Minor Threat Played Here: Lessons from Stonehenge
The negative effects of late-stage capitalism on musical creativity and performance- plus a few tips on how to get around them.
We’re all pretty familiar with how rampant, unrestricted capitalism has increased homelessness, food insecurity, and child poverty; jacked the price of housing, education, food, transportation, health, and childcare into the unaffordable stratosphere; and destroyed any last vestiges of the social safety net so bravely fought for by FDR and the Greatest Generation. But has anyone really thought about its detrimental impact on music? Or any ways to lessen this disastrous impact?
The picture above might just hold some answers for you.
It’s the legendary D.C.-area punk house “Stonehenge,” a marvelously weird and wacky temple to everything DIY, local, affordable, expressive, and independent- in short, everything that capitalism isn’t. It’s hosted innumerable bands since the 80s including seminal legends Minor Threat and the Cassettes, staging shows in a basement divided by bedsheets nailed to the ceiling. 15 years ago- as a broke twenty-something kid who graduated in 2008 at the height of the Great Recession with an English degree- I rented a room there for $400/month and grew to love what it meant, and what it stood for, in the world of music confronted with hard economic times.
Don’t get me wrong- I certainly didn’t love it when I first moved in. The living room was a sickly peeling puce color, adorned only with mismatched sagging tweed couches scratched to ribbons by the house’s resident feral kitten Malice. The porch was so rickety that my foot went through it once (and I only weighed 115 lbs at the time). My roommates were awesome, but decidedly different; Stephen the steampunk stored chunks of alligator meat in the freezer and Ian the aspiring death-metal singer once brought home an amp so large he had to wheel it inside on a freight dolly.
Just like the Pier One commercials where Kirstie Alley claimed overpriced home furnishings “spoke to her,” Stonehenge spoke to me in the brazenly tough gum-chewing patois of a mid-80s harDCore rocker: “Screw you. We don’t need your permission or your rules- they’re not working for us anymore. We’ll do it our damn selves.”
I should probably put Stonehenge in some sort of historical context.
I grew up in late 80s/early 90s D.C., which wasn’t particularly affluent at the time. Its nicknames were the “Chocolate City” and the “Murder Capital”- the homicide rate dwarfed that of modern-day Baltimore and Detroit. In kindergarten I watched a grainy black-and-white clip of our beloved mayor smoking crack on the evening news (although he was a huge legend and we re-elected him the next year.) Our overcrowded public school didn’t have homework, tests, or even consistent adult supervision, but we did have head lice, stray dogs, brown tap water, fistfights, go-go dance parties, and card betting tables. (Although we did get a TV in 1994! Just one, for 550 students.) I thought it was completely normal for five people to share a one-bedroom apartment and dilute whole milk to make it “last.” At eight I started babysitting my neighbor’s toddlers after school for pocket money. When I tell people this, they’re often surprised to hear it took place in America.
I should add that none of this seemed unusual or traumatic at the time; there were always a lot of us kids around, and we were all going through this stuff together, and while it wasn’t always easy, it fostered a sort of scrappy, plucky sense of community. You learned to make your own fun with the people around you and the resources available within reach of your sticky thieving little fingers. You could either sit home crying about how you didn’t have a Mini-Bake Oven, or you could skip down the block to your friend’s house and throw TLC’s CrazySexyCool into the cassette deck and swan around the front yard together draped in old towels recreating the dance from “Waterfalls” and bickering over who got to do Left Eye’s rap. I had a sweet and creative fourth-grade classmate whose family was hard up- she slept curled in an old blanket on the floor next to her little sister’s crib- but she invited us over for an elaborately decorated cat-themed birthday party featuring dozens of crayon-and-paper drawings and games she’d made herself.
D.C. in the 1980s also had one of the most legendary and influential hardcore punk scenes in the country.
Because it not only sucked being poor, but you could walk your broke ass two miles down to the National Mall and glimpse ol’ Ronnie Reagan sitting smugly on the White House toilet, wiping his rear end with air traffic engineers’ union contracts and TOP SECRET memos from Oliver North. Early bands like Teen Idles, Youth Brigade, and Government Issue brought dissatisfaction and rebellion kicking and screaming into the District with a ferocious tempo that made the Sex Pistols sound like a Michael Bolton soft-rock ballad. Ian MacKaye, who founded Minor Threat and later Fugazi, led the “straight edge” movement; Bad Brains (arguably the most talented of the bunch) blazed the way for Black voices in punk. In 1981, D.C. teenager and ice-cream-shop manager Henry Rollins jumped onstage at a concert to sing a number with his favorite band Black Flag and wound up getting hired as their frontman. Several years later, another local punk wunderkind drummer was invited to audition for a newly-formed Seattle band called Nirvana. (Yes, I’m talking about Dave Grohl, also of the Foo Fighters and Them Crooked Vultures.)
Just like any DIY project started by a bunch of amateurs, early DC hardcore had its triumphs and its failures. Most of its songs tended to clock in under two-and-a-half minutes of furious thrashing. Many bands only released one album and then broke up. Often the musicianship, composition, or sound quality (or lack thereof) turns it into a grating cacophony if you’ve never heard it before or don’t know exactly what you’re trying to pick out amidst the high-pitched screams and distorted fuzz. Which isn’t implying that it’s not art, or it’s not worthy of listeners. It absolutely is, in large part due to its ability to inspire future musicians: “If we could do this- create groups, records, whole scenes with just secondhand instruments in the middle of a vast wasteland- you can, too.”
The Damaging Effects of Capitalism on Music Performance and Production
The average price for concert tickets has surged about 30% since 2018- accompanied by an uptick in “hidden fees”- to an eye-watering $120 total at checkout. Yes, I understand there are many reasons for this increase: less revenue from album sales due to streaming services, higher costs of touring due to gas and food prices, and everyone’s gleeful post-COVID enthusiasm to dive back into the mosh pit. But the unfortunate economic reality is that most people can’t afford this anymore. The bottom 90% of Americans make an average of $36,000/year and over 60% can’t afford a surprise $500 expense. If you’re a full-time minimum-wage employee in Virginia, that single ticket is one-tenth of your monthly income after taxes.
Which is a d*mn shame, because everyone deserves the opportunity to see and hear a live performance every so often. The ability to create and appreciate music is one of the key traits that separates our species from the rest of the great apes. The first instruments date back about 40,000 years ago to the Upper Paleolithic, when hunter-gatherers lived in small egalitarian clans bonded by blood, myth, dance, and song. Today’s alarming rise in wealth inequality has essentially turned this once-democratic community affair into an exclusive pastime for the very rich- which is exactly the opposite of how and why it started out.
Unbridled, unrestrained capitalism has had another (and far more insidious) stranglehold on music lately: it’s produced a sort of creativity bottleneck restricting how many new ideas, styles, and compositions can get through. That great program teaching free jazz guitar and saxophone lessons to inner-city fifth-graders after school? Its funding was cut to make up for budget shortfalls. That shy guitar virtuoso with dyslexia and autism who dropped out of eleventh grade? He’s working 60 hours a week at three gig economy jobs just to pay rent. The girl with straight-A grades whose greatest pleasure was leading her college choir? She’s been steered into an investment banking career to pay off crushing student loans. To all the older folks bemoaning the wretched state of music these days and wondering where all the passionate, talented artists ended up. . . there’s your answer! Delivering your pizzas, managing your wealth, or at home alone scrolling through TikTok- with virtually zero extra time or money available for any kind of creative musical pursuit.
I recently read that back in 1988, a young Trent Reznor cut the first Nine Inch Nails demos during his shifts at a recording studio where he worked as a janitor and assistant sound engineer (the latter is often an unpaid internship position). That couldn’t happen today for a number of reasons. First, the studio would probably be so strapped for cash it couldn’t give him any time; second, he’d be too exhausted from working a second job; and third, without personal wealth and connections, nobody in the industry would be able to hear it anyway so why bother?
So how do we use the lessons from Stonehenge to ease capitalism’s destructive grip on music and make the creative process more accessible and democratic for everyone?
Through CHE. Community, Humanity, Empathy.
Community means making music a social event that’s open to everyone. This can be a $5 hardcore punk show in the basement, going to your favorite cafe on jam session night, or suggesting that your local municipality should sponsor free outdoor summer concerts. It can also be as simple as inviting friends to a child’s school recital or organizing a drum circle in the local park. Maybe it’s swapping out that corporate Sandals beach holiday for a relaxing long weekend camping at a bluegrass festival. If you’re not big on crowds, that’s fine too- some groups, like folk-rock enthusiast website Mudcat, host virtual sing-alongs. Emphasizing the importance of music in society democratizes its participation, exposes different genres to new audiences, and shows budding young artists that you truly care about something that also means so much to them.
Humanity means connecting with others through music- whether it’s playing or just listening! If you find someone with similar taste, make them your jam or concert buddy. This can be a person who you call up and say, “Hey, I know we’re both flat broke and exhausted, but there’s a Battle of the Bands at Java Joe’s tonight for $3.” Or the two of you can share playlists and mixtapes. I realize this probably sounds funny, but don’t discount these relationships- I’m literally still good friends with an old coworker from over 10 years ago because we both love the French-Senegalese rapper MC Solaar. Bonds built with creation and appreciation are ones that capitalism can’t commoditize and subsequently destroy.
Empathy means supporting individuals who enjoy making and hearing music. This could be encouraging friends or family in their creative pursuits with positive feedback and constructive criticism. Part of it is removing the physical and logistical obstacles (“Hey, I just saw there’s an old ukelele for $25 on Craigslist”) but most importantly it’s about erasing the mental ones (“I love hearing you sing and play- you really have a talent to share!”) Capitalism teaches us that hobbies and interests aren’t valid or worthwhile unless they make money, but we all know that’s rubbish by now or else you wouldn’t be reading this publication.
Parting words from Stonehenge
I’d like to leave you with this excerpt from D.C.-area indie DIY label Simple Machines’ 24-page handbook to the music business, called the Mechanic’s Guide:
But nobody can do it alone. Reach out your hand for others’ and unite in the spirit of community, humanity, empathy, and song.
