Ian Mackaye meets Bad Brains and invents hardcore

NO MERE THREE-CHORD punk dullards, Washington DC's Bad Brains had chops to spare. They'd started as jazz-fusion quintet Mind Power, worshipping at the altar of John McLaughlin's Mahavishnu Orchestra until they discovered the Sex Pistols. Refashioning themselves as Bad Brains, these four Rastafarians played whip-tight punk rock at nosebleed velocity, also dropping occasional Jah-praising dub jams into their setlists. Such efforts won Bad Brains a ban from every club in their hometown.