You’ve heard it so many times by now that it’s past cliché: “[Insert underrated 70s/80s punk band here] provided the blueprint for [whatever popular/memorable/fashionable subsequent musical style].” And I’m not making any pretenses at saying that Dag Nasty were solely (or even primarily) responsible for the direction that mainstream punk took over the following decade and a half, but go ahead and play Can I Say alongside records from The Bouncing Souls, Pennywise, Bad Religion, or any number of 90s skate punk icons, and you’re going to have a tough time picking out the one that doesn’t belong.
Founder Brian Baker (formerly of Minor Threat and The Meatmen, eventually of Bad Religion and too many other bands to list here) mingled the hard-and-fast D.C. ethos with a generous sense of tunefulness, while singer David Smalley (and later Peter Cortner) infused the songs with an easygoing, everyman charm that seemed miles away from the confrontational stance taken by most of the band’s peers. But before Smalley — and before Can I Say — Dag Nasty recorded what was meant to be their debut album at Inner Ear Studios with singer Shawn Brown. Brown left the band shortly thereafter, and the results of those earliest sessions were shelved and forgotten. UNTIL NOW.
Sort of. A lot of the songs on Dag with Shawn have already seen prior release in the form of unauthorized bootlegs, or on the out-of-print rarities collection 85-86, which contained seven of these nine tracks. What the album does boast, however, is a remaster of the original songs with sound quality vastly improved over any of their previous incarnations. For those familiar with the band’s discography, it’s basically Can I Say, minus “Values Here” and “What Now,” plus “Another Wrong.”
The million dollar question, then, becomes: “Is this worth picking up, especially if I already own Can I Say?” That’s a tough call. I mean, yeah, it’s pretty much all the same songs, but the difference between David Smalley and Sean Brown couldn’t be starker. Brown’s vitriolic growl kind of chips away some of what set Dag apart from their contemporaries, but on the other hand… well… he kind of rocks. Brown takes no prisoners; whether he’s keeping time with a staccato face-melter like “I’ve Heard” or a good-natured ditty like “Thin Line (Ragu),”he’s always ready with a throat-rending bark.
And even apart from Smalley’s aforementioned affability, there are other interesting things going on in Dag Nasty’s sound. Songs like “Circles” and “Never Go Back” are reminiscent of the great hardcore innovators Hüsker Dü, trading in full-throttle riffage for careful juxtaposition of contrasting guitar figures between verse and chorus. Brown actually works as a really excellent foil to the relative complexity of these tracks, maintaining a much needed sense of urgency throughout. Subtle? Not really, but check out his vocals on “Can I Say” and “One to Two” and tell me honestly what he should be doing differently.
So Dag with Shawn is definitely a nice thing to have. In fact, if you had Can I Say in one hand and Dag with Shawn in the other and were forced at gunpoint to choose one to purchase, I’d gladly steer you toward the latter. But likely this release will only find its way into the collections of hardcore Dag-heads, a shame given the commercial success that the band’s nth-generation progeny — the current wave of emo, screamo, and pop-punk teen idols — have enjoyed in recent years. This is an album just aching to find its way into the hands of a pissed-off teenager, where it might still change some lives.