Bad Brains

…as the punk reggae combo Bad Brains and the New York art rock band Sonic Youth. As the focus of the American independent music scene shifted to the Pacific Northwest in the 1990s, SST lost much of its cachet. Rollins continued performing as the lead singer of the Rollins Band,…

…scene was also home to Bad Brains, a Black four-piece band that evolved from an earlier jazz-fusion group called Mind Power. Bad Brains’ sound was unrelenting, blistering, and notably more expansive than that of other hardcore acts. The band’s first single was “Pay to Cum!” (1980), featuring a track that…