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for when we perform is really nice because it gives me the opportunity to go through a bunch of media that missed my radar, or that I saw or heard, but didn’t fully process. This DN! interview with Michael Eric Dyson about racism and hurricane Katrina is a good example of this.

Being in New Orleans, even months of time and an onslaut of media coverage since the hurricane, it was still startling how destroyed and vacant some of the neighborhoods seemed.  It was interesting to go through a lot of radio broadcasts and finally have a first-hand visual for the things they were talking about.  Still, the whole experience was really difficult to process or to come to any coherent conclusion.  I saw something Ryan wrote, and I feel like  it sums things up pretty accurately.  To paraphrase him, “it was a picture of everything that’s wrong about the world, with no good solution”.

As we were driving away from the city, to play another show, in another town, we talked about some hard questions.  Is there really someone who can be blamed?  Was there ever the infrastructure to evacuate less mobile communities?  Would folks have evacuated if they had the chance?  Peoples homes and lives aside (which, I know, is an assy place to start), does it make sense to rebuild in geographically disadvantaged areas?

In the interview, Dyson makes some compelling analysis to the issue of responsibility for the injustices of the response (or lack thereof).  Dyson describes that some of the apathy towards trying to aid some residents of NOLA as “a southern racial narrative playing itself out on a global stage.”  He continues:

I think we saw the vicious politics of the collective racial imagination of the South, which has no tolerance, as one historian put it, either for black pain or black suffering on the one hand or black agency or success on the other. Both of them are obliterated in the Southern imagination, and we saw that down in Hurricane Katrina.

This same understanding helps explain not only the response, but why people lived in such dangerous areas to begin with, and why many couldn’t leave on their own.  Its a systemic and shared neglect of injustices that have compounded, over and over, for as long as America has been around.  Can we blame our forefathers?  The first slave owners in the Americas, or ourselves for lacking the collective motivation so that these same old injustices play out again and again.
What is troubling is not only stories of apathy towards some New Orleans residents, but actively turning away resources that could have saved lives like seats on an empty Amtrak train or international aid.  Other reports, such as this one aired on This American Life tell stories of police preventing  people from passing to safer areas of the city.  Ultimately, what is horrible about these stories is that they don’t represent an example of a lack of resources, but, simply, people intervening in other people’s attempts to do what was common sense to try to save their lives.

Returning to the idea of the injustice and tragedy of the hurricane being a direct result of a troubling history and a failure by all of us in the US to acknowledge that history and how it still shapes our country and many, many lives, such an understanding does give us some ideas for rebuilding NOLA, and maybe for using this reconstruction as an opportunity to start building a more just society.  Many, such as Mitch Landrieu, a Louisianna politician, argue that hurricane hurt everybody, meaning that communities were destroyed and people displaced across many lines of race and class.  In that case, shouldn’t the rebuilding of the city and the people in it be so egalitarian.  Perhaps, ultimately, we will have to accept that some places will not be rebuilt, that New Orleans will have fewer residents.  But there are parts of the city that are being rebuilt (some parts, in fact, that it is difficult to perceive having undergone any trauma) and people returning to carry on with their lives.  The city can either be one of rhethorical diversity, or one that tries to really be that.  There can be a collective decision about who those people who get to return to the city and live in the higher-lying areas, or there can be no real decision.  The new, New Orleans can reflect our collective legacy of racial and economic injustice or it can be the start of something more.

I do feel strange writing about a city that I have absolutely no ties to.  And it was strange to see packs of largely non-resident, largely-white, largely middle-class, largely college student folks helping to rebuild some of the most devestated parts of the city.  But I think what is important to think about is that while the hurricane is a story about a region of the country endangered by nature, and one that most accutely carries the legagy of an unjust history, the dynamics that made the event so tragic are ones that are playing out in communities all over America, and that play out all over the world.  Maybe we’re all so fascinated with the hurricane because the the end result of our history is so apparent, so tangible, that we are holding our collective breaths waiting to see if it could be a turning point for this history.  The mass protests by Latinos and Chicanos against anti-immigrant legistation offers us the same hope in a point of divergence.  It might be a mistake, though, to be patient gawking bystanders waiting to see if those in power try to create justice in NOLA.  Rather, we should create our own justice, and if each of us can’t make it in NOLA, we need to create it wherever we can.

“Our histories, our futures, our foundations, are hope. It’s a way to never forget.”

Most punks will have read, or even expressed, words about how history is often deceptive and manipulative, if not completely false. And, if history can be ephemeral and volitile, certianly, so is identity. I had a conversation with a friend yesterday who talked about his friend cycling through punk stereotypes throughout his adolesence – there was the ska phase, followed by the mohawk phase, followed by the tough-guy mosh-metal phase, and so on, until he finally settled into himself in his mid-twenties. If you’re reading this, you probably went through the same thing, or are in the process of going through it. So, just like history, for punks, identity is something that changes often, maybe to the point of meaninglessness, and is both embraced and mistrusted. This makes it pretty hard to begin both the task of writing a history of a band, or to talk about what a band is whether its in terms of genre, politics, or anything else.

Is Defiance, Ohio about three friends hanging out every day and playing music, or is it about six people, seperated by geography and living very seperate lives coming together to write songs and go on tour? Is Defiance, Ohio about Columbus, Ohio or Bloomington, Indiana or Athens, Georgia or Humbolt County, California? Is Defiance, Ohio about the simplicity of acoustic instruments sharing sounds around a drunken circle on a lawn or is it about the complexity of digital audio files being shared across the expanse of global computer networks? Is Defiance, Ohio about a few hundred hand-made, screenprinted or photocopied CD covers, the new CD/LP packaging professionally printed and mass-produced, or the thousands upon thousands of free downloads of our songs from our website? Is Defiance, Ohio about the musical virtuosity of some of its members, or the lack thereof of others? Is Defiance, Ohio about playing to a dozen close friends in a freezing basement, or a kitchen, or tours to far off continents? Is Defiance, Ohio about a strict adherence to a dogma of cheap, all-ages shows, to do-it-yourself ethics or is it about feeling an uncertain, changing path through the decisions of making and sharing music? Is Defiance, Ohio about frustration, cynicism, and realism, or inspiration and hopefulness? Maybe we can think that its all these things, all at once – that it always has been, and with hope, always will be.

“Even on the best days in September”

Defiance, Ohio started in the later summer of 2002 in Columbus, Ohio. I was about to start my last year of college and just about to move out of a house that I lived in with Will and some other folks that I had met through campus activism. Will had returned from a summer of traveling and had already moved into a house around the corner where Ryan lived. Through Will, I started hanging out with Ryan and we started making a short video that would involve many of the folks who were really supportive and influential to the band in its early days (including Will’s mom!). In working on that project, and hanging out a lot, Will, Ryan, and I came up with the idea of starting a pop-punk band. We started with a pretty conventional lineup of electric guitar, electric bass, and drums. But, after a few practices, Ryan decided he wanted to start playing his upright bass, and I didn’t have an electric guitar of my own, but I did have my brother’s acoustic guitar, so I started playing that. We played in the basement of Ryan and WIll’s house almost every day, to the total dismay of the other housemates. In December of 2003, we played our first show to about a dozen people in our friend’s kitchen.

“We could take this weekend, drive out past city limits”

A month later, we recorded a demo in the basement of Ryan’s parents’ house and left for our first tour with Ryan’s sister Stuse driving our van and touring with the Good Good, a band including Ryan’s brother Pete. We also played some shows with The Devil is Electric. Our second show ever was a well-attended show as part of a New Year’s celebration in Little Rock. I was terrified. There seemed like so many people and I didn’t know anyone. Someone who was at that second show later told me that we “looked so scared” when we played.

In the winter, after we got back from tour, we played a few shows in Columbus and around the Midwest. One day, we were playing in the basement and Bz, who was a friend of friends, but who none of us knew very well, showed up at practice with her violin and told us that she was going to play with us. We didn’t know quite what to think, but we kept playing together, recorded some new songs and put out the first version of the “Share What Ya’ Got” CD. Oover spring break, went on our second tour.

“This time, this year”

The spring of 2003, in my memory at least, was an awesome time to be in Columbus. Maybe it was because lots of people had thoughts of leaving after the summer and it was a last hurrah of sorts, or maybe it was just awesome. A bunch of people were hanging out all the time, making food together or sitting out on porches or front lawns, some folks restarted Food Not Bombs servings, others organized weekly Monday-night bike rides through different parts of Columbus. It felt like lots of people were doing things they had never done before or doing things they hadn’t had the energy or desire to do in a long time. It was in the middle of all this that we got to know Sherri through Critical Mass or the Monday night bike rides. We found out she played cello and she started playing with us. We recorded 3 more songs which were going to be on a split with Kiwi, who we toured with that summer, but never came out. By the end of the summer, it seemed like, for many, the spring’s energy had been expended. Ryan and I moved to Bloomington. Will traveled around a bit, eventually ending up in Hawaii. Bz and Sherri stayed in Columbus to finish school.

“Sometimes Motion is the only thing that keeps us alive”

Without Will, we went on an unamplified tour with Madeline; Gal & Lad; and Dinosaurs, Baseball, and Hopscotch. We played a few shows with a rotating cast of fill-in drummers. That winter (2004), jobless and with no reason to stay in the freezing house we shared with a rotating group of folks, Ryan and I left on an unplanned tour with Life Rocks which was fun, but from a musical perspective, a lowpoint for Defiance, Ohio. That spring, we went on a 2-month long tour which basically circled the entire US, starting with our friend Spoonboy playing drums and meeting up with Will in Hawaii halfway through the tour. It seemed like some kind of accomplishment to travel to so many places and to be away from home for what seemed like a really long time. But, as a result of the length or strain of that tour, or for whatever other reasons, we haven’t been on a tour of that length since. By the end of the summer, we recorded some more songs that would end up on a split CD and split 7″, played some shows in the midwest, some benefit shows, and went on a tour with Soophie Nun Squad. Will ended up living in California. Bz finished college and moved to Bloomington.

In the fall, Theo; who had known the band since Will met him at the second-ever show that New Year’s in Little Rock, and had helped us with shows in his hometown of Athens, and even gone on tour with us; moved to Bloomington and into the house with Ryan and me. At some point, as it was getting harder and harder for Will to play shows, Theo got asked to join the band as a sixth member. Since then, he’s been playing drums on tour when Will isn’t around and switching off between drums and an additional guitar when WIll can go on tour.

The following year, 2005, brought Sherri moving to Bloomington and more touring, with the most interesting tours being a month-long tour of parts of Europe (where some kind folks from France had receently released a version of the “Share What Ya’ Got” CD) and a month-long, haphazard tour of the Eastern half of the US with about 30 others in a schoolbus. In the middle of all that, we wrote recorded the first half of a new record.
“When it comes March, will we march together?”

Since that summer, Theo has moved back to Athens, Will has started school in California, and those of us in Bloomington are putting down more roots and aquiring more responsibilities in this town and are becoming involved in things that expand time and focus beyond the band. I started volunteering a lot with a non-profit bookstore and books to prisoner project. Ryan and Sherri started an art gallery and record store. Being away on tour so much the first year and a half Ryan and I lived in Bloomington, we often were teased that we didn’t actually live there. For whatever that’s worth, we don’t hear that so much anymore. Despite things expanding, both in terms of geography and personal priorities, we still managed to convene to play a few short tours and finish writing and recording songs for our second full length record, “The Great Depression”.

So, really, the story is people started a band, played some shows, made some records, some of them moved, some people joined the band, … – pretty boring stuff. If there is anything about the band that, in four years, four releases, and hundreds of shows, seems remarkable, its not so much that folks beyond the dozen or so people who did everything together in Columbus find some relevence in the things we make, but that the band continues to be relevent to the six of us who are a part of it. Its somewhat remarkable that despite freak-outs and changes in lifestyle, playing music, going on tour, and making records is something that we still choose to do, together. And, its remarkable that we can do it in a way where nearly everyone in the band is involved in writing songs. Though we may slog through and argue about how those songs end up sounding, or the politics involved with sharing them with others, all those things end up as something that we can live for.
About “The Great Depression”

I think that most of the songs that were recorded for “Share What Ya’ Got” and many of the songs that were recorded for the subsequent split releases expressed a certain optimism – that even if you lived in a place that felt dreary or stagnant, or if you were coming from months of uncertainty or sadness, there were things that you could build, people that you could love, and places where you could place hope – and that this optimism could be the momentum that could carry us all forward.

And that momentum did carry us forward, but not neccessarily to places that were more solid, clear, or edifying. In fact, many of our lives felt more confused, maybe even with a little bit of dispair. The title “The Great Depression” came from thinking about WIll’s lyrics in the second verse of “Grandma Song”, a song on the new record. These words talk about his grandmother’s memories of depression era-America. For me, they conjure up thoughts of decay, loss, and impermanence. It was strange, though, how such sad ideas, could be told so beautifully.

The songs on “The Great Depression” come from a less optimistic place, one that reflects loss, confusion, and frustration. Many of them reflect a political climate that has exposed what might have always been the truth – that the world is often a cruel, unjust place with no clear resolution to either cruelty or injustice. Yet, simultaneous with all the visibly bad things in the world, there are no fewer examples of “great” things. There are still inspired people who make inspired things, there are still examples of compassion and humanity, and there are still reasons to keep doing some of the things that seem like they matter. I’d like to think that the songs on the new record reflect this ambiguos reality.

But what does it sound like?
Defiance, Ohio, if it was conceived as anything, was started as a pop-punk band. I think this is still largely the case. One early revue of the band, intending to be negative, described the band as “just power chords with some violin over it”. When we read this, we thought, “well yeah, that is what we are”.

Prior to being in Defiance, Ohio various members of the band were in ska-punk bands, screamo bands, emo bands, metal bands, free-form hardcore-ish bands, school orchestras, and snotty teenage punk bands. Does that influence the way Defiance, Ohio sounds? I have no idea.
A note on folk-punk
Defiance, Ohio is often spoken of in connection with a genre of music referred to as folk-punk. What Defiance, Ohio shares with what is traditionally referred to as “folk” music is that we write simple, sing-along songs about the reality of peoples’ experiences or the world around them. Of course, by that definition, most punk music is folk music. While Defiance, Ohio also shares some instrumentation with some “traditional” music, the addition of amplification and loud drums deviates from such music. Ultimately I’d say that Defiance, Ohio doesn’t follow the focus on musical virtuosity, individual songwriting, or adherence to music tradition that mark a lot of bands or performers that adopt the folk-punk label.

– Geoff 4/05/2006

• Urban legend that, despite what the crusties from Columbia via Michigan said, is totally not true.
• Story about people in prison during Hurricane Katrina.
• Rustbelt radio episode that includes piece on prison protest + SHUs.

(eclipse sample)
human contradiction I
human contradiction II
(??? sample)
new song
(philip pullman sample)
lightning strikes
death at an early age
(pro immigration student protestor sample)
research
(nola housing project sample)
this is where we’re from

Both Justin and Dylan recommended this for helping with my sprained ankle.  Apparently its some kind of enzyme.  Dylan says its derived from Pineapples.

These are examples of the eerie spraypaint markings that I saw on many houses in nola when we were there on tour.  They were one of the more haunting reminders of all the tragedy.  I found these photos on flickr.