Time Warp Tuesday: MDC

It's rare that you can tell what kind of music a band plays based solely on their name.  U2?  Interpol?  The Dave Matthews Band?  Such is not the case with hardcore punk.  Often bands that play within this subset of music make it very clear what they want you to think.  The Dead Kennedys?  Black Flag?  The Circle Jerks?  Probably moreso than any of those bands, the one hardcore punk act that truly offered up a very clear statement of rebellion was a relatively obscure group of Austin-ites known as Millions of Dead Cops.

MDC "My Family is a Little Weird"

Devoid of anything even remotely resembling subtlety or irony, the band immediately positioned itself as a very stark contrast to the more elusive, and often intentionally difficult, bands in the rival post-punk scene of the era.  MDC wasn't going to bury their messages in difficult prose, they were going to bludgeon you to death with their slogans.  If Ronald McDonald wasn't pushing corporate deathburgers then lead singer Dave Dictor was throwing his own homosexuality back in the face of a freedom-loving-until-someone-uses-that-freedom country by asking, "What makes America so straight and me so bent?"  This often led to the band having to confront harsh truths even within the the supposedly open-minded confines of its own hardcore scene, such as when the band, and friend Randy Turner of the Big Boys, ran afoul of Rastafarian punks Bad Brains over Turner's homosexuality.  Never a group to shy away from controversy, MDC responded into the only way they knew how: direct confrontation.

MDC "Pay to Come Along"

In what is probably befitting a band that cared so little about mainstream recognition, MDC is probably one of the few bands of the hardcore era that hasn't gotten the critical reassessment it deserves.  Where a band like Black Flag has had its various eras reevaluated in a far kinder critical light then once offered (My War), and The Circle Jerks are seeing a resurgence in popularity due to lead singer Keith Morris' new work in OFF!, MDC is one of the few bands from the early hardcore era that seems oddly left out.  In a musical climate that today offers non-ironic, nigh-humorless firebrands like M.I.A. and Xiu Xiu, it would seem like MDC's brand of hammer-you-over-the-head sloganeering would be ready for rediscovering.

MDC - "John Wayne Was a Nazi"

MDC - "Corporate Deathburger"