Purchase: www.dischord.com
Here’s a band that never really was: Three was an offshoot of
two DC bands, Minor Threat (drummer Jeff Nelson) and members of Grey Matter,
with early involvement from Dischord Records creator and DC musical founding
father, Ian MacKaye. Mackaye and Nelson had just recorded a legendary (in my
town) two song project called Egg Hunt,
and were looking to form something new. Sadly, Three never got off the ground,
save for one album, a brilliant rock n roll album, far afield from the
discordant, angry nue-punk we expect from Dischord, called Dark Days Coming.
On that album, which I heard first on vinyl, which places it
in its own special category of my musical memories, is a song called Swann Street. Swann Street is anthemic in the very best ways, slow burning
through a solo acoustic guitar opening before winding up full-on with tidal
wave drums, Townshed-esque power chords, and a chorus meant to sung
stadium-sized loud.
Despite the refrain to “keep your ear to the ground”, which
is radio-worthy and demands a sing-along, there’s an odd, somewhat out of place
line, …”these berries smell like shit/I don’t know why,” which places this song
firmly in DC territory. The song is named after the street in Dupont Circle,
Swann Street, where singer Steve Niles lived. The berries are a reference to
the Gingko trees that line the streets of DC, especially in my old neighborhood
of Dupont. Famous for dropping a particularly stinky berry, everyone in DC
knows the springtime nightmare of stepping on a gingko berry and then carrying
that sticky, jellied mess into their home, grinding it in the carpet—getting it
out shoe tread is worse than dealing with dog poo. The smell of ginkgo
permeates the city in spring and never fails to make one wonder: who the hell
planted these trees? They had to know…
According to Dischord.com, where I had to turn to get a lot
of this info, Three imploded before Dark
Days Coming was released, but Grey Matter went on to release a number of
seminal Dischord albums, and in 2008, at the Black Cat’s 15 Anniversary show,
they performed a superb rendition. Hearing the audience singing along reminded
me of both what a great song this is, but also how insular, in the best way,
the DC music scene was (is). This is a
secret classic, and when I meet someone who knows this song, knows how great it
is, there is an instant bond, in the way the great songs can bind us together.
I’m not doing the song justice: I picked it because even
now, at 45, the song turns me up inside like it did when I first heard it, back
in 1990. Sometimes, when I try to put into words what songs mean, I feel like
I’m somehow taking away from the neural-spark that a great song ignites inside that
ineffable joy, a sharpening of the soul, a infinite initial reaction that,
despite the years, will always repeat.
Swann Street is a boundless,
wound-up blast; a rock anthem worthy of bands far bigger in size than Three and
it never fails to remind me of home. And, DC, despite being a seat of power and
almost always the center of the world’s attention, is really just a small town.
But, then, home should always feel that way.
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