One of the coolest things I’ve seen in a while is the Yellow Arrow Capitol of Punk website. It offers a walking tour of the city’s important hardcore history.
The idea is that you download and print a pdf map, then go on the tour in the real world. Pick a starting point on the map, SMS a number and you’ll get a text message back about the significance of that site, and telling you how to get to the next location. If you’re equipped with a video iPod or similar device, you can subscribe to the video podcast and take a little video documentary on the tour with you.
For those of us who are interested but aren’t in DC, the website uses a modified Google Maps interface — when you click on one of the starting points, a bubble pops up so you can watch the documentary online. You can sort of see the neighbourhood by looking at the map, and the video follows the route between the stops so you get a bit of a sense of the environment.
All in all, it’s a very impressive setup that will surely be emulated by official tourism bureaus and museums around the world.
Over the fold, an introduction to the Capitol of Punk, as well as some live footage of DC hardcore bands.
(For those LPers who are trying to figure out Just what the fark is emo anyway?, this is pretty much where a fledgling version — initially called “emocore” — was spawned.)
That website is very very clever.
Isn’t it just? As I said, I can see the concept being taken up by mainstream tourism/museum projects. Relatively low budget, but very effective.
Ingenious.
…The DC scene was always kind of more “admirable” than actually “great”, I think. Although I always had a soft spot for Fugazi, just for having the wit to call a record “Steady Diet of Nothing.” And it’s not like there wasn’t a lot of good stuff along the way, I guess.
Still, for all their good efforts and intentions, none of these guys could ever manage to trump The Minutemen, I believe; and “Double Nickels” remains the necessary mountain to climb.
Yeah, the Minutemen are pretty cool. I love this acoustic version of Corona:
that’s one of the coolest websites I’ve seen in a while
should include some vids by Scream (Dave Grohl’s first band) or SOA (Henry Rollins’ band before Black Flag)
The only State of Alert clip I could find is not fantastic:
And this Scream clip is boring:
No one comes near the Sex Pistols!
Perhaps not, but they’re not hardcore!