Day After Day #128: Sailin' On

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).

Sailin' On (1982)

One stereotype of early punk was that because anybody could do it, the bands couldn't play their instruments. While some certainly fit that bill, that definitely wasn't the case with Bad Brains. In addition to being killer musicians, the band also mastered a variety of genres, including hardcore punk.

The band started in 1976 in Washington, D.C., as a jazz fusion band called Mind Power, inspired by Return to Forever and Mahavishnu Orchestra. The lineup included Dr. Know (aka Gary Miller) on lead guitar, Darryl Jennifer on bass and brothers Paul Hudson (who later went by H.R.) on rhythm guitar and Earl Hudson on drums. Singer Sid McCray got the band into punk rock, after which they changed their sound and name to Bad Brains (after the Ramones song "Bad Brain"). McCray left soon afterward and H.R. switched over to lead vocals.

Their ferocious live shows helped Bad Brains grow their audience, although they were banned from many Washington, D.C. clubs because their fans tended to cause a lot of property damage (inspiring the song "Banned in D.C." on their first album. They moved to New York City in 1981 and helped grow the city's hardcore scene.

The band's self-titled debut came out in February 1982 on cassette only on Reachout International Records (ROIR), with its iconic cover art showing a bolt of lightning striking the Capitol building in D.C. The album itself showcased the band's chops, whether it was Dr. Know breaking out hard rock riffs and lightning-quick solos or the rhythm section's ability to shift between thrash to reggae and back in the same song. Bad Brains was all about dynamics, able to rock furiously, play love songs or howl against injustice. H.R. was a terrific frontman, able to dominate the stage with a collection of backflips, splits, spins and other moves; he could just as easily adapt his vocals to whatever style the band was playing. He's also credited with coming up with the term "moshing" about the punk dancing style that grew out of punk venues in D.C. in the early '80s, although he was saying "mashing" and was misunderstood because of the Jamaican accent he was using.

The debut album is full of amazing songs, including "Pay to Cum," "Attitude," "Banned in D.C.," "F.V.K. (Fearless Vampire Killers" and "Big Take Over." The leadoff track is "Sailin' On," in which H.R. sings about moving on after a relationship.

"You don't want me anymore/So I'll just walk right out the door/Played a game right from the start/I trust you, you used me, now my heart's torn apart/So I'm sailin', yeah, I'm sailin' on/I'm movin', yeah, I'm movin' on/Sail on, sail on, sail on, sail on/Yeah."

These aren't necessarily original sentiments, but they're delivered at breakneck speed by both H.R. and the band that you can't help but get fired up. Dr. Know then fires off a hot solo and the band thrashes any residual depression right out the window.

"Too many years with too many tears/Too many days with none to say/How will we know when there's nowhere to grow/And what's the facts of life to show?"

The song was re-recorded (along with several others from the first album) for the band's follow up, the Ric Ocasek-produced Rock for Light. It's a little cleaner and about 10 seconds shorter, but essentially the same song. I just gravitate to the original version because that's one I had first and it smokes.

The band signed with SST in 1986 and released I Against I, which is also excellent. H.R. sang the vocals for "Sacred Love" over the phone from jail, where he was serving time for a cannabis charge. The following year, the Hudson brothers quit to focus on reggae. Bad Brains continued on with Taj Singleton on vocals and Cro-Mags drummer Mackie Jayson; that lineup recorded the band's next album Quickness, but the Hudsons returned and H.R. redid the vocals. The lineup changes continued, with Chuck Mosley and Dexter Pinto taking over on vocals at different points. 

After Bad Brains-influenced acts like Living Colour and Fishbone had some success, Epic Records offered the band their first major label deal, with the album Rise coming out in 1993. The Hudsons once again returned in 1994 and the band opened for the Beastie Boys on the Ill Communication tour and released an album in 1995 on Maverick Records called God of Love. H.R. was starting to have some issues, both onstage and off and ended up in jail again. The band toured for a few years as Soul Brains because of some legal issues before taking their original name back. They released albums in 2007 (produced by Adam Yauch) and 2012, but have only performed sporadically since then. 

I never saw Bad Brains, but when I think of good uses for time machines, one would be to travel back to D.C. or NYC in the early '80s and see them in their heyday. The footage is just amazing.