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BORN AGAINST
notes on "The Rebel Sound of Shit and Failure" and "Nine Patriotic Hymns
for Children + Battle Hymns of the Race War"
Living from day to day when you are on fire with a
gigantic idea is not only hard on you, but on those who must live with
you.
- George Lincoln Rockwell
Bands may feel like larger, more complicated
marriages to those involved, but they rarely act like divorces after the
fact. Not many failed marriages are followed by years of enduring merchandise
and reissue questions. And not many ex-couples come under such pressure,
internal and external, to reunite. Since there really is no threat of
a Born Against reunion, this month's CD reissues on Kill Rock Stars will
have to do duty as the band's 21st century comeback. Double duty, actually;
Vermiform Records, B.A.'s parent label I started in 1990 with a surprise
lump of family cash, has recently gone belly up. For a few years Vermiform
was like my private jumbo jet, able to take me anywhere in comfort and
style. Then, for a long period, it was like a crashed jet whose hull would
at least protect me from the elements. Only last year did the sheltering
metaphor enter its inevitable third phase - Vermiform had become a sinking
jet at sea, one whose carcass I would have to quickly find my way out
of before being dragged down into the depths. There are many bad parts
to this bankruptcy, but loss of the Born Against catalog is not one of
them. I'm happy to finally get some distance from this stuff, and honored
that KRS would so readily agree to raise these two little orphans (Prank
takes on the vinyl, starting next month, for which I am similarly thankful).
Although Born Against was a part of a small,
influential hardcore revival in the early 90's, I should note that this
was a band formed in and shaped by the eighties. B.A was ambushed by 1991,
blindsided not just by the year's bookend political shocks - war in the
gulf and collapse of the USSR - but by cultural mutations, by grunge and
Riot Grrrl, by the popularity of Fugazi and Lollapalooza. Of course, some
of this is a little hard to remember. I try to describe my reasoning from
this era to friends now, and all I can compare it to is the freaked out
logic of cokeheads. Much hysteria was afoot during this band's tenure.
Friendships were severed over petite inanities, under the guise of "calling
people on their shit". Incoherent arguments were had. Bad writing was
published. Speeches were given.
Two summers ago I arrived at the
Gilman Street club in Berkeley with Men 's Recovery Project. An hour later,
after our bass player announced he would not be playing the night's show,
or any other shows on the three week tour across America, we set up a
small, humbled merchandise table with fresh Born Against shirts, the only
products certain to sell. This is an enduring ceremony of the touring
band; convert merchandise into cash, convert cash into food, convert food
into cellular energy to survive.
But Born Against itself was acquainted
with this survival ceremony on an opt-out basis. The band had an underwriter.
There is no way to honestly write about all this without addressing my
money situation. And there is no way to address my money situation without
treading into territory far too personal and painful to make public. So
for years I just didn't discuss the band. Observers have since noted the
obvious - that it is obnoxious for those with funds to critique those
without funds, especially over issues where money is involved (and certainly
there is something deeply gross about a song like "Well Fed Fuck" when
sung by someone who is in the process of shedding a small personal fortune).
This internal contradiction might have become an overpowering obstacle,
if certain staggering mental problems on my part hadn't made the issue
moot by '93. When the last of the money dribbled away that spring, my
financial ineptitudes were included in a list of indictments by the same
New York crowd I had helped financially even a year earlier. It's not
exactly karma for cokehead behavior, but it's close enough.
The band probably would have been doomed
to irrelevance even if it hadn't lost its financing. Shows that in 1989
had attracted middle aged hippy couples and kindly squatters and benevolent,
bucktoothed skinheads were, by 1993, a sea of disinterested young boys
with backpacks. At a certain point, time invested outweighed artistic
potential. Our last practice was held in Tonie Joy's basement (a joyful
little museum cavern of lost junk, one of three underutilized treasures
of the final incarnation of the band, along with drummer Brooks Headley
and Tonie himself). Afterwards I walked down the quiet rural Annapolis
street until I was completely alone, leaned on an aluminum guardrail and
blubbered like a schoolgirl. I was crying not only out of band grief but
because one of my last tenuous links to a normal life had just been severed.
I was heading into a few terrible years of rootlessness; no job, no money,
no girlfriend, no ambitions. The thin line separating me from the sad
souls I saw in our audiences had been this band.
So these aren't the best memories to have
been the gatekeeper of. I'm grateful to those who take on the responsibilities.
Good luck with the CDs, Slim, Tobi, Tina, Maggie, Sasa, Aaron and Tricia.
Good luck with the vinyl, Ken. Have fun with this stuff.
Sam McPheeters
February 2003
PS - If you like these records, I recommend buying one or both of the
Articles Of Faith CD reissues, released on Alternative Tentacles this
last fall. My liner notes are better, but in all other respects AOF were
a towering JFK to Born Against's chubby Bill Clinton.
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