Where are they now...and can we get them back?

Today's steady stream of mindless, corporate machine made punk/hardrock aimed to reach out to our restless youth is some of the worst crap I've every heard. I can't stand the radio anymore, long live the iPod and MP3 players.

Somewhere around 6th or 7th grade I was introduced to the DC punk scene. I wasn't the black clad, mohawk wearing disgruntled youth typically associated with that scene, but I did have my ripped jeans and black 10 eyelet Doc Martens, well before they became so mainstream fashion, and when wearing the wrong color shoe laces in them could get you your ass kicked.

The rare trips to go hang out at Salamander in Georgetown listening to local bands on vinyl was always something to look forward to. My first DC band exposure was Minor Threat, but that quickly wore off when I heard Bad Brains. Having hit the DC punk scene around 1979, they were already kicking ass and influencing bands like Minor Threat and Black Flag. Unfortuantely I was getting into them as they were on their way out. Unknown to most, BB influenced alot of todays mainstream rock, Metallica, System of A Down and Nirvana to name a few. On my list of influential bands, they're second only to Led Zeppelin.

I never got to see them live, but thanks to YouTube, they can live on. I dug up some old footage of their early concerts. The footage is a good selection of their range as a band, best classified as punk/reggae they excel at both ends of the spectrum.