Two live Bad Brains performances at The Bayou are the basis of “Bad Brains: Live at the Bayou,” which is being released this week for National Record Store Day Black Friday.
The explosive power of D.C. punk rockers Bad Brains is legendary, and newly discovered live recordings from 45 years ago are adding to the legend.
In a full-circle moment, the soon-to-be released double album has ties to Don Zientara’s Inner Ear Studio, in Arlington, Virginia, where Bad Brains did their first demo session.
Two live Bad Brains performances at The Bayou — at the now-defunct Georgetown fixture from July 14, 1980, and March 15, 1981 — are the basis of “Bad Brains: Live at the Bayou,” which is being released this week for Record Store Day on Black Friday.
In an interview with WTOP, Darryl Jenifer, bass player for Bad Brains, said while growing up “in the Alabama Avenue corridor,” he was aware of The Bayou, located at 3135 K Street NW, but had never seen a show there before the band’s first performance in 1979.
“Right before we were going on, we were looking for H.R.,” Jenifer said. “The amps are feeding back, and the energy was building, but where’s H.R.?”
Jenifer didn’t realize that singer Paul “H.R.” Hudson was on the balcony of The Bayou.
“I looked up, and he came flying down from up top,” laughed Jenifer. “And then, when he hit the stage, we took off.”
In Bad Brains’ earliest days, Hudson was a whirling dervish, with athletic, confident stage moves often punctuated by a standing backflip.
Jenifer collaborated on the new vinyl and CD with Zev Feldman for Time Traveler Recordings, the Grammy-nominated producer’s first release for the Montgomery County, Maryland-based label.
“I was absolutely blown away, because these recordings on ‘Live at the Bayou’ predate their entire full album discography,” Feldman said. “It basically rewrites history, it’s a new chapter and it all happened right here in the Washington area.”
‘H.R. was singing out on the back lawn’
The live recordings were restored and mastered for the project by Zientara with Inner Ear Studio.
After 32 years in a location just off Four Mile Run in South Arlington, Zientara closed that location, and Inner Ear has returned to its original location — his basement.
Zientara recalled the initial demo session with Bad Brains came about at the behest of Skip Groff, record store owner and part-time record producer. Groff died in 2019.
“They basically were in the other room … with the amplifiers, and the drum set,” Zientara said. “H.R. was singing outside on the back lawn — we ran a microphone and headphones out there.”
Zientara said Bad Brains were held in high regard by the younger punks in what became D.C.’s hard core scene, including Ian MacKaye, who cofounded Dischord Records.
“In 1979-80, not only did we have this great local band, we actually had the greatest band in the world playing in Washington,” MacKaye told WTOP in 2016 when Bad Brains was nominated for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. They didn’t get in.
Zientara said, “Bad Brains was something else,” in terms of their songwriting and engrossing performance, which he believes inspired younger musicians.
“When you see someone doing their craft well, they could point to Bad Brains and say, ‘See, this is the way to do it,’” Zientara said. “They were upping the ante.”
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