There’s a pretty good blog on music and culture I’ve been reading lately that posted some interesting thoughts on Straight Edge called Late Night Wallflower.

In 1998 the straight edge lifestyle was about 15 years old, and it was no longer what it originally was no matter who you are, or what you were doing it for.  While people were doing it beforehand, Edge started with Ian MacKaye and kids in DC who were responding to the idiots they’d see around them who were hopped up on drugs or getting wasted all the time.  Edge was a response to that, a way to separate themselves from a lifestyle that was obviously destructive, wasteful and really stupid.
But like any ideology, it can be taken to the extreme.  Like Christianity, I may myself be a Christian, but I do not in the least say that God doesn’t love homosexuals, that only “born again” Christians will be in heaven, or that abortion is a black and white decision.
Militant edgers are not representative of both the whole or the ideology itself, though it’s glaringly apparent why anyone would be turned off to the whole thing haven’t met any one of the extremists themselves (which I also did the first time I met someone who was straight edge.)
It’s interesting to me how not hardcore the scene is everywhere I go.  No matter what city I’m in, I’ve yet to meet a scene (with the exception of one night in Evansville, IN in 2003) that was open, inviting, and seemed to have a good time at the shows rather then being there to strike a pose or smash kids and hate on bands who aren’t apart of their crew (Eureka, MO hardcore crew.)  I mostly hate playing shows because of the douchebags that come to them.

After posting this comment, I was reminded of a celebrity douchebag from my hardcore show playing days.  The dude was called two things.  My friends mostly called him “Headband Douche” because the guy always wore some sort of NBA headband with hat and/or bandana and basketball shorts.  I liked to call him “Ultra Mega Douche,” or just “Ultra Mega” for short.  The dude talked all shiite on us after a poor performance at St. Louis’ Lemp Arts Center.  While we, the metalcore band we were, shouldn’t have played the show, being the mosh/hardcore show it was, it was just disrespectful, and low down.  Then, probably not even a month later, the dude’s at another of our shows at the Creepy Crawl when we opened for Haste the Day of all bands.  We were all baffeled by why the dude was seeing Haste the Day since he had a supposed love for only true hardcore.  Then I realized why, after he walked into the club during HTD’s set wearing only his bikini briefs, and the omnipresent headband.

The dude is there only to be seen.

I haven’t seen him at a show in a number of years.  I would love to see him again, especially if he still rocks the headband.