eyewitness
Capitol Gritty
Henry Rollins gives a guided tour of Washington DC’s punk underground
To hear Henry Rollins tell it, the punk rock groundswell that surged through the D.C. underground in the ’80s—and bred such seminal bands as Teen Idles, Minor Threat, and Fugazi—was started by a bunch of weirdos. They’d band together and listen to live music at safehouses like the Wilson Center (a community hall) where jocks and Marines couldn’t call them “faggots” or pummel them into oblivion for the clothes and haircuts they wore.
“If you weren’t up for being a quarterback or going to a Fleetwood Mac concert, then this was your alternative,” says Rollins.
Now better known as a muscle-bound fount of positive rage, back in the nascent days of the D.C. punk scene, Rollins was a slim kid working 60-hour weeks at Häagen-Dazs slinging pralines and cream and rainbow sherbet to Georgetown kids. He hired Ian MacKaye, the future cofounder of Dischord Records, and Susie J. Horgan, a transient would-be photographer, to work with him as soda jerks. Now, more than two decades later, the three have reunited, to collaborate on Punk Love—a book of Horgan’s shots from the Wilson Center days, making for a raw and vivid document of the D.C. punk scene in the 1980s.
For Rollins, who wrote Punk Love’s foreword with MacKaye, the book is a love letter to the era and place he calls home. “I’m still the guy from the ice cream shop,” he says. “I’ve never left the minimum wage scene. I live fathoms below my means. I drive a fucking Subaru.”
For the following excerpt from Punk Love, Rollins sat down with Radar to offer background on what was happening when some of his favorite shots were taken, and, in a few cases, on what was happening just out of frame.—Tyler Gray
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