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WHY ARE STRAIGHT EDGERS SUCH DICKS?
A Rhetorical Question
by Jim Testa
I've been in this punk rock
business a long time now -- my
fanzine, Jersey Beat, just celebrated
its 8th birthday - and I've seen bands
come & go. I've know some great
people who've played in bands; some of
them still do. I've known some real
assholes too. That just goes with the
territory.
But year in and year out, through
all my dealings with all kinds of
bands, there's one constant I can
count on.
If they're straight edge, they're
probably going to be dicks.
Now I know this sounds like one of
Ben Weasel's diatribes, an unholy
sweeping generalization, and I'll
grant you that there are a couple of
decent straight edgers out there.
Well, maybe one or two. I have a lot
of respect for Ian and the guys in
Fugazi, for instance.
On the other hand...
The Case of The Vanishing Van
ABC No Rio is an abandoned
building on the Lower Lower East Side
of Manhattan, in a neighborhood that's
mostly hispanic and very poor, but for
nearly a year, it's been the home of
the only real hardcore scene New York
City has known. The shows there
starting in December, 1989, and have
continued, week in and week out, on
almost every Saturday since. They've
missed two or three weeks, I think,
but basically, ABC No Rio has
delivered a show, with four or five
cool bands, a low door charge, a great
table that sells 7 inches and
fanzines, and lots of fun. Most of
all, there's no club owner or booking
agent making all the decisions; the
shows are run by a collective of fans,
musicians, and writers. Every show has
more than its share of fanzine people
there, and a small group of regulars
who all play in other bands. Nobody
segregates the music by labels;
"straight edge" and "punk," scum rock
and stenchcore, everybody plays
together and everybody watches all the
bands. In a city where hardcore and
even ska have been banned from almost
every other club because of an
uncontrollable violence problem, ABC
No Rio hasn't had one fight in over
eight months of shows. If that isn't
what a "scene" is all about, then I
don't know what is.
Now the drawback to ABC No Rio is
that it's small, and the shows aren't
advertised in the newspapers; the
regulars know about them, and spread
the word with flyers.
One week, the popular South Jersey
straight edge band Vision was booked
for a show. Now, remember, ABC No Rio
didn't call up Vision and beg them to
come; they asked for a show there. So
Vision pulls up in their van, and take
a look at the place, and count the
number of people there, and sort of
say, in an offhand way, that it's a
lot smaller than what they're used to.
So the band, with the exception of
their guitarist Pete, clamber back in
the van, and announce they're going
for some food.
Apparently they went all the way
back to Trenton to look for it,
because they never came back to the
show. That left Pete to face the
crowd and announce that his band
decided they didn't want to play there
because it was too small. I hand it
to the guy, it took a lot of guts and
he accepted responsibility for his
bandmates' actions. Okay, Pete is one
straightedge guy I respect.
But the rest of Vision? Dicks.
Ingrate, Thy Name Is Straight Edge
Another straightedge band that
came to play No Rio was called
Insight, from Salt Lake City, Utah.
They had some problems on the road and
lost a lot of their equipment, so they
show up without a drumkit or amps and
ask if they can borrow some stuff.
Since there are a lot of bands on the
bill (including Supertouch, the head
liners, who have a lot of good
equipment), it`s decided that Insight
would go on right before Supertouch,
use their equipment, and save a little
set up time between bands.
So what does Insight do? They pack
together in their van and stay there
all through the first three opening
bands. Then they come out, set up,
play three songs, and announce that
the singer's throat hurts, so they
stop playing. Then they get back in
the van, and don't even hang around to
watch Supertouch, who loaned them all
their equipment.
Dicks.
No Reply Necessary
In eight years of publishing a
fanzine, I've interviewed a lot of
bands. After an issue comes out, I
mail the bands who appear in each
issue some complimentary copies and
thank them for appearing in the zine.
Their response differs - sometimes
they'll send a t-shirt, they'll
usually always send their next record
to be reviewed, and more often than
not, I get a thank you note.
Jersey Beat #40 featured two
straightedge bands, who both were
received a lot of space - photos,
interview, the works. One of those
bands was Carry Nation, from
California. Two of the members -
Frank and Dan - each run their own
(straightedge) record label, and I'd
never received anything from either of
them in the way of press materials.
This is not surprising. Most
straightedge labels don't support
fanzines by giving away review copies
of their records. I guess they figure
that all the straight edge zinesters
will run out and buy all their
releases right away anyway, and nobody
else matters. This is a fairly
typical attitude among the SE crowd;
if you're not SE, you don't matter.
Anyway, that's why you never never see
reviews of Revelation or Schism
Records in Jersey Beat.
So anyway, when the issue came
out, I sent both Dan and Frank a few
copies of the zine, and mentioned
casually that I had never seen
anything from either of their
respective labels. Now that Carry
Nation had been featured prominently
in Jersey Beat, and they'd seen the
quality and reliability of the
publication, maybe they'd like to send
some of their releases for us to
review? (Frank's label, Nemesis
Records, released Vision's lp, by the
way).
Well, I didn't receive any records
to review. Neither Frank nor Dan even
bothered with the courtesy of a reply.
Dicks.
Another band that was profiled in
the new issue is called Bedlam Hour.
They've been around a long time, but
haven't had much national exposure.
The lead singer and band leader, Chuck
Walker, is straight edge, and makes
quite a point of it in interviews and
lyrics.
I sent Chuck four copies of the
new issue for the band and a nice
little note. No reply. Then I saw
that Chuck and a friend had released
some old tapes of early Bedlam Hour on
a new EP. I wrote again and asked
about getting a copy to review. No
reply. Then I wrote again and asked if
there was any reason he wasn't
answering my letters, since he seemed
so open and friendly in the interview
we ran. No reply.
Dick.
Now I know a lot of this sounds
like whining and sour grapes, like I
expect something out of a band if I
give them space in my fanzine. But
that's not true. I don't solicit
advertising based on who we interview.
We get records to review from all
kinds of labels, from the majors down
to kids who press up 1000 copies of a
7" they recorded in their garage.
But there are rules of behavior
that govern all human discourse; old
fashioned concepts, perhaps, but I
still believe in them. Like being
polite. Like answering your mail. Like
realizing, if you're in a punk rock
band, that your ability to function
depends on a complex inter-related web
of fans, fanzines, clubs, promoters,
radio, and record labels, and that
everybody in the web should be helping
one another.
Straight edgers, because they're
convinced of their moral superiority,
feel they are entitled to their share
of the scene without putting anything
back. They take, but all they give is
advice on moral conduct. Well, I've
got news for them.
Generosity, consideration,
respect for fellow bands - those are
all positive moral values too. And
greed, selfishness, self-involvement
and the disrespect you show other
bands are just as wrong as drunkenness
and promiscuity. Maybe worse. You can
get drunk and not hurt anyone else
(assuming you don't pick fights or try
to drive a car while you're bombed).
The sort of self-righteousness
displayed by bands like Carry Nation,
Vision, and Insight hurt the very
people who are pouring part of their
lives into the scene. When Ian
MacKaye was writing songs about the
straight edge movement for Minor
Threat, he wrote, "Don't drink, don't
smoke, don't fuck."
He never said anything about being
a dick.
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