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hr takes flight, 1983
HR in flight from Inside View 2
Without a doubt the Bad Brains were the most incredible hardcore band of the early eighties. No one could touch them--they were so tight, so intense, and so fucking FAST that it was impossible to even concieve of a group that could stand up to them.

Paul "HR" Hudson, Earl Hudson, Gary "Dr. Know" Miller, Daryl Jennifer started playing music as a mellower jazz/funk/fusion unit called Mind Power, but that name and style only lasted one (aborted) show. The inspiration to "punk up" their look, sound and name came from Sid McCray, a friend who turned the band onto the Damned, the Dead Boys and the Ramones.

The newly christened Bad Brains played out for the first time in early 1979 and immediately blew everyone else out of the water. The circulating recordings from that era (Black Dots, a rehearsal and a handful of other studio tracks) show that the band had an intense, fast style that sounded like a normal punk band played at 78 RPM, alternating with mellower reggae moments.

Rob Kennedy, who saw the band's basement shows and arranged their first club gig, described early Bad Brains as "hardcore punk rock of the most beautiful and primal nature mixed with fusion jazz, which they could play extraordinarily well. [...] They were faster than the Ramones--they could kick the Ramones' ass coming out the fucking gate, we could see that and we knew that, because we'd seen the Ramones."

When the band played at the Bayou supporting the Damned a few months after their first show, they not only blew the headliners off the stage, but turned most of the audience--including Ian MacKaye and Henry Rollins--into rabid Bad Brains fans. Rat Scabies was another convert, and was so impressed by the band that he offered to help get them gigs in England if they ever decided to tour.

Touring wasn't on the band's itinerary yet, but they did play several months of shows at the Madam's Organ commune near Adam's Morgan (which is of no relation to the current Madam's Organ, an upscale restaurant trying to cash in on hippie nostalgia). Some free shows in DC were stopped by the police, the Atlantis club (soon to rename itself the 9:30 Club) was closed down, and the Bad Brains were having trouble with the owner's of just about every other club in town.

Eager to escape DC, the band headed to New York, playing some shows at CBGB before selling their gear to buy plane tickets to England. Unsurprisingly, they only made it as far as Heathrow Airport before being sent straight back to New York.

Penniless and homeless the band arranged a quick gig with the Stimulators and won a number of fans in the NY crowd. Several shows later and they had enough money to buy new gear and return to DC. Despite the unpleasantness of their trip to England, New York had been good to the Brains, and later that year they moved there permanently.

Around the same time HR converted to Rastafarianism, taking the band with him, and their set started to feature more and more reggae--real reggae--not the rock tinged "Clash reggae" they'd played earlier. Rastafarianism also pushed the band in a more spiritual direction, with HR's lyrics reflecting the Rastafarian viewpoint more and more--references to "I and I", Jah, Babylon, and the end times peppered their set by mid 1980. They also began speaking with faux-Jamaican accents and using Jamaican/Rastafarian slang in their everyday speech.

Despite punk's often vocal criticism of religon, there was little discussion of the religious direction the band were taking. HR's curious mix of biblical literalism, pot-smoking Rastafarianism and feelgood self help techniques, not to mention his immense personal magnetism, seemed to throw people off balance. Given that they were also an all black group in a majority white scene, the novelty factor and PC eagerness to please almost certainly had some effect as well.

hr sings, 1981
HR singing from Now What 0
In late 1981, they had recorded an album of material at 171A, a studio/rehearsal space/unlicensed club, but the band was not at all interested in seeing it released by anyone except themselves. Their financial situation was such that they couldn't possibly afford to press a record, so the sessions would remain unreleased until they could scrape together some dough.

The solution? A tour! Despite the fact that they were virtually unknown outside of New York and DC, and despite the fact that they had virtually no material on vinyl (one track on an obscure compilation, one limited edition 7", and one track from the 7" on another compilation), they not only embarked on a national tour, but began to gather material for a hardcore compilation that would dwarf any effort to date. Dozens of bands contributed tapes and a double LP was in the works for release on Bad Brains records.

The tour was well-recieved, the band were making friends across the country, and the future of the Bad Brains and Bad Brains Records looked bright until they hit California. In an interview with Flipside they showed some disturbing sentiment: HR complained that there were "too many faggots" in San Francisco, and said that their behavior, "disturbs me, makes me want to go and shoot one of them."

The Brains fled to Texas, where they showed that their homophobia was nothing, if not consistent. In Austin they played a show with the Big Boys and Dicks. They were also staying with the Big Boys' singer, Biscuit, who was an openly gay man. The story of what followed has been repeated hundreds of times, and doubtless there's exaggeration on both sides, but what it boils down to is this:

Biscuit buys the band some marijuana, with a promise of repayment from the Brains. The Brains (or more specifically, HR) learns Biscuit is gay. There are then two confronations, the first between Biscuit and HR, the second between the Bad Brains and MDC.

There was a shouting match on Biscuit's front lawn, and in place of money to pay for the marijuana Biscuit had bought them was a note saying, in effect, "Burn in hell, bloodclot faggot." The band also destroyed two posters hanging on Biscuit's walls--one featuring the pope, the other a naked man.

Around the same time MDC embarked on their national tour and devoted time to discuss the Bad Brains in every interview they did, as well as writing a song about them (Pay to Cum Along). Some of what they had to say was valid criticism, but a lot of it just seemed to be an excuse to spew some bile--in Canada, their interview with No Cause for Concern degenerated into such a nasty rag-fest that even now, 20 years later, NCFC won't publish the unedited transcript.

Daryl, 1981
Darryl playing from Now What 0
The sentiment against the Bad Brains was building steadily, and even the Meatmen, namely Tesco Vee and Mike Achtenberg, had a negative story to share:

TESCO) They played with us two nights at Bunches. They used our equipment and didn't even offer us a dime. They stayed at Mike's house!
MIKE) Yeah, for a week.
TESCO) Yeah, that's typical Bad Brains, yeah, phone bills and shit and the whole reggae philosophy...
KATIE) Jah provides.
TESCO) Yeah, Jah provides and gives us your money.
MIKE) And they did that thing to the Stains (MDC) in Texas too...
TESCO) And they ripped off the singer in the Big Boys because he was gay and they took his money and said we're not going to pay you back "you bloodclot faggot" and all that shit. The Meatmen talk about homos and attack homos because they're weak and defenseless, not because we genuinely hate them. We joke about them and call them sissies and stuff, but that's because homos can't fight back. Just like crippled children can't fight back, that's why we wrote that song and uh, I don't know...

Steve Miller, of the Fix (Mike's roommate) had a different recollection when I talked with him in 2005, "They were great house guests--the cooked for us, they cleaned, they played ping pong with us--we had a great table downstairs, and every night we'd play ping pong, and they were just terrific guests. [...] I would continue to run into them over the years and they were always terrific, always remembered me, they were just great. It's funny, I must be one of the few that's had nothing but great experiences with them."

The band's tour continued, but were dogged by constant criticism from fans. Their shows were also uneven, with HR pushing the band to drop the hardcore and play all reggae and the band often going along--sometimes playing thirty or forty minutes of reggae and five or six minutes of hardcore before abruptly walking off stage.

After the tour, Bad Brains records fizzled, and their first album finally saw release on ROIR (or maybe it was released just before the tour, but didn't start moving until afterwards? I'm kinda unclear on the chronology here). The hardcore compilation they'd been working on was shelved, as were the Bad Brains singles and EPs that were planned.

The ROIR cassette received favorable reviews, but most were offset by a disclaimer stating that it was the music the reviewers liked, not the attitude of the band. Even Steve Albini, who's infamous for his sometimes vicious gay-baiting, asked, "Is it okay to like the Bad Brains' music, even if they are dicks?"

Despite all that, the band managed to carry on touring, and the ROIR cassette sold well, as did tickets to their gigs (though they were not always met with open arms--one Philly punk referred to a Bad Brains show as a "confrontation with Jah's soldiers").

Ric Ocasek (of new wave poppers the Cars) was impressed enough with the band and produced their watered-down second album, Rock For Light, in 1983. The band split in 1984, and HR started a solo career in the funk/reggae vein he had been pushing for.

The band has reformed and split several times since then and released a number of singularly unimpressive albums. HR is still playing music, still a Rastafarian, still homophobic, and from all accounts, twenty years of drugs has taken its toll on his mental health.

[OBIK: As far as I know the biography I wrote is reasonably complete and accurate, but it's more than possible that there are mistakes and/or omissions. If you know of any, point them out!]

The picture of HR in flight came from Inside View #2, and is probably copyrighted by some guy named Marc, the pics from Now What were taken by a Malcolm...Marc, Malcolm, get in touch!. The Meatmen interview fragment came from Forced Exposure #4.

Anyone seriously interested in the history of the Bad Brains HAS to purchase "Dance of Days: Twenty Years of Punk in the Nation's Capital" by Mark Anderson and Mark Jenkins. It covers the Brains in more detail than I could ever hope to.

2006/01/20: Updated bio, added a flyer.

2005/12/31: Added some more photos..

2004/09/09: Page moved to :30 Under DC from the Dementlieu Punk Archive.

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