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Tying up the loose ends of a life in hardcore from 1986 until yesterday lunchtime

'Punkier-than-thou' - The Wire, June 2013.

Monday 16 November 2015

Poison Idea, Ian MacKaye and that record cover: an interview with Kalv of In Your Face records


'By using my name, P.I. themselves have elevated me to a god. Surely no one would treat a human being like that' 

Ian MacKaye, July 23, 1989.
It's with those words – in that pointed, gnomic tone familiar to anyone who has listened to Minor Threat, Fugazi or any other of MacKaye's many bands – that the target of Poison Idea's ire skewers his unsolicited appearance as the title of their 1989 mini-LP. It was one of the most contentious moments in the career of the Portland, Oregon punk pioneers, no mean feat for a band who were never ones to shy away from controversy.

And those sentiments form part of a terse letter written to my friend and Geriatric Unit bandmate Kalv – who pressed the Ian MacKaye EP (grotesque cover and all) on his In Your Face label – after he alerted MacKaye (as a matter of, I suppose you could call, 'courtesy') to the fact that his name was going to be plastered all over a record cover that would eventually be deemed too obscene to be printed in the UK.