Bad Brains, Minor Threat, Fugazi, Henry Rollins … Washington D.C. nurtured an impressive punk rock roster in the ‘80s. But as the documentary Punk the Capital insists, it was unpromising territory in 1976 as rumors of new music began to trickle out of New York and London. After all, D.C. is a factory that produces legislation and regulation. Half of the daytime population go home to the suburbs at 5 and the rest are mostly Black, impoverished and unlike punk’s mostly white, middle-class constituency. Washington had never been known for its rock scene.
And yet it happened and—witness the all-Black Bad Brains—the word got around. The parallels between punk rock in D.C. and places like Milwaukee are hard to miss. D.C.’s first wave of punks formed a community no larger than an unincorporated rural township. They took their first cue from recordings and magazines originating elsewhere. They formed bands that restored urgency and simplicity to rock. Writers supported the bands with fanzines and entrepreneurs formed DIY labels. Everyone either worked at the city’s coolest record store or shopped there regularly. A tolerant owner allowed his club to become the scene’s nexus. There was college radio but unlike the Milwaukee School of Engineering, Georgetown University silenced its more adventurous student DJs.
Directors Paul Bishow and James June Schneider recovered grainy footage from darkened clubs, juxtaposing archival images with fresh interviews. The pioneering Slickee Boys and Black Market Baby are heard from as well as Bad Brains and Rollins. Randy Austin from Overkill astutely defines the punk aesthetic: “We dared to suck … in our eagerness to do something.”
D.C.’s first wave, like their counterparts elsewhere in the U.S., tended to be smart and aware of rock’s already lengthening history. The Slickee Boys’ Martha Hull felt liberated as a woman singing aggressively in a punk scene that broadened what was possible. The Slickee’s song “Put a Bullet Through the Juke Box” sums up the early prevailing attitude. Punk rock began in America in protest against the blandness, the banality of pop culture represented by AM radio and network TV. Punk the Capital is a reminder of that era’s cultural scarcity. Compared to today, there wasn’t much to watch, listen to or do.
Members of Bad Brains were spotted at D.C. punk shows early on. In Punk the Capital they recount their discovery of The Ramones and their decision to do the same thing—only faster. Bad Brains pushed the tempo harder in sweaty affirmations of their message of “positive mental attitude” derived from early self-help author Napoleon Hill. They wanted something to say as well as something to play. Punk the Capital is a good model for a genre that has already begun to proliferate—the punk rock scene history.
