(First in a series on why punk rock matters)
Bored to death of the awards ceremony (at the 2023 National Irish Dance Championships1, with its loud, but somehow inaudible masters of ceremony,) screaming girls in bedazzled dresses, young faces with too much makeup, and a sea of people who all seemed to share the same disinterest in talking to me, (my wife and daughters included), I vacated my seat and set off on a bipedal excursion through the halls and walkways of the massive Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center.
A few minutes into my stroll, just beyond Ballroom C, I came upon a pair of middle-aged dance moms in matching hairstyles, dresses, and cowboy boots who were discussing (quite loudly) their kids’ first concerts.
Mom 1: Becky’s first concert was Taylor Swift.
Mom 2: (Obviously impressed) That’s a pretty good first concert!
Knowing how much a Taylor Swift ticket goes for these days, I suppose that is a pretty good first concert. Plus, word on the street is that she puts on a pretty good show, with all sorts of wardrobe changes, and dazzling special effects, and so, you know, good for Becky.
Anyway, overhearing the banter of these dance moms prompted me to recall my first concert: Dag Nasty at the Pipe Dragon in Buffalo, NY, in 1988. The memory brought a smile to my face, both for the vivid image of the scrawny and (much) younger me that popped into my mind — and because I knew deep in my heart that it was an infinitely better show than any Taylor Swift concert could ever be.
Now, before you get your shirt in a knot and dash off an angry letter, let me explain. I am not arguing Dag Nasty is a better musical act than Taylor Swift. I mean, I think they are, and if given the chance, I’d choose Dag Nasty over Taylor Swift any fucking day of the week. But I know that, for the average person, assuming he or she has even heard of Dag Nasty, Taylor Swift would win that particular battle of the bands, hands down. By any measure of success a person might use to judge how “good” a particular musician or musical act is — record sales, tour revenues, social media followers, industry awards and accolades and even general awareness among the populace — Taylor emerges the victor each and every time. It’s not even a contest. To be fair, though, Taylor has benefitted (or perhaps still benefits) from advantages Dag Nasty has never enjoyed, such as the large marketing department of a major record label, and this has undoubtedly propelled her to where she is today. That’s okay. Good for Taylor. I don’t begrudge her whatever success has come her way. I’m just saying the scales are weighted in her favor, so it’s not really a fair comparison. Further, the hallmarks of success that I listed above — record sales, tour revenues, social media followers, industry awards and accolades, and even general awareness among the populace — have little to do with how good a performer’s, or band’s music, might be. These are all measures of popularity rather than quality. Then again, most folks have little interest in parsing the two, so the point is moot. Everyone loves a winner.
Of course, none of this has anything to do with why my first concert was better than Becky’s, that spoiled fucking brat3. So I’ll lay it out clearly: My first concert was better because it immediately and irrevocably changed my life. Can Becky say the same?4
Dag Nasty is a punk band from Washington, DC. The group was formed in 1985 by guitarist Brian Baker, and although their style was less aggressive and more melodic than that of a lot of other punk bands of the time, they still played in all the same derelict and sketchy venues. The club at which I saw them in Buffalo — The Pipe Dragon — was one such venue. Dilapidated and surely on the cusp of being condemned, the building lent an atmosphere of secrecy and surreptitiousness to the evening’s festivities. I remember the first floor was completely empty, save for the large flakes of paint that had fallen off the walls, and the rickety staircase that brought us up to the second level, where the concert took place. I don’t recall how many people were there on that level, but I’m sure it was more than the building could safely accommodate. When the concert got going, I felt the floor sag under the weight of the hundreds of punks in attendance.
My feeling the floor heave was noteworthy, for there was a moment before the show when I wasn’t sure I wanted to go in. This wasn’t just my first concert, it was my first punk concert, and no one had prepared me for the culture shock. I was a mild-mannered kid from the suburbs. My parents made me go to religious education classes on Sundays and didn’t let me wear jeans to school. I had a paper route. I had never even seen real punks let alone hung out with them, and unlike the characterizations of punks in the movies and on tv, the people with whom I was about to spend my evening with looked dangerous. There were skinheads (not necessarily the racist kind), ragged urban skateboarders (that looked like skinheads), large muscular guys with tattoos and wide bandanas pulled low on their foreheads, skinny shirtless guys with tattoos who looked like walking sketchpads, and any number of others who looked like they hadn’t bathed in weeks and didn’t much care. Nearly everyone was smoking or drinking something, and most striking to me and my sunny suburban disposition was that everyone looked mean. It all made me wonder what the hell I was doing there. I tried to play it cool, of course, but I was (at times) legitimately concerned for my safety.
Fortunately, such anxiety was unwarranted. Once the music started, the toughness on display in the street morphed into the kind of all-encompassing good cheer that commandeers a room when its inhabitants are joyous, happily drunk, or both. Everyone, whether getting pummeled by stage divers up front or standing cross-armed in the back, sang along with the band, and even the biggest and toughest stewards of the circle pit, that treacherous whirlpool of flailing limbs and racing bodies, smiled genially as they bulldozed the skinny kids like me off to the side and out of their way.
Admittedly, the festive atmosphere in the Pipe Dragon that night may have had something to do with Dag Nasty’s more upbeat and easy-going style of punk rock. As noted earlier, Dag Nasty didn’t play an angry and aggressive style of punk, or at least they didn’t anymore. The iteration of the band that played this show offered material that was even more melodic and palatable than that of its previous line-ups. This was the “Field Day” era of the band with Peter Cortner on vocals. Cortner had a smooth and slightly smokey voice, which was better suited to the more subdued and artistic sound the band was after at this point in its career. I didn’t mind, loved the stuff on Field Day, just like I loved the band’s earlier, edgier songs, but this was not the consensus among fans. As the Wikipedia entry on Field Day notes:
[QUOTE] It was an ambitious album, often generating sharply polarized appraisals from fans: many hated it, and many loved it. Field Day attempted to blend pop melodies with hardcore and metal riffs even further than previously attempted on Wig Out [Dag Nasty’s previous record]. The result was, at times, uneven but helped to usher in a new style of hardcore with more controlled playing, guitar effects, acoustic elements and slower tempos.5
Good vibes and slower tempos aside, the most surprising part of the show was its closeness. Yes, the band played on a stage, but it was small—just one foot or maybe two feet high—and there was nothing, no barriers or bouncers, separating us from them. In all the concert footage I’d seen on MTV and elsewhere, the gulf between audience and performer was massive. Punk, so it seemed, had done away with this, and the result was concerts that felt more like keg parties than ‘A Night at the POPS.’ I didn’t know it at the time, but this was part of the punk ethos: the eradication of us and them. There was no celebrity over here and sweating mass of nobodies over there, and while there were no pyrotechnics, lasers, light shows, or special effects, there was also no artifice and no bullshit. It was honest, pure, and raw, and it reinforced the message that music wasn’t the proprietary realm of some rarified elite. Anyone could do it — and so I did.
Somehow, I came into the possession of a bass, an amp, and a few months later formed a band with a friend from school and some other kids I knew from going to shows. (Going to punk shows was now my thing.) My inability to actually play the bass was not an impediment to being in a band. My desire to create — to be a person who made music
and not just consumed it —and a little instruction from whatever guitar player happened to be in the room were enough to get started. About a year later, after several member changes and a clandestine and ill-fated trip to DC to visit Dischord Records (which we never found), my first band (The Watchmen) played its first show at Buffalo’s erstwhile River Rock Café, the venue that became the home of Buffalo punk (and metal) shows after the Pipe Dragon shut its doors.
Thirty-five years later, I’m still playing in bands and the spirit I tapped into at that Dag Nasty show6 in 1988 is a big reason why. It not only inspired me to pick up an instrument, it encouraged me to become part of the scene, to be a producer as well as a consumer, and because I answered the call, I’ve had wonderful experiences on the road, on stage, and in studios that I’ll never forget.
Will a Taylor Swift show do anything close to that for Becky and her ilk? Maybe, but I doubt it. It’s not that Taylor Swift lacks the ability to inspire, it’s that Taylor Swift and Dag Nasty fly in different orbits, only one of them is within reach.
In fact, it’s not even a contest.
Notes:
1) 2023 National Irish Dance Championships were held in Nashville, TN, this year. That’s why I was there.
2) The Pipe dragon. The building still stands, although it’s been completely modernized and refurbished. Whenever I’m in downtown Buffalo with my kids, I make sure to drive by it and remind my kids that it was the site of my first punk show. They do not care.
3) Oh, I’m just kidding. I’m sure Becky is a lovely girl.
4) Admittedly, I have no idea if the Taylor Swift concert changed Becky’s life. Maybe Becky can stay the same and the concert did inspire her to pick up a guitar and become a country/pop singer. I hope it did, but I doubt it.
4) Info on Dag Nasty: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dag_Nasty
5) I saw Dag Nasty again in 2016, almost 28 years to the day at the Black Cat in Washington, DC, and although the element of danger was long gone, the vibe and inspiration were still as viable and vibrant as ever.
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