Ian MacKaye Quotes

An unlocked door means that, occasionally, you might get a devil come in, but a locked door means you have thousands of angels just walk by.

For most people who have or who do identify as or with [song] Straight Edge, I feel like for most people, they're just trying to do the right thing.

I just have work to do; I just do it.

I think that people are constantly thinking about capturing things that they're not actually present for the moment they're trying to capture. I'm quite sure of this. I think it's insane how many pictures have to be taken these days. We have to realize there's a level of documentation that's just chatter, it's noise, and beyond that, people who are truly documenting are going to have to find a way to puncture that.

Music is a language and different people who come along are each using that language to do something different, but all coming at it in a similar vein inasmuch as it's always community based and for the most part nonprofit. Most bands don't ever come within a mile of profit - clearly these people are not playing music to make money.

It doesn't hurt me on a personal level, but it hurts me on a larger level of like, why are people so stupid? Why do we have to go through these unnecessary exercises. Fight crime, don't fight me. If you really want to make a difference don't fight me or Fugazi.

I was into Ted Nugent, I was a Nugent guy. I was a skateboarder listening to Ted Nugent.

I'm really anti-option, so computers have been my nightmare with recording. I don't want endless tracks; I want less tracks. I want decisions to be made.

If people want new music then they are going to have to figure out a way to be patrons of the arts. And they will.

Archiving is extremely expensive and time consuming. I'm sure an archivist would tell me I'm doing it wrong. It's an industry that's built upon essential ideas, and some of those practices are abusive.

Why do we celebrate the opening of a bar so much?

When children start to speak they find their own voice by imitating the sounds around them. It would follow that bands do the same. Bands will find their own voice at some point.

When you're in a band and write a song on your own, it isn't fully realized until it goes into somebody else's ears.

Columbia Heights was a poor, messed up area, and the church was in the middle of it. What happened inside was a reflection of the community. I actually saw my first rock concert on the altar of that church [St. Stephen's].

One aspect of our site that I really appreciate is how I put up as much information as I've been able to keep track of: dates, the venue, the city, the country, the number of people there, the door price, opening bands, that sort of thing. One of the very first comments we had was from a guy who said, "By the way, the opening band in Albany in 1993 was not the Very Nice Neighbors, it was the Very Pleasant Neighbors." That brought a great joy to me.

Structures can be manipulated for ill as well, especially when people are dealing with issues of power, or control, or violence.

I mean, why do people fight over sports? Because of the framework, the schematic of sports, those particular people seize upon these opportunities to be violent. And the number one problem using the same framework would be religion.

I don't watch TV but occasionally I'll read the Washington Post. I will say that sports are the only "real thing" on television.

I jump from one thing to the next but try and strike a balance. But it's not nostalgic in the sense of 'those were the good old days and now we're not there'. I don't think like that. Not my way.

First of all, [St. Stephen's] is a radical church. It was one of the first DC churches to have gay ceremonies. A woman said mass there, which almost got a priest excommunicated there; Black Panthers spoke at the church; it was a sanctuary for civil rights protesters and anti-war protesters.

I'm not talking about what came later [after the American underground punk scene], indie music, or whatever you want to call it, but the music that came before that - that's an important story. So many interviews with musicians get the time or context wrong. You have these older bands, usually men, who tell stories about "Oh, we got into this huge fight, this guy punched that guy," that's the wrong sort of story. My view of the time is truly pioneering.

My point of view is, I'm just a person, and there are times when I look at other people and think, 'My God, they spend so much time thinking about things that seem so absurd.' But I'm sure people must think the same thing about me.

I consider the piano my 'main' instrument and have been playing for as long as I can remember. It seems to me that I might have come up with something resembling a song as early as 4 or 5 years old.

I'm not a sports dude, but I'm interested in the sociological implications of it.

What people don't understand is that the underground that existed was created in the early 80s and was thriving throughout the 80s. Until the industry showed up it was a pretty significant network. It was all happening, but the smell of money had not wafted up high enough for the industry. It wasn't really until they came descending on Seattle that things really got out of control.

I do remember seeing Godspell or Jesus Christ Superstar, one of those. It was a liberation theology venue. Anything radical seemed to be accepted there. I definitely picked up the idea there that you should question authority.

In the late 90s, there was a reverse. Everyone would stand stock still and be so attentive and quiet. But then, it was almost like, "C'mon people! Engage - make a show with us!" You can hear these different eras pass through in the recordings.

To me, music is no joke and it's not for sale.

I don't need any more avenues of communication, and frankly I think people are still working out to realize that it's just a tool[social media] rather than something that you have to do or participate in.

I'm not a religious person, and I'm not too interested in being a part of a religion, but I do like having some sort of communal gathering, and having some sense of peoples.

We were not a band that typically would say, "Hello, Whatever Town!"

There are certainly good examples of incredibly brilliant, beautiful music that has been made commercially available and sold everywhere. But I would say that, for the most part, quantity certainly does not speak well for quality.

Every song I ever wrote, I wrote to be heard. So, if I was given a choice that 50 years from now I could either have a dollar or knowing that some kid was listening to my song, I'd go with the kid listening to my song.

Trenchmouth, really great band. Here's a photo of them in 1979 playing the Valley Green projects. It was an incredible, unusual experience. We ran a cord through the window and plugged the PA and amps into that and played right in the courtyard. It was an incredible experience. It was just local kids.

The Fugazi Live Series site, when we realized the Internet, the way it works - the speeds and its development - made it possible to have one source of infinite copies, was incredible for us. Using tapes or CD's to make copies would have been so unwieldy. We have shows that have zero downloads, which makes me sad, but they're all freely available at any time. The most downloaded show was the one with the best audio quality, but I didn't think it was a very interesting show.

The first time I ever recorded, which was into my boom-box, I was like, 'Wow, check that out.' It sounded great. The narcotic of it was so intense - it was pleasurable. I was like, 'You sound like a band.' Then I ended up spending the rest of my life trying to chase that initial high again.

American business at this point is really about developing an idea, making it profitable, selling it while it's profitable and then getting out or diversifying. It's just about sucking everything up. My idea was: Enjoy baking, sell your bread, people like it, sell more. Keep the bakery going because you're making good food and people are happy.

The Corcoran show was actually almost a reportage. The exhibit was, in many ways, pretty unique. It was one of the first pieces about DC culture that doesn't include some marble building or the Kennedy Center.

Skateboarding is not a hobby. And it is not a sport. Skateboarding is a way of learning how to redefine the world around you. For most people, when they saw a swimming pool, they thought, ‘Let's take a swim.' But I thought, ‘Let's ride it.' When they saw the curb or a street, they would think about driving on it. I would think about the texture. I slowly developed the ability to look at the world through totally different means.

My focus is always on the day. What I've done behind me, I try to have respect for it, and keep an eye on it, and make sure it isn't abused, and obviously be thoughtful about it, because it's all real to me. I'm basically in every band I ever was in, and the songs, I still mean them all.

I'd much rather talk to a 30-year old that survived rough times in their lives [practicing Straight Edge] rather than someone that was harmed by a culture of violence.

I actually looked up in my journal trying to figure out some dates and, in January 1991, America is about to go back into its first sort of actual war since Vietnam, with the Gulf War. It just seemed unbelievable at the time that this country would do that - which is funny to think about now.

It's just hard to have a nuanced discussion with like a thousand people, 30 of which are white-power skinheads.

I've done thousands of interviews in my life, and it's a format that I quite enjoy, because I think of questions in interviews as an opportunity to sort of gauge my growth in a way. It gives me an idea of how I'm navigating this world that I'm in.

When people who are songwriters say 'That's my property and if you give it away for free then I'll lose my incentive,' then, well, good riddance.

All we wanted to do was to make live records all available. For us, the idea is to make it all available and let people decide which ones they like better. It's not for us to decide. We don't care about that. What we're interested in is the idea that we made these recordings, and they're not doing anybody a damn bit of good sitting in a closet.

There's also a lot of skateboard stuff, because I was a skateboarder. Somewhere around here I have one of my original boards.

I've had people call me from bands that are very popular, and they're like, "What do we do? We want to do what you do." It's almost impossible to do what I do, because you would have to start in 1980. You can't just do it.