Students filed into the Ward building Tuesday, Nov. 29 to attend a discussion event with Ian MacKaye, an influential musician that helped create today’s D.C. music scene.
The singer, songwriter, and label-owner (just to name a few) is best known for his part in the bands The Teen Idles, Embrace, Fugazi and Minor Threat. Currently, MacKaye lives in the District, where he was born and raised, and is a co-founder and owner of the independent record label, Dischord Records.
The majority of the discussion focused around the music industry today, and how it has changed since the 1970s, when MacKaye started to gain interest in the punk rock movement.
“There was nothing going on here in the ’70s,” MacKaye said. “If you grew up here, people were playing music but the idea was if you wanted to be in a band, you had to go to New York. But how could this be that creativity, drive, passion, could all just be in New York and nowhere else? That didn’t make sense to me. Instead we just did what we wanted to do, when we wanted to do it and started playing shows around D.C.”
MacKaye further discussed his experiences as a part of the early punk rock world, stating that, “The opposite of punk rock at the time: college. You were either a punk or you went to college. Simple as that.”
MacKaye focused much of his discussion around his own beliefs about music, the Internet, marketing and other big business aspects of the music industry.
“When people say that records don’t sell anymore, I don’t particularly think that is true,” he said. “But in today’s world, downloading music has become a big thing. Downloading music online is fine. I made music for people to listen to, but refusing to pay for this music is the problem. When you download music for free, you are investing in the past. The music industry needs income to survive, so if this free downloading continues then the only thing that will be left soon enough: the past.”
Putting the corporate aspect of music aside, MacKaye discussed what he thought is the most important aspect of music.
“What was relevant to me was making music with the people that I care about, for the people that I care about,” he said. “Don’t worry about making it in this industry. If you are worried about making it then you already lost, because you aren’t in it for the music. Just do what you love, do something. You can’t lose if you are just doing something.”
But MacKaye’s advice for anyone interesting in becoming a part of the D.C. music scene, was “write a song that people want to hear and believe in your own music.”
