Solving a Decades-Old Mystery

It Takes Good Brains to Tell the Bad Brains Story

NBC4’s Mark Segraves recently reported on the release of a new record by the influential D.C. punk rock band Bad Brains. The double album is titled Bad Brains Live at the Bayou and features recordings that the group made in 1980 and 1981 at that historic D.C. venue.

While this may be excitingly new information to many music lovers–both locally and nationally–for MTI and the producers of the Emmy-nominated PBS documentary, The Bayou: DC’s Killer Joint, it’s a bit of déjà vu.

Because Dave Lilling and company had already discovered video of this most legendary band performing at the club and featured them prominently in the documentary.

In the doc, the band’s hypnotic lead singer H.R. is seen jumping from the balcony onto the Bayou stage–a daring feat by any measure. That he landed on the beat just adds to the excitement. H.R.’s outrageous antics are one of the reasons that Bad Brains’ music so captivated a generation, and still fascinates.

Finding the Right Pieces to Tell the Story

For the Bayou documentary, the visuals were the most important aspect for telling the story, helped by accounts of people who were there. So MTI focused on the video of the band for the task at hand. But innovative record producer Zev Feldman, and engineer Don Zientara (himself a legendary part of D.C. rock and punk history, having recorded the likes of Fugazi, Minor Threat, No Trend, Marginal Man, and so many more.) realized that there was also an audience of music fans who would love to experience this music, either once again or for the first time. And so they set about restoring the original recordings.

Bad Brains Live at the Bayou was released for Record Store Day on Feldman’s Time Traveler Recordings label, and has already sold out its first vinyl pressing. As of this writing, there are still some CDs available.