Best 102 quotes of Ian Mackaye on MyQuotes

1991 for some people was a significant year in terms of punk rock. It was the year "punk broke".

American business at this point is really about developing an idea, making it profitable, selling it while it's profitable and then getting out or diversifying. It's just about sucking everything up. My idea was: Enjoy baking, sell your bread, people like it, sell more. Keep the bakery going because you're making good food and people are happy.

An unlocked door means that, occasionally, you might get a devil come in, but a locked door means you have thousands of angels just walk by.

Archiving is extremely expensive and time consuming. I'm sure an archivist would tell me I'm doing it wrong. It's an industry that's built upon essential ideas, and some of those practices are abusive.

As far as the bands that are reforming now, it's always nice to see old friends and hear some of those great songs, but it's just not our thing.

As hard as you try and create narratives about sports, once the ball is in the air, there's not a damn thing you can do about it, it's just very real.

At every election, my vote goes to the candidate less likely to declare war. You're dropping hugely expensive pieces of exploding metal on a population. America deserves the president it gets, whether the country votes for them or allows their vote to be stolen, and the least we can do is to elect someone who won't do that to other people.

Bars are meeting places and places to unwind. But at some point, what is culture unwinding from, and why can't they meet anywhere else?

Columbia Heights was a poor, messed up area, and the church was in the middle of it. What happened inside was a reflection of the community. I actually saw my first rock concert on the altar of that church [St. Stephen's].

Every song I ever wrote, I wrote to be heard. So, if I was given a choice that 50 years from now I could either have a dollar or knowing that some kid was listening to my song, I'd go with the kid listening to my song.

First of all, [St. Stephen's] is a radical church. It was one of the first DC churches to have gay ceremonies. A woman said mass there, which almost got a priest excommunicated there; Black Panthers spoke at the church; it was a sanctuary for civil rights protesters and anti-war protesters.

For most people who have or who do identify as or with [song] Straight Edge, I feel like for most people, they're just trying to do the right thing.

Getting your letters or pictures digitized. I don't think it's that important. The more you spend on your materials, you're given the sense that those things are more important due to the total amount spent. You'd probably be better off giving that money to a soup kitchen.

Guy Picciotto had a really sound point: Live albums basically have bands playing songs that are available on studio records, and what example can you think of where the live album is better? What are the great live albums? I have live albums of bands, but I wouldn't listen to them for the most part. So we thought, instead of spending energy trying to puzzle out how to create a live record, let's just write another studio record.

I actually looked up in my journal trying to figure out some dates and, in January 1991, America is about to go back into its first sort of actual war since Vietnam, with the Gulf War. It just seemed unbelievable at the time that this country would do that - which is funny to think about now.

I always appreciate when people save, and more importantly, share. As we speak, there are people in this world - mostly men - who have giant collections of recordings that no one will ever hear. And the value of that collection is almost defined by the fact that nobody else can hear it.

I consider the piano my 'main' instrument and have been playing for as long as I can remember. It seems to me that I might have come up with something resembling a song as early as 4 or 5 years old.

I'd much rather talk to a 30-year old that survived rough times in their lives [practicing Straight Edge] rather than someone that was harmed by a culture of violence.

I do feel like I have always, in my life, been inclined to be on the outside, walk a different path or something. Because of that, and increasingly over the years, my sense of distance from mainstream society or from the way culture works, I have a different kind of perception of it.

I do not consider myself a teddybear. Just to be clear, I don't feel sorry for myself.

I don't need any more avenues of communication, and frankly I think people are still working out to realize that it's just a tool[social media] rather than something that you have to do or participate in.

I don't think it's an ethical or moral issue, or even that people are stupid, but I do feel like as a culture things are out of balance, perverted, and inverted. Things that are ridiculous are worshipped, and things that are important are ridiculed. I think that's something worth thinking about.

I don't watch TV but occasionally I'll read the Washington Post. I will say that sports are the only "real thing" on television.

I do remember seeing Godspell or Jesus Christ Superstar, one of those. It was a liberation theology venue. Anything radical seemed to be accepted there. I definitely picked up the idea there that you should question authority.

I feel quite connected to the past, and my memory. Everything that I've ever done I can still relate to, and feel connected to it in a way. There's no part of my life that I look at and go, 'I don't recognize that person at all.

If people want new music then they are going to have to figure out a way to be patrons of the arts. And they will.

I had a bartender friend once tell me about a $14.00 shot of vodka, this was years ago it's probably more now. I thought that was crazy. From what I understand, vodka has no taste. I think people like the taste of their money.

I have a lot of stuff. Slowly I'm getting all my materials organized.

I have other projects to do. I try not to let that documentation interfere with my present day.

I have stuff from 1979, 1980 in my collection. But I also have things from 2012. So I don't know if it's memorabilia as much as it is holding on to things that I find relevant that most people might not.

I have thousands of tapes, and photos and fliers, letters, posters, artwork - basically everything that ever happened, I kept. I'm not a hoarder, though. I'm sort of a librarian.

I jump from one thing to the next but try and strike a balance. But it's not nostalgic in the sense of 'those were the good old days and now we're not there'. I don't think like that. Not my way.

I'm a fifth generation Washingtonian and I was born and raised here. My kid's a sixth generation Washingtonian. Honestly I wish people didn't move because I love the people of the city.

I'm all for file sharing. That's great - as long as people are prepared for the significant consequences. One is that music will become completely couched in advertising. That's already happened. And another is that people should be prepared to have fun with the past because the only music that can possibly be free is the music that's from the past. It costs money to make music. And if people are prepared to only have the past to listen to, then let it be free.

I'm always happy when I hear about people selling records or selling books or selling movies. It makes me proud of them.

I'm basically in every band I ever was in, and the songs, I still mean them all. I don't take anything back, so I do look after them to some degree. But my main focus is on what I'm doing now.

I mean, why do people fight over sports? Because of the framework, the schematic of sports, those particular people seize upon these opportunities to be violent. And the number one problem using the same framework would be religion.

I'm not a religious person, and I'm not too interested in being a part of a religion, but I do like having some sort of communal gathering, and having some sense of peoples.

I'm not a sports dude, but I'm interested in the sociological implications of it.

I'm not a sports guy. However it's interesting to be in a place where people have a sporting fever. One time I was in Italy during one of the European soccer cups, and it's interesting because it's so electrifying.

I'm not talking about what came later [after the American underground punk scene], indie music, or whatever you want to call it, but the music that came before that - that's an important story. So many interviews with musicians get the time or context wrong. You have these older bands, usually men, who tell stories about "Oh, we got into this huge fight, this guy punched that guy," that's the wrong sort of story. My view of the time is truly pioneering.

I'm really anti-option, so computers have been my nightmare with recording. I don't want endless tracks; I want less tracks. I want decisions to be made.

I never, ever had it in my mind that I wanted to be in the record industry, because I still contend that the record industry is an insidious affair. It's this terrible collision between art and commerce, and it will always be that way.

In the 90s, there was a yahoo factor where there would be 50 people crowd surfing at one time! It was insane, and it had nothing to do with the music.

I obviously use computers. My car is wondrous. My phone is amazing. I've already talked about the music I'm digitizing. Technology is fantastic, of course.

I put my name on that Occupy Musicians list because someone wrote to me and said, "Would you do this?" I said, "Yeah sure, I support this." What artist wouldn't support that? What's the big deal? But then people wrote to me, "Wow! You're on that list!" And I'm like, "Who isn't on that list?" That would be more shocking.

It doesn't hurt me on a personal level, but it hurts me on a larger level of like, why are people so stupid? Why do we have to go through these unnecessary exercises. Fight crime, don't fight me. If you really want to make a difference don't fight me or Fugazi.

I think about Dischord. There's been a pretty consistent notion that Dischord have been some sort of "overlords" of the scene. Some people have felt 'they are too cool for us,' or 'they won't put this out,' etc. All we're doing is our own work, our own thing. That's all we've ever done. Our work.

I think it's my nature to engage in things that are more difficult.

I think sometimes my humor is extremely dry, and a lot of times I would say things that I thought were very funny but... I have a reputation of - people think of me as a very fundamentalist, humorless fellow.