want it to be instead of what it is.)

Earlier this week Soulside announced it has recorded a new album called A Brief Moment in the Sun that will be released on Dischord in November and you can pre-order now. It’s Soulside’s first album in 33 years—its first since Hot Bodi-Gram. Naturally, the band’s sound has evolved, which is how it should be. What mystified me in my youth seems obvious now, which is also the way it should be.

Tonight Soulside is playing a show at the Black Cat in Washington DC and embarking on a short tour up the coast. If you go, let me know.

I haven’t gone back to that issue of Flipside to reread the dreck I wrote back in 1998 but knowing that it exists bothers me. It pops up in my thoughts when I can’t fall asleep and regret has a dance party in my head. If anyone from Girls Against Boys who played on that record ever reads this, I’m sorry.

Hopefully, I’ll get to see Soulside when it tours to support the new album. Now that I’ve confessed my sins and repented the error of my ways, if and when the band plays songs off of Hot Bodi-Gram I can slide into a long overdue state of grace.

Corporate Rock Sucks

It’s been a minute since I’ve had new news to report about Corporate Rock Sucks but I’ve got a few links to share.

I’ve been reading Punktuation for some time and it was a real pleasure to do this in-depth interview with Dom Tyler about SST and the sound of the underground.

And for an even deeper dive about the book, here’s my discussion with the great Ryan Leach, whose essential interview with Kira Roessler informed my thinking about Black Flag’s Slip It In.

Incidentally, the book’s price has dropped on Amazon and is closing in on 150 reviews. Of course, you can also request the book through your local library or order it from your local independent book store.

I’m now working on correcting errors for the paperback edition of Corporate Rock Sucks, so if you saw something, say something. Now’s your chance.