Scott Crawford and Jim Saah's Salad Days: A Decade of Punk In Washington, DC (1980-90) has been selling out screenings in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, Seattle, Chicago, and more. The documentary film that examines the early DIY punk scene in the Nation's Capital. It was a decade when seminal bands like Bad Brains, Minor Threat, Government Issue, Scream, Void, Faith, Rites of Spring, Marginal Man, Fugazi, and others released their own records and booked their own shows-without major record label constraints or mainstream media scrutiny.
Contextually, it was a cultural watershed that predated the alternative music explosion of the 1990s (and the industry's subsequent implosion). Thirty years later, DC's original DIY punk spirit serves as a reminder of the hopefulness of youth, the power of community and the strength of conviction.
Director/writer Scott Crawford is a music journalist, musician, and graphic designer. As a teenager in the DC suburbs, he started a fanzine called Metrozine that documented much of what was happening in the DC hardcore punk scene in the 1980s.
"The DC punk music scene that I grew up with in the 1980s has always been a big part of who I am," says Scott. "I interviewed a lot of these bands for the first time over 30 years ago while doing a fanzine. Approaching them all again decades later offered a type of perspective and reflection that I wanted to capture in a film."
Crawford was also quoted in both
Dance of Days and
Banned in DC - the two most definitive books on the early DC punk scene. In 2001, he launched
Harp Magazine and served as its Editor-in-Chief for over seven years. Crawford also launched the online music portal
Blurt in 2009.
Serving as Director of Photography,
Saah is a native of Washington, DC who has worked professionally in photography and video for over 25 years. He has shot for a variety of publications and websites ranging from the
Washington Post to
Rolling Stone. He's also an experienced videographer whose credits range from union organizing films to music documentaries. Recent films he has worked on include movies about the bands Wilco, Death Cab for Cutie, and Eddie Vedder.
On a side note,
OBEY and
Shepard Fairey were heavily influenced by the DC hardcore scene. Shepard has used numerous DC hardcore legends such as Ian Mackaye of Minor Threat and Fugazi, Henry Rollins of State of Alert and Black Flag, and Bad Brains in his artwork. When hearing that Crawford and Saah were planning a West Coast release of their film,
OBEY wanted to get involved. They created this T-shirt which is on sale now (along with other cool Salad Days merchandise)
HERE.
Quick Facts:
*
Salad Days reached its Kickstarter goal in 6 days.
* Features never-before-seen photographs and performance footage of dozens of DC punk bands.
* Interviews with Ian MacKaye, Henry Rollins, John Stabb, Thurston Moore, Dave Grohl, and others
* Original score by guitarist Michael Hampton (SOA, Faith, Embrace, One Last Wish)
