Dischord Records

Oh, you did? Yeah, I love Shutter to Think.

I mean, I was a big Discord fan anyways.

Like, you know, love Fugazi, and they were on...

One of their songs, Red House, was on a Discord comp.

And maybe 9th or 10th grade, I got that.

And it was on their album, Funeral at the Movies.

So I discussed it a little bit in the Dinosaur Jr. episode that like, You know, even Outkast, we're trying to be more of Outkast than the Outkast.

So like, I love Discord Records.

So Shadow Riot's the, you know, kind of my main band, but I'm doing a duo thing with Devin Ocampo.

And we actually just put out a CD that Discord has, Discord Direct has.

It's on Bandcamp as well.

I've been working with Devin.

I don't know if you know Devin's work, but he's, actually he's had a band, Farrakhet, that I highly recommend you check out that actually have been doing some shows recently.

They were on Discord.

I think their...

I mean, their record came out quite a while.

He calls the songs full of overbearing cynicism and innocuous cliches.

He rips on Chad and Rachel Burke's vocals and tears apart Discord Records, the label that released it, for quashing creativity by forcing bands to conform to the Discord sound.

But the thing that stands out when reading it from the modern days is the reviewer's critique of Won't You Be Mine.

I'm a black man.

This is not something a white person could do or should do.

The reviewer ponders why the song starts with a sample of Mr. Rogers saying, won't you be my neighbor, without remarking on the show's history of anti-racist activism, and saying the lyrics, quote, vaguely hints at a discourse on race relations.

I remember being nervous about it, presenting it to Discord, the label, Ian McKay, who was the leader of Fugazi and Minor Threat, Discord's very much highest-selling bands, most culturally influential.

I would have understood if he had said, This song makes me nervous or this song makes me uncomfortable or I'm not sure if I can get behind this.

We had a five week US tour planned.

We had a record out on Discord.

Ian McKay had produced it.

We were selling records.

... did that give you more career ambition for the project, rather than just, "We're doing this for fun with our local scene"?

You know, i- i- in a way it was, it was really validating and exciting, but I think because our peers at the time and the people that we really looked up to had their own labels, so they were labels that were from a scene like Dischord or K Records in Olympia, and so I think that those were the labels that were probably more in our sights.

DC, yeah, Dischord only put out bands from DC, and even though I grew up there and I'm technically from there, our band really wasn't.

Yeah.

So we never felt like we were gonna ask to be on that label.

Uh, the latest or greatest record that you've bought.

The greatest record I ever bought was I... via mail order to Dischord Records, the Rites of Spring self-titled album.

Wow.

What a record.

It's a good question.

Like, I gotta think it probably was Brian Loet, Loet Records, working at Dischord, probably suggested it because it would be cheap.

Um, and I, that, that, you know, cheap is the wrong...

Frugal, smart.

Right.

So if you look, if anyone out there, check out Dischord Records.

Embrace-

I'm gonna check it out, 'cause I, I-