I was browsing through Yottamusic's catalog today when I found, amazingly, that Rhapsody had added the bulk of Dischord Records' roster to their library. This is very exciting to me. I don't always like Dischord music enough to buy it on LP (although Dischord CDs and LPs are always $10 postage paid), and I'm sure I can just borrow it from Alex anyway. I used to grab stuff from Emusic, but I haven't been a member there for a while. So, to Ian Mackaye and his label: DRM might be a great evil of the world and enemy to music, but thanks for making your music available in all formats.

For those who don't know, this includes a glut of great mostly DC hardcore, including some originals (Minor Threat, SOA), those bands that branched out and created emo (Rites of Spring, Embrace, Dag Nasty), those that went zen (the mighty Lungfish), and those that featured the Foo Fighters' Dave Grohl (Scream).

In tribute, here is a great video of Ian Mackaye ripping on the term "emo" some 20 years before its goofy resurgence. (Video description on the Youtube permalink has the transcript if you can't hear him)

For those who don't know, emo:

1. is short for emotional
2. cropped up in the past year
3. involves wearing hair over half your face and cutting yourself
4. is a global network of kids who are all connected and rank themselves on the internet
5. is committing a social injustice by supplanting goth (invented by Marilyn Manson in the late 90s) as the lowest rung on the youth social ladder
6. occupies 87% of Alex's iTunes library.

OK, that being out of the way, I have a bridge to sell you. No seriously, at least two of those things are partially true. But that kind of info can be dangerous in the hands of well-meaning but cripplingly stupid parents, television reporters, and police. Especially when they take things that are obviously jokes (I can tell just by looking but a trained law officer can't?) and turn them into "dangerous behavior."

Guy Picciotto may have already been reaching for the pink hair dye, but this video (sent by Gavin) would make even Jeremy Enigk grow a mustache and start hanging out with Weird Al...



UPDATE: I just remembered that, while working in a rock shop at a Renaissance festival of all places, this girl of say, 14 came up to me. She said, "I like your glasses. Are you emo like me?" I could have said "no, I'm Elvis Costello," but that would have gone over her head. So I said "No. I'm self-employed."