Always Read The Label: Dischord

Back in 1980 when the cornerstones for Dischord Records were laid, an 18 year-old Ian Mackaye is unlikely to have envisaging the passing of a 26th anniversary for the record company he co-founded. Yet still he speaks with a verve for music which cannot have been diluted from those days spent finalising break up of his early band, Teen Idles. It was, he explains, circumstantial necessity that Dischord should rise from these ashes.

"We as a band saved all the money we made in a band fund, so when we broke up there was a discussion about what to do with the money: split it four ways or take our demo tape and make a record."

The idea may seem like common practice in this age but Mackaye explains the politics were quite different back in the formative Washington DC punk scene. "There was some concern that we were selling out because we were making a record. At that time it seemed kind of 'Why are you making a record? You're a punk band!' So because of sensitivity about this we said, well, if any money comes back from this project then we're going put out another band. The DC Punk Scene was people who were our friends… the idea was to document the community."

And document they have. A raft of new releases from the label have reached fruition this past month, each with a sound that seems rather far removed from a stable manned by one of the most influential people in the growth of Hardcore music. Soccer Team's album 'Volunteered Civility & Professionalism' is a record of crafty and layered indie rock and Fugazi bassist Joe Lally's solo release 'There to Here' is a sparse, minimalist voyage through the intelligent and lyrical world of one man and his classic ear for a great bass line. "It evolves naturally, I hope!" Mackaye says, "That's the idea. You continue to get a sort of organic hue of particular communities."

DC-based bands The Channels and French Toast have also just released through Dischord and Mackaye is celebratory about the diversity of them. "I think they're all quite different records and I love that. Dischord has forever and ever been tagged with this sort of myth that there's a "Dischord sound". I think these records are all great records, they're all different and I think that they continue to defy the myth that there is one strict, orthodox sound to our releases."

One bond that seems vital to the construction of the Dischord community is the 'do-it-yourself' ethic: recording, producing and distributing everything in-house. "We did it ourselves because that was the only way it was going to get done. We live in Washington DC, there's no music industry here." Indeed, The Teen Idles release indeed proved a real voyage of discovery in terms of DIY.

"When we turned to artwork we really had no idea. In America at the time we didn't have 7" picture sleeves, it was just white with the hole cut in it. We took apart one of the 7" import picture sleeves we had bought and we carefully unglued it to see how it was put together, you know, the flaps were folded in and glued. We could see the basic schematic of the sleeve and we laid it out on a bit of paper and traced it and Jeff [Nelson, co-founder of Dischord and band mate] just put graphics and pictures inside those lines. We got it printed 1000 times and using scissors we each cut out the shapes by hand, folded and glued them and put the record and lyric sheets inside. It really was not like 'Oh, this is some "do-it-yourself" thing'."

The early methods of Mackaye and Nelson were utterly unique and gained them some notoriety, leading to some unfair tagging in the industry that Mackaye is keen to set straight. "I don't really consider Dischord exclusive: we're limited in our means and we're selective in what we put out, not because we think some music is better than other music, but because some people's temperaments make more sense in terms of the eccentricities of our label." Mackaye is candid about the way he perceives the differences between his label and the 'mainstream' way of things, but he has no desire to crusade against 'The Man'.

"Of course there are parts of the music business we hear about and we think "Well, that sucks" and I think a lot of people like to think that the work we do is sort of reactive, it's not: it's proactive. I just want to make records… I'm not interested in stopping people from doing things their way but I am interested in not letting people block me and my business."

So where does the man who helped kick off the snowball of Hardcore music stand on the modern-day mainstream bastardisation of punk and emo? "I'm not a categorist. If you and I were talking on our own and you said 'This is Grindcore' I might be able to grasp roughly what you're talking about but in larger terms, like an interview, I would never use terms like that; they're completely absurd. What is hardcore? What does it mean? Major companies will say 'Well, this is the way punk looks, and this is the way punk sounds' and then all of sudden bands come out and say 'Yes! We are this category!' which is just all marketing, and I don't give a fuck about marketing."

In this light, it seems a little too rude to point out that Ian Mackaye's former band Embrace are categorised as a forebearer of Emotional Hardcore, so The Skinny listens with interest as he speaks of the early days in this current vogue in rock. "The term 'Emo-core', I can tell you straight-up that that term was derisive from the start. A friend of mine here in Washington was making fun of bands, joking that, you know, this is 'Football-core' and this is 'Emo-core': all the different 'cores.' It became this insult: I don't think it did, I know it did, and I know exactly who did it… At some point though it became that people embraced it and people actually started taking it seriously." So there you have it.

Eschewing categories is what makes Ian Mackaye tick. "I tend to use the term 'punk-rock' liberally because that was the portal to the underground for me, I think of it as the free space, the area where ideas can be presented and where profit is not the singular motivation. My discovery of the underground led me into this incredible journey of immense sound and music that exists underneath the radar of the major label industry… Why fill your hours with the music that is the most deliberately commercially manipulative? I'd much rather listen to people who are not trying to make money."

The path seems a well-trodden one for Ian Mackaye, who has committed a quarter of a century to doing things the way he feels they should be done. Time enough, for sure, for him to be able to articulate exactly what he needs from music and exactly what Dischord's purpose in the industry truly is.

"The question is this, 'Can the musician or musicians throw down? Can they make music that affects a change in other people? Can they create music that resonates in a way that makes people think they can't miss a show and they have to hear it?"

"Music is a form of communication that predates language and it's not something that's for sale, so if you're going to play this stuff, you've got to honour it. That's all that matters to me."