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Brian Baker (musician)

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Brian Baker

Brian Baker (born February 25, 1965) is an American punk rock musician. He is best known as one of the founding members of the hardcore punk band Minor Threat, and as a guitarist in Bad Religion since 1994 alongside Greg Hetson and later Brett Gurewitz as well. In Minor Threat he originally played bass guitar before switching to guitar in 1982 when Steve Hansgen joined the band, and then moved back to bass after Hansgen's departure. He also founded Dag Nasty in 1985, was part of the original line-up of Samhain, and has had stints in Doggy Style, The Meatmen (with fellow Minor Threat member Lyle Preslar), Government Issue, and Junkyard (a hard rock band).

In 1994, he was offered a touring spot with R.E.M. but declined, opting instead to join Bad Religion as Brett Gurewitz's replacement. In early 2000, he was asked to try out for Guns N' Roses by Tommy Stinson but he declined, saying that he would stay in Bad Religion no matter how much money he was offered. He has also in the past experimented with a more pop direction influenced by U2, with a band called 400. Baker briefly toured with Me First and the Gimme Gimmes in 2005 and appeared on Canadian punk band Penelope's second album (Face au silence du monde).

Discography

Bad Religion

Doggy Style

  • The Last Laugh (1986)

Dag Nasty

The Meatmen

Minor Threat

Junkyard

  • Junkyard - 1989
  • Sixes, Sevens & Nines -1991
  • Shut Up - We're Trying To Practice! - 2000
  • Tried and True - 2003

CROSSBOW

1978-1980 Highschool "garage band" featuring Brian Baker-Guitar, Scott Rolle-Guitar, Joe Testa-Vocals, Andy Hays-Bass and Chris Rolle-Drums Tapes of several of these shows are known to exist but are quite rare.

The 10 commandments of punk guitar

Along with Greg Hetson of Bad Religion and Circle Jerks fame he compiled a list of 10 commandments of punk guitar. They are as follows:

  • Treat your guitar like shit and it will respect you.
  • To get that mean fuckin' low end and still retain some highs in your sound, use only Gibson guitars. SG's and Les Pauls are the ultimate punk rock tools.
  • Use only downstrokes. Downstrokes are the key to unlocking all punk rhythms.
  • Plaster your guitars with stickers to prove that you're an individual. Remember, being uncool is cool, so one Van Halen is worth three Sex Pistols stickers.
  • The Marshall JMP 100-Watt master volume head is the Holy Grail of amps. Other people get all hot and bothered about what kind of speakers and cabinets they use, but that's all bullshit. You can plug the JMP into virtually anything and it's going to sound wonderful.
  • No open tunings. Grunge is not punk rock.
  • Don't be self-indulgent. Limit your guitar solos to eight bars or less. Otherwise, you're playing metal.
  • Never, ever play a show with a cigarette hanging out of your mouth. It's incredibly painful when a stage diver pushes off your face and smashes the red-hot cherry into your cheek.
  • It may be punk to be fucked up at your day job, but when you take the stage you should be straight. It's hard to play music with intensity and speed when you're drunk.
  • Do not stack Marshall cabinets. That's not punk, it's arena rock. The Ramones are the only band exempted from this rule.

References

  1. ^ New album title revealed!

Sources

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