[mp3] HIGH-BACK CHAIRS

High-Back Chairs - "One Small Step" (mp3)

When Ian MacKaye and Jeff Nelson started Dischord records, they had played together in Teen Idles and recently formed Minor Threat. Dischord's business ethics are still a good example for many small labels, while Minor Threat's humorless, sanctimonious, brutal style of hardcore is still a bad example for many bands... I guess there's symmetry in life. Anyway, the High-Back Chairs' records sounded like little else on Dischord, but they had Jeff Nelson on the drums, so Dischord put them out. The result: this song is hated by far, far more punk rockers than any other obscure power-pop tune you could name.

But what a song! I don't know if it's the hardcore roots or what, but singer Peter Hayes rolls through the words with utter glee, extending "tele-vis-ee-an" to fill an entire line and punctuating every chorus with that offhand "when Dad was president". He constantly belts out melodies that by rights should each have been a monster bassline redeeming a third-rate song about veganism somewhere else in DC. Thirteen years later, Dischord has more variety in their roster but I still love this song.

[From 1992's Curiosity And Relief. Click to buy it from Dischord.]

[[Without meaning to, I guess I've acquired a mental list of parent-related lyrics. This song is on there, along with Tracy + The Plastics shouting "Your mom is mas cute!", Mark Kozelek singing "You're not as good as your mom, but you're as good as daaaaaad" and Too Much Joy opening an album with "Dad sold the house / Now I'm homeless too". Too?]]