Dischord Records Family Tree

In 1982 I spent some time living at Dischord House, the famed headquarters of Dischord Records and home to several musicians including label co-founders Jeff Nelson and Ian Mackaye, both of whom were also members of the seminal Washington DC hardcore punk band, Minor Threat. During my stay there I had the opportunity to talk with Jeff and Ian on many occasions about the history of their bands and of the DC punk scene in general. On one of those occasions Jeff cut a piece from a cardboard box and proceeded to outline the history of the Dischord family of bands for me. I thanked him and tucked the cardboard into my camera bag, eventually bringing it home with me to North Carolina. Being a documentarian (a calling that's often unjustly mistaken for being a packrat), I cataloged and filed the artifact (i.e., I put it in a box of fanzines and show fliers) where it has remained relatively unharmed for close to thirty years now.

The family tree begins at top center with the Slinkees in June of 1979 and traces the evolution of the DC hardcore scene down to the then-current (April '82) line-ups of Minor Threat (after re-forming in the days just before my arrival in DC), Faith, Youth Brigade, Double-O, Artificial Peace, and Government Issue. In recent years I've seen a similar family tree of Jeff's creation published somewhere, in more comprehensive and more legible form, but this cardboard document from the past still fascinates me.