No Thanks: A Night of Anti-Fascist Punk Protest
Inauguration Night in DC, the mood was somber — and anything but quiet.
The scene at Black Cat last Friday felt a little like DIY Live Aid.
Announced just a couple weeks before an inauguration 94% of the city was dreading, the bill was packed with local draws like Priests, Flasher, Anthony Pirog, and Pure Disgust, and topped with steady headliner Ted Leo. But pretty soon after I arrived, it was clear that there were some surprises in store: Mirah, one of those Olympia-bred acts on K Records, showed up unannounced for a couple loud runs. Dave Longstreth of Dirty Projectors lurked in the shadows before singing two intimate songs solo, the indie equivalent of Kanye caught a cappella. With Ian MacKaye sidestage, Brendan Canty made a surprise appearance on drums, raising even the epochal possibility of a Fugazi reunion. It seemed the time was dire enough that Batman could be back in Gotham. (Half of Sonic Youth was playing across town at Rock & Roll Hotel.) Maybe instead of Piccioto we’d get Grohl?
But — as it turned out — no reunion was necessary. The new generation has what it takes to make a dent in right-wing repression.
You have to remember, this was before the spark that returned to Washington early Saturday afternoon, when protesters realized they were big and would be heard. No Thanks restored that feeling a couple hours before schedule, with a keynote by Ruby Corado, founder of Casa Ruby and transgender activist. Her empathetic speech energized a crowd eager for action. And co-organizer Kevin Erickson made a concrete case for the ways the ACA is good for musicians, lending further reason to fight.
Part of that spark also came from the sense of togetherness that gives punks everywhere pride. Evan Greer got crowds to sing along to crusty Occupy ditties. I’d seen Sadie Dupois (Sad13) with Speedy Ortiz three years ago in an incredibly sweaty basement in Northeast DC, and here she was performing at Black Cat to a huge crowd (I think she led with a solo rendition of “Tiger Tank” but I could be wrong). Behind me in the crowd was a member of DC’s own Pree, as well as Lindsay Hogan, a contributor at Random Nerds and DC Music Download. The booker from Black Cat, I realized in one of those small-town moments strange in a city of 600,000, had dated a good friend.
But every circle has a center, and it’d be hard not to locate that with DC’s own Priests; frontwoman Katie Alice Greer co-organized the show. With Nothing Feels Natural out next week (and listenable now on NPR), the band showed up, ripping through the highly appropriate “Right Wing” to kick off a set punctuated by Greer’s spirited observations on the night’s significance. She wrote in Pitchfork about the show:
From now on we have to think in terms of how capable we already are to fight for each other, and how essential these capabilities are to our struggle.
A common gripe among local activists is that out-of-towners frequently leave them out of planning for national actions. Far from repeating that error, No Thanks was homegrown with help from national stars. The beneficiaries were both local: Casa Ruby (homeless LGBTQ shelter) and ONE DC (housing and neighborhood equity) both took home $6,000 for much-needed services here in the city.
I’d thought about leaving town Friday— and many friends did. But I was pulled back by a great punk bill and a great political speech. It’s things like this that give us the energy and inspiration to fight.
The next day, the Women’s March would show the world that misogyny would not pass our watch unchecked. Empowerment can be surprising. I’ll never forget leaving a Waxahatchee show at the Black Cat two years earlier with an amazed friend: “I didn’t know girls could do that,” she whispered. They can, and do. We’ll all need to amaze one another a lot to defeat fascism once more.
Surprise of the Night: Flasher
I’d never seen Priests’ Sister Polygon labelmates, and while I liked what I heard on Bandcamp, I wasn’t sure how the band’s sound would play in person. Live, they rely on a tension spectacularly generated by singer and bassist Dan Saperstein, who somehow combines the plucking of Peter Hook on Adderall with Byrne-level flow and sass. They were really great, and it’s easy to see how they could harness their hooks and make it big.
Tracks of the Night
“Game of Pricks,” Waxahatchee (Guided by Voices cover)
At points in Robert Pollard’s ebullient original, with the chords chugging towards what feels like the only possible conclusion — immortality — you think he’ll leave the ground. In Katie Crutchfield’s capable hands, however, the words seem unbearably chthonic, as if they rise from the ground into your feet to be transmitted up your spine, rather than heard from the air. Her patient delivery has always been a strength, and “Game of Pricks” from her voice is delivered like a caution heard too late: “I never asked for the truth/but you owe that to me.”
“Me and Mia,” Ted Leo & the Pharmacists
Yodeling elder Ted Leo’s tireless presence can be a little freaky, like what you’d imagine being in a room with Tim Ferriss might be. He kind of looks like a really fit, hip Jerry Seinfeld these days? As he spoke to the crowd before launching into his Biomusicology workout which flirts with glam and even presages Panic!, he talked with just a hint of weariness of the many benefits he’d played for the cause, wracking his brain briefly to recall where the last one had been played. “St. Stephen’s,” he recalled. Before he launched into this anthem — which literally supplied my partner’s high-school yearbook quote, “if you believe in something beautiful/get up and be it!” — he realized he’d forgotten to tune. “But I guess that’s why this is punk rock,” he grinned.
“Keep Your Name,” Dave Longstreth
It was a weird scene. The crowd — dimming since the energy crested with Priests an hour or two earlier — had thinned to several dozen. It was probably 1 am when Longstreth spent more time setting up his Hammond than he did playing. He sounded uncomfortable when a concertgoer, seemingly in poorly-informed jest, asked for the name of his band. Right after telling the crowd apologetically that it was his first time on the organ live, he sang two songs, delivering seven or eight of the gut-wrenching sweeps of vocal line that characterize the best moments of the Dirty Projectors’ work. Delivered without the album track’s glitchy beats and corny-rap interlude that I am still not sure how to process (Longstreth lags a step behind Bon Iver for the chiptune indie cred crown), that incredible voice sliced through stumbling burbles of Rhodes to cut us all to the core. Solitude was his subject. That only underscored how badly we all need one another if we’re going to make it through this alive.
