On November 4, the hardcore punk world lit up when Henry Rollins of Black Flag seemingly announced a collaborative album with Ian MacKaye of Fugazi/Minor Threat. The idea of two punk legends making an album together felt like Christmas came early.
However, on November 11, Rollins took to his website to clear up a major misconception about the news. It turns out he and McKaye didn’t make a collaborative album after all. There’s new music coming, but neither of them appears on it. Instead, this was exclusively a remastering, mixing, and design role for both of them.
“Last week I told you that I went up to DC and mixed some tracks with Ian MacKaye at Inner Ear Studios in beautiful Arlington, VA,” Rollins began in his blog post. “The tracks we mixed were not a collaborative effort, besides the mixing itself. I am not on the tape. Ian is not on the tape. Neither of us are on the tape.”
Instead, he continued, “What we were working on was a demo, recorded in 1979, by a legendary Punk band that recently came into my possession.” Rollins didn’t reveal the name of the band, but explained more of the process behind the project.
Punk World Left Reeling From News of Henry Rollins and Ian MacKaye Collaboration
Punk diehards took the initial news with excitement and anticipation, looking forward to what sounded almost too good to be true. Those hopes are dashed, but Henry Rollins hasn’t left fans with nothing. This is good news, too.
Rollins explained that he restored the 1979 recordings with Pete Lyman at Infrasonic Sound in Nashville. Then he gave them to Ian MacKaye to get them set up at Inner Ear Studio.
“The mix came together quite quickly because it was only eight tracks on one inch tape and the quality of the sounds were so good out of the gate, very little had to be done. The performances are fantastic,” wrote Rollins. He and McKaye listened to the tracks over and over to find anything that needed fixing. But, he said, “neither of us could find anything wrong with the work.”
After contacting a member of the band for permission to release the tracks, Rollins shared that Lyman then mastered the final recordings.
“I’m going to be working in collaboration with Larry Hardy at In The Red Records and we’ll be releasing the demo as soon as possible, as a four song 12”,” Rollins concluded.
Bad news for punks who were looking forward to a Rollins/MacKaye collab. (Although the sheer power inherent in something like that would probably have altered reality in a weird, incomprehensible way.) Unfortunately, we’ll never know about that. On the flip side, getting access to some lost 1979 punk recordings will probably make up for it.
Photo by Kylie Else/Newspix/Getty Images
The post “Neither of Us Are on the Tape”: So… Henry Rollins and Ian MacKaye Didn’t Actually Make an Album Together appeared first on VICE.
