It’s hard to deny that Sean Gray and Christopher Berry have some bragging rights. In the last year their label, Fan Death, has put out a number of noisy 7-inches, 12-inches, and cassettes, including music by Drunkdriver, FNU Ronnies, and Ringo Deathstarr. In terms of productivity, they’ve outpaced just about every other D.C.-based label. More importantly, those records have made it out of their basement and into distro bins around the world. Last year the label’s annual concert series, DNA Test Fest, packed out the Velvet Lounge. But most of the bands they release and book reside in other cities—-Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Austin. Turns out, there’s a reason for that.

Yesterday All Our Noise posted a mammoth three-part interview with Gray and Berry. Among the topics discussed: the label’s humble origins, why they moved this year’s DNA Test Fest to Baltimore, and how they came to release Clockcleaner’s Hawkwindesque, 15-minute cover of Negative Approach‘s “Ready to Fight” (performed, of course, while opening for Negative Approach).

Also covered at length: The general suckiness of D.C. music. Gray and Berry let loose, calling out D.C. bands for their careerist attitudes, Brooklyn-centric touring schedules, and wimpy songs. Names are named.

The haterade really starts to flow at about the 10:55 mark of part 1:

Here’s a transcription of the relevant portion:

Gray: D.C. is a shitty place, with shitty bands, and a shitty outlook on life. I mean, it’s kind of sad in a way, there’s a lot of history here that everybody knows about. I don’t think it went down the path that I would have wanted it to. I think with D.C. there’s this thing that bands want to make it…they think they can make it in D.C. because they’re from D.C. there’s that history there and that that’s an automatic foot in the door to whatever they’re doing. But even beyond that attitude portion of it, there’s just not good music. There are two good bands in D.C.

Berry: Screen Vinyl Image and Lotus Fucker.

Gray: You can’t name me another D.C. band that’s been remotely as good as those two.

Berry: And you can’t tell me that another D.C. bands sounds like those two.

Sean: I will flat out name you who are garbage bands in D.C. If they want to tell us that we’re a piece of shit label that’s ok, too.

Berry: US Royalty.

Gray: The Dance Party. And this guys is really nice—really nice dude—but I hate his band Ra Ra Rasputin. That band, garbage. The thing with D.C.—these bands think, they don’t go outside of D.C. They don’t have any sense of perspective. They think if you play New York and D.C., if you go back and forth you’ve kind of made it.

Berry: There’s nobody playing in Philly, nobody playing in Boston. People are trying to get known media-wise in D.C. by D.C. media. We don’t really care about that, we put out what we want to listen to. And because what we put out is good, we don’t have to have an angle.