A Conversation With Scott Crawford Writer Director Of D C Hardcore Documentary Salad Days

• Jim Saah © Salad Days
• Ian MacKaye singing in the crowd, playing with Minor Threat in 1983

The Minor Threat song “Salad Days” critiqued a young punk scene’s tendency to wallow in nostalgia for its early years. But the irony is mostly absent in the title of the new American hardcore-punk documentary Salad Days: A Decade of Punk in Washington, DC (1980-90), which frames the 80s as a golden age for D.C. punk.

I called up Crawford, who began documenting D.C. punk with Metrozine at age 12, to find out more about the challenges of telling the D.C. hardcore story on film.

That was one of my biggest challenges. I saw this stuff, I heard a lot of stories growing up, and I witnessed stuff firsthand. My original outline touched on material that I was not able to find a place for. It was tough, because I’m kind of a geek about music in general—independent music in the last 30 years, 25 years.

I liked how later in the film, you’re peppering more things and other people in the background, with the footage of United Mutation and such. I came away from this thinking, “Wow, this must have been very tough to do.”

There’s a bit of an angle in the film of correcting typical misconceptions about the D.C. punk scene. What are those misconceptions about D.C. hardcore?

• Jim Saah © Salad Days
• Fugazi, 1989

Any things that weren’t the way you thought they were when you looked into it?