The Stooges are the subject of a new documentary called Gimme Danger. Iggy Pop and the film’s director Jim Jarmusch joined NPR’s Scott Simon to talk about the film and the band’s legacy. Hear their full conversation at the audio link, and read an edited transcript below.

Scott Simon: Mr. Pop — is that what I call you? Thank you very much for being with us.

Iggy Pop: Yeah, you can call me that. That’s very nice, thanks.

Scott Simon: Why a documentary on Iggy and the Stooges now?

Pop: The brothers who formed the real foundation of the group with me have both passed away, in 2009 and 2014 respectively, so I thought it would just be great for the legacy of the group if we could get Jim Jarmusch to have a look at us and share his view.

Simon: And Jim Jarmusch, I guess you were already a fan.

Jim Jarmusch: Oh yeah, I’ve been a big fan since my late teens when I first discovered The Stooges — when I lived in Akron, Ohio, a suburb of Akron. When we heard the MC5 and we heard the Stooges from Detroit, from Ann Arbor, this became our music, you know. This was industrial, working-class, ass-kicking rock ‘n’ roll. And it was also very innovative, you know? It combined a lot of things into something new and strong and primitive and wild. It really spoke to us.

Simon: Iggy Pop, talk about your stage presence if you can. Nothing quite like it, is there?

Pop: Well, there’s nothing quite like the music, most of it, that I’ve been privileged to inhabit. And I try to bring it to the people. I try to get in the music like it was a Halloween suit.

Jarmusch: One of the most important things to me and Stooges fans is that Iggy Pop breaks down the wall between the audience and the band. He dives into the crowd. He was the first person to do that, to merge the two things. He invites people up on the stage. And that breaking down of things is a big thing for all Stooges fans because he joyously involved us, you know. He’s up there for us and he is embodying us in a way. And there’s something incredibly joyful about seeing the Stooges, or Iggy in any incarnation, playing live. But the Stooges, that was the first time, really, that happened.

Simon: How do you gauge the appeal of The Stooges in this day and age? The revival of interest in them?

Jarmusch: Well, you know, good stuff stays good. And sometimes it takes the world a while to catch up. You know, The Stooges are, in a way, a kind of avant-rock band when they started in the ’60s. In fact, they started as The Psychedelic Stooges, as a kind of experimental noise group. But I know in my life, by the late ’70s, which is only five years after the Stooges’ kind of demise, the first incarnation, they were incredibly influential. So for me, it’s not like they didn’t get their due ’til now or until 10 years ago, because five years after they were kind of gone, they were hugely important.

Simon: Iggy Pop — at the age of 69, you look terrific and I want to know your secret! Because it doesn’t seem like you’ve done a lot to take care of yourself, or am I wrong?

Pop: Well, that’s deceptive. I started to try to turn a corner in life in 1984 and gradually, over the next seven years after ’84, I completely put down drug use unless you count coffee and beer and wine, and I started doing things that my mother always told me to do. You know, she said, “Jimmy, early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.” So I do a lot of that, except when I’m out working, but otherwise I go to bed early, try to get enough rest, try to get a normal amount of exercise without being goofy about it. And except for this year, I try not to work too hard. But this year I’ve been real fortunate, and I can’t say no.

Copyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

About 12:30 a.m., we visited this place and found approximately 5,000 people, colored and white, men attired in women’s clothes, and vice versa. The affair, we were informed, was a “fag/masquerade ball.” This is an annual affair where the white and colored fairies assemble together with their friends, this being attended also by a certain respectable element who go here to see the sights.

This is an excerpt from a 1928 report filed by investigators with the Committee of Fourteen, a citizens group that fought to crack down on illegal alcohol sales inside New York City hotels. The investigators had stopped by a club in Harlem one night in February, unwittingly dropping in on a gender-bending bacchanal: the Hamilton Lodge drag ball.

Affairs like the Hamilton Lodge ball were a precursor to the modern ballroom scene, a performative, queer and largely African-American counterculture that still thrives in many U.S. cities, including Baltimore. The documentary Paris Is Burning captured the scene at its height in 1980s New York City, and Madonna — riding a wave of house music that soundtracked ballroom performances — got everybody voguing like a ballroom star with her 1990 hit “Vogue.”

Oct. 15, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art celebrates ballroom culture with a half-day event dedicated exclusively to the art form. The featured guest is Keith “Ebony” Holt, a veteran ballroom performer who’s also a youth outreach coordinator for Baltimore’s health department. He represents the Baltimore chapter of the House of Ebony — essentially a clique, or a family, of gay black men who perform in ballroom competitions.

Bandwidth spoke to Holt and the Smithsonian’s Nicole Shivers in advance of Saturday’s soirée. The event promises to borrow a grandiose aesthetic from Nigerian-British artist Yinka Shonibare’s short film, Un Ballo in Maschera, on view now at the museum.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Bandwidth: Keith, can you talk about what ballroom means to young, gay black men? 

Keith “Ebony” Holt: Ballroom, basically, was created for [them]. It was a place that we could call our own [where] we felt safe. [In ballroom,] you could be whatever it is that you wanna be. As we all know, when a lot of young, black gay males or transgenders come out to their families, sometimes their families are not with it. They may out them or they may be like, “We no longer want to communicate with [you].” And for a person that may be 15, 16 years old — or basically whatever age you are — that really hits you hard. So the ballroom scene … gave you another family outside of your biological family.

“With this event, we’re in one of the biggest museums in the world. Now our form of underground art is being welcomed into the mainstream.” —Keith “Ebony” Holt

OK, so the film Paris Is Burning documented the ’80s ballroom scene in New York. When we talk about ballroom now, what are we referring to?

Holt: We’re talking about the whole entire scene. Voguing, of course, gets the most attention because it’s fun to watch and you have people like Madonna that came out with it, or you have Vogue Evolution on America’s Best Dance Crew. However, it’s so many other categories — such as runway, or realness, which is basically how well a transgender person may be able to blend into society. Paris Is Burning … is kinda outdated. The younger generations definitely took it and made it their own. So it has completely, completely changed. It’s not the same underground scene that it once was in Paris Is Burning.

Do you still do a lot of performing?

Holt: I do perform. I still walk. Voguing really isn’t my category. My main category is actually runway. You can kinda look at it like Project Runway mixed with America’s Next Top Model. Runway at the Smithsonian [requires you to take] a piece of African art. It can either be a painting or a sculpture, and you have to make your outfit basically represent whatever art that you chose to create. It really takes a lot of time and it takes a lot of brain energy for you to really sit and really create something such as that. Then… you actually have to walk like a model would.

Nicole, why did the Smithsonian want to do a ballroom event?

Nicole Shivers, National Museum of African Art: As the curator for performing arts, I’m always looking for something new, innovative and engaging to dispel the myths, the clichés of Africa. Being a big fan of Yinka Shonibare and especially this video piece, Un Ballo in Maschera, which looks at the grandness of things, what better fit than to look at the ballroom scene, where they can show off and show out?

Can you talk about the African influence within ballroom?

Shivers: The traditional masquerade, or the traditional theater-in-the-round [are African influences]. Also, it’s a way of conveying a message [and] honoring someone, so I think those are the two main similarities.

Holt: And I think that with just the LGBT community, we wear so many masks on a daily basis, especially when we go out. So many people look down on the LGBT community for various reasons, so we have to put different masks on when we just walk outside our house. With this event, we’re in one of the biggest museums in the world. Now we can finally take our masks off and say that we are finally being accepted. Now our form of underground art is being welcomed into the mainstream. Even if it’s just for one night, it’s still the beginning.

The Voguing Masquerade Ball begins with a panel discussion at 4:30 p.m. at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art. The ball starts at 7:30 p.m. Free and open to the public.

Shown at top: A still from Voguing For a Cause, produced by Great Big Story

“It’s been a crazy few months, to be honest,” Astley says. “I don’t think anybody around me or anybody who knows me was expecting that, to have a No. 1 album in the U. K. again. That was pretty freaky.”

Astley joined NPR’s Michel Martin to talk about surprise success, what he really thinks about his ’80s stardom, and why he retired from music in 1993, only to return years later. Hear their conversation at the audio link, and read an edited version below.

Michel Martin: Were you nervous coming back after having been out of the spotlight for a bit?

Rick Astley: In a lot of ways, no, really. I didn’t have anything to be nervous about — because, like I said, we didn’t really have any expectations. I made this record myself in my own studio at home. I wrote it all, produced it, played all the instruments. It’s been a labor of love. It’s been something I kind of wanted to do to mark my 50th birthday, which was this year, but obviously I was making the record last year. I didn’t anticipate anything fantastic happening. I just kind of thought, “Well, we’ll see how we can put the record out and we’ll see how it goes.”

The album is very rich. I think that the word “spiritual” has been applied. It is not uncommon for people to re-acquaint themselves with a spiritual side, especially after events that cause people to think differently about their lives. Can you identify something that kind of inspired — in every sense of the word — this particular sound?

I think, for me, even as a small kid, I sang in choirs — at the church choir, school choir. They weren’t gospel choirs, that’s for sure, but the idea of singing with other people. When I was having “Never Gonna Give You Up” and a couple of the other hits, I wouldn’t have thought that deeply about certain lyrics, I don’t think, because they were pop songs — It was like, “girl meets boy, boom,” you know. Having lived a bit longer now, I think certain things that have happened in my life have definitely changed the way I feel about things.

The song “Angels On My Side” is about the fact that I have two elder brothers and an older sister and they looked out for me a lot. My mom and dad got divorced — and obviously, my mom and dad looked after me — but I’m saying having older brothers and an older sister, that could have gone one of two ways. They could have neglected the youngest kid, and I don’t think they did. I think they looked after me. That’s happened right through my career, as well: I’ve had good people around me. I’ve still got most of my sanity. And I’ve still got some money, which is a freaky thing in this industry sometimes. When people have a pop career, they kind of get churned up and thrown out the other end, and they have a disastrous life sometimes after it. And I’ve had a charmed, amazing life.

A lot of these lyrics, as you said, go a little deeper than the pop song often does. And you have been as open as people in your position can really be about the fact that when you were growing up, there were a lot of things going on with your family.

All families go through stuff. My mom and dad had a son who died before I was even born, and I think that affects a family in ways you can’t even describe, come to terms with, anything. I think that’s one of the most tragic things possibly to happen to two people. And I was the youngest — I was four or five when they got divorced, so I didn’t really know that story. That wasn’t part of my world, really.

When you’re around two people who are very, very, very unhappy, i.e. your parents, it’s really tough — and that’s why I got into music, I think. I wanted to be at the school choir. I wanted to be at church, even though I wasn’t necessarily very religious. I just wanted to be somewhere else with people my own agem and singing really helped me. One of the songs on the album is called “Keep Singing,” and that’s kind of, again, what that is about — that singing’s been good for me.

Your story is so remarkable because, as you mentioned earlier, so often we hear about people like you who had these incredible successes, particularly early in life, and then become a disaster. But you didn’t — I mean, you had these huge hits. When you were in it at the time, did you realize how big you were?

Uh, well that sounds a bit heavy. Not heavy — it sounds pompous, I think, a little bit. Kind of like “Do you know how big you were?”

I said it, you didn’t!

To be honest, having success in America, a couple No. 1s and a few Top 10s, you kind of think, “It doesn’t get any bigger than that.” But then again, I would look at other artists around my time — if you look at George Michael’s career through the ’80s and into the ’90s and stuff, I mean, it’s on a different league, a different level. Another British guy, obviously. So I think, to be fair, it was four or five years of being really famous. And I wouldn’t swap it for anything: It was an amazing experience, you know, because I made quite a lot of money. And I’m one of those people who actually wants to say that, because the way I look at the money side of it is that it bought me freedom. I’ve been free to do a lot of other things that I wanted to do. Nothing maybe too extravagant, but just freedom.

When you left the music industry in the early ’90s, what was it that made you decide to go? How is it that you were able to go calmly when so many of your peers just seemed to go off the tracks?

I think it’s a number of things. The manager who looked after me, traveling-wise and being there and all the rest of it through all my famous time, has never had a drink in his life. And when I said, “Come on, let’s go and have a few drinks,” he’d say, “Great, I’ll come with you.” And he’d have a Coke and I’d have a couple of drinks, and at that point, you go, “Well, I don’t really want a couple more, you’re just drinking Coke.” But I also think having a few drinks in the bar, meeting up with a few people and having a few more, that’s the slippery slope, isn’t it? That’s the point where you do that every night, and then you have to get hammered every night, and then obviously there’s drugs, there’s everything else. And I never really got into that. And I think sometimes the intensity of being famous in the way that I was can drive people to pretty crazy things.

And of course you weren’t really gone all this time. Where do you come out on “rickrolling,” this phenomenon where someone provides a fake hyperlink that leads to a video of you in the famous trench coat, singing “Never Gonna Give You Up”? I could see where it could be either a huge compliment or it could be kind of annoying.

I think it’s been funny, to be honest. For the most part, most of the things have been pretty clever. There’s your basic rickrollers, but there’s been so many things that people have used that song and that video for. They’ve even cut up old President Obama speeches and got him to kind of speak “Never Gonna Give You Up,” which I thought was pretty amazing. Our daughter was about 15 when that first started, quite a few years ago now. We had a sit-down and she chatted to me about it, and she just said her view on it was that it was nothing to do with me: It could have been any cheesy video from the ’80s that somebody picked, and I should just let it go. And that’s what I’ve done.

Why do you say it was cheesy? I kind of liked the video!

Well, it’s different. If you look back at photographs of yourself from many years back, you probably look at them and cringe a little bit. And I’m in that same boat — I’m just doing it with videos that most of the world has seen. I think most videos from the ’80s are pretty cheesy, to be honest.

Is it true you named the album 50 as a little bit of an homage to Adele and her naming albums after her age?

Homage is definitely a nicer way of putting it. I didn’t think I’d see my name anywhere on the same page as Adele in the chart in the UK, and boom, there it was. I don’t think she’s worried about what I’m doing — I don’t think she’s probably even aware of it — but I thought it was just kind of funny. I really like the fact that she called her albums the ages that she was. I mean, that’s what she was doing when she was that age. That’s what she had to give at that age. And for me, this is where I am at 50. This is what I can give and this is what I’ve given, so there it is.

Copyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

NPR’s David Greene asked her about those comments. She says her point is that a few megastars get so much of the world’s attention, she fears some causes get overlooked.

“When you have 20 icons, and all 20 icons are American — apart from, say, Adele and Coldplay, who are British — then the pressure kind of goes on someone like me,” she says. “I was saying, well, if we’ve got 10 artists to listen to for the next 10 years, either make those artists varied or open up the floodgates for these artists to talk about other issues and don’t just make it particular to their own experience, because it’s shutting down a lot of current affairs affecting the rest of the world. … If we’re waiting for a Syrian kid to come up and talk about Syria, we might be waiting for a long time, because those kids are not gonna get that opportunity.”

On the new album AIM, out today, M.I.A. says her take on racial strife is more global than before — perhaps even a throwback to the “peace and unity” vibe of the 1990s. Hear more of her conversation with David Greene, including what she’s tried to teach her young son about privilege, at the audio link.

Copyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

This summer, Noteworthy host Jason King visited Miguel in his Los Angeles home and spoke with him in the studio where he’s working on songs for an upcoming fourth album. Miguel tells King that until recently, his creative process relied on consuming as much as possible — “ideas, films, art, relationships” — in order to get to a place where inspiration could flow freely. “‘Adorn’ happened in a night,” he tells King of his signature hit. “I literally like landed at 10:30 or 11:00, couldn’t sleep and just wrote the song.” Within “two-and-a-half, three hours,” he had written and recorded the whole song. Now, Miguel finds himself at a moment where thinking about social movements like Black Lives Matter is pushing him toward a mode of songwriting driven by a new feeling of responsibility. He also reveals how he began writing songs on his father’s guitar, his love for Bill Withers, why Salvador Dali is on his wallpaper, the best advice Pharrell ever gave him and the importance of L.A. to his artistic vision.

Credits

Producers: Jacob Ganz, Mito Habe-Evans, Jason King, Ben Naddaff-Hafrey; Director/Editor: Mito Habe-Evans; Assistant Director: Cameron Robert; Audio Engineer: Josh Rogosin; Managing Producers: Abby O’Neill, Otis Hart; Executive Producer: Anya Grundmann

Copyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

They waited outside the band’s hotel overnight and befriended guitarist Johnny Marr the next day. That connection led Darmrong to follow the band on several tours over the next year and a half, taking pictures behind the scenes and onstage. Those photographs are the subject of a new book from Rizzoli Press, The Smiths, as well as a gallery exhibition that begins Friday at Studio 1469 in Columbia Heights and includes a talk and book signing on Saturday.

The Smiths — Marr, singer Morrissey, bassist Andy Rourke and drummer Mike Joyce — broke up in 1987. Darmrong, who is now based in Maryland, talked with Bandwidth about photographing The Smiths at their peak while they toured in support of their 1986 classic, The Queen Is Dead.

Bandwidth: You were just 17 when you decided to follow The Smiths.

Nalinee Darmrong: I was a wee pup, yes.

What was it about the band that made you want to follow them around?

It wasn’t it was The Smiths that I was following. Everything kind of happened organically — my friend Tony got me into The Smiths’ music, then he got me my first ticket to my first show. And it wasn’t until I saw the live show that I was thinking to myself, “Woah, this is a really different band and I really like the energy.” I really had no preconceived notions of taking pictures of them or anything. So I went to the D.C. show, and I met Johnny, and he put us on the guest list for New York, which was two shows. My other friend had gotten me a ticket for Philadelphia, which was right after D.C., so it seems kind of kismet that I was supposed to go to all of these shows.

So right after New York they traveled to California, and that’s when I started taking pictures, I believe. But my love for The Smiths grew, I guess — I wasn’t that familiar with them until I kept seeing shows and kept learning about their music and their fans, and them. And just fell in love with them, just like everybody else did.

So you were more of a D.C. punk at that time?

Yes! I grew up in the D.C./Dischord punk rock scene, and was around D.C. a lot — the land of protest, and one thing that struck me about the first Smiths show I saw was the same energy. And I find it interesting that the Smiths are compared to a punk rock band now … and the time I wouldn’t have thought so, but then when I think if D.C. punk culture and the DIY culture of promoting yourself and [doing things] as you wish and not selling out … and just being there for the people, political messages, et cetera. So, I don’t see that characterization as being that far off.

So you weren’t taking photos until several shows into following them, right?

It was D.C., Philly, two New York shows — because that was just a whirlwind in itself, kind of an extended long weekend. And then Johnny Marr, Andy Rourke and I think Mike Joyce — they all said, “If you want to come to California that would be amazing.” Johnny said, “I’m getting married … and we’re doing a civil ceremony, so if you guys could make it, that would be amazing,” and we were just so flattered that they felt so comfortable with us, and that they were just great people. We tried our best to make it [to the wedding ceremony] but we missed it — but we made all the rest of the shows.

What made you pick up a camera, though? Were you an employee of the band? When you started shooting, you got a photo pass, obviously — how did that work out?

So, I was not a photographer. The Smiths was the first band I shot extensively … I brought my camera and they already had gotten to know me a little bit, so they said, “Sure, just take your candid pictures,” and I guess they gave me a little bit of restriction at the beginning … I would get single photo passes for each show, but after California — I think it was about four or five shows — then Scotland was two months later, and they were like, “Let’s save some paper and money,” and they just gave me a photo pass. That’s when I got all the access to shoot wherever I wanted. … But yeah, I was definitely a novice.

Darmrong: “This is from outside the Clickimin Centre in the Shetland Islands. … If you look at the picture, they’re all quite young, they’re maybe a little tired from the ferry, and their style is understated but still super cool. … Everybody is smiling. And that’s another thing people have been saying about the book: Morrissey — since then — there haven’t been a lot of pictures of him smiling, and I guess I was fortunate to be there at a time where he smiled all the time.”

So you went to follow them on a tour of Scotland.

Yeah, it was a small tour, I think 10 shows. With friends … one of my biggest memories is crossing on the ferry from Inverness to the Shetland Islands — it crosses, like, three bodies of water, and everybody got sick but me, I have no idea why. So everybody felt this huge sense of accomplishment when we got there. … Everybody traveled to get to the same place by the same means, so it was just much more intimate.

What did your parents think?

So, I’ve always been a rebel. And I’ve always been pretty self-righteous, and in hindsight, 30-years-plus, I’m so grateful to them. I’m an only child, and I guess they always encouraged me to be independent, and they gave me some boundaries but they really kind of let me do whatever I wanted. So I pretty much begged to go to Scotland.

So it wasn’t the kind of thing where you were being paid by the band to shoot, so how did you afford all of this?

I paid off my credit card for three years afterward, but I worked a lot in-between. I worked a couple part-time jobs, and I stayed with friends. There’s this whole Smiths community, as people know who have seen the band, who have traveled around, and I would stay with them or hostels, B&Bs, they were a lot cheaper back then, and they were quite affordable, and I just made it work.

Darmrong: “[Morrissey] was always smiling, always humble, ready to answer everybody’s questions, he didn’t rush off, he always took the time to talk to people.”

All I can say is that I really didn’t see too much of that. … I saw girlfriends and wives there a lot, which I thought was pretty cool, because the shows felt all-inclusive rather than, like, “When band’s on tour, that’s it.” So I thought that was pretty cool. Yeah, it was definitely a different atmosphere to shows that I’ve seen since then. I’m one of the house photographers for the 9:30 Club now, so I see all different kinds of environments, and have shot many shows since this time, and yeah, it was one of the more modest environments … everybody was pretty modest and humble and chill, and it wasn’t super “rock ‘n’ roll” in that sense.

What was your average day like? How much did you interact with the band by the time you were more of a fixture in their crew of people?

I would have to travel … I would have to find a place to stay … get to the venue … they were so kind — a lot of the times I would get to go to the sound checks, just hang and take my candid shots. Because if people get the book, they’ll see that there are a lot of candid shots of the crew and the cities. There’s one pic of Mike and Andy in the pool, and another one of them just talking to fans from an overhead shot, which I liked. I liked being a fly on the wall, but I always had my camera. … Then we’d go off to eat. Sometimes I was with my friends, sometimes I was alone, but I knew I would always meet up with people later. … And then it was the show, and all the energy was on, and I did my thing. Sometimes they were busy, sometimes they would hang out, it just depended on the evening.

Specifically more to the band members, is there anything that sticks out as your favorite memory? You may have been the fly on the wall, but a lot of these photos are pretty intimate, too.

One of my fondest memories [was at one of the first two New York shows], and I was in the front, and the fans were kind of pushing me up to get on stage, and the bouncers, these big dudes, were punching — literally punching me — to get down, and I didn’t know what to do. … and I just sat there levitated above the hands of these fans, and Morrissey saw me, I guess, and he, like, pulled me out of the crowd, and I just hugged him for maybe the whole song … I was just happy that someone realized the predicament I was in. It was great because the fans cheered, like in the back, but I don’t think they had any idea of what was happening. I was just so thankful for Morrissey for that moment, alone.

A memory of Johnny: I don’t remember what show, but it was later on, I think on the last U.S. tour … I was [onstage] dancing, and Johnny was just being his anti-solo, rock-god self, and he was just talking to me about the day. He said, “How was your day, Nalinee?” I was like, “It was lovely, I had a really nice cup of tea” — that’s why I worship him now as well as I did then, because he was just so smooth.

Was he playing a song?

Yes! He was playing a song while he was talking to me — and dancing. He was like, “You’re a really good dancer, Nalinee,” and I’m like, “You’ve got some moves, too, you’re totally cutting up a rug, playing the song, talking to me about my day.”

People that know The Smiths, there are probably lots of words that come to mind, but the welcoming you onto stage and hugging you, that sort of fits that theme of sensitivity, there was a lot of openness —

Yes!

You spent a lot of time around Smiths crowds in the ’80s. What were the characteristics of a typical Smiths crowd in 1986?

One thing I would like to say is that The Smiths always like to blur the artist/fan boundaries, artist/crew boundaries, artist/venue boundaries. They always encouraged crowd participation. At the end of all their shows … you had a chance to go onstage and hug them or dance with them. … Lately I’ve been talking to people that were at shows then, and it’s definitely this communal feeling — like we were there at this really special time, and we didn’t know how amazing a show could be until we saw shows after this. Because we were all quite young.

So by the time this was all over — the band, and obviously your opportunity to take photos of the band — you were still a teenager, you know?

18!

Was it a letdown to realize you couldn’t do it anymore?

Oh no, I was very happy to go home. In a way, I didn’t experience what they experienced, but I was quote-unquote on the road, as well. At the end, I helped clean up the tour bus — that’s what I did, I would like, clean up, or I’d help out as much as I could because they got me into all these shows. So I was really, really thankful, and I guess I’ve always been kind of like that. But I was definitely happy to be in one place for awhile. And just kind of enjoy the memories from the whole experience.

Often, Gray’s destination is a punk show. The 34-year-old has been infatuated with hardcore and punk rock since his teenage days in Ellicott City. But after years of traveling to shows, only to be impeded by a staircase or an inaccessible bathroom once he arrived, Gray resolved to do something about it.

In 2014, Gray started a website called Is This Venue Accessible? that provides detailed accessibility information for venues around Baltimore and D.C. Since then, the site has expanded to 26 cities, including Glasgow, Scotland, and Osaka, Japan. Now Gray is taking his project to the next level, launching an app that will serve the same purpose. He expects to debut the app later this year.

Gray’s efforts have sparked a larger conversation about accessibility as a social-justice issue, particularly in regional punk scenes. I recently chatted with Gray about the broader impact of inaccessibility and how his app aims to take the stress out of concertgoing for people with disabilities.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

On the true purpose of “Is This Venue Accessible?”:

Sean Gray: I would love to see all venues be accessible, but [Is This Venue Accessible?] is not about changing venues. It’s about providing information that there’s a lack of. If there’s no accessibility information, I have to automatically default to “it’s probably not accessible.”

I took a cab to [D.C. venue] DC9, and it’s my first time going there, and when I saw those steps I just hailed a cab and went back home. The retort for some people would be, “Well, you could just ask someone to help you.” But that’s not as easy as it sounds. For some people they’re comfortable doing that and others aren’t. It shouldn’t be that way. I shouldn’t have to ask for help to go see art. Art and music and culture should be accessible to everybody.

On what accessibility means to him:

When I was a younger teen and in my early 20s, I didn’t really know what a disability was, and I didn’t know how to own that and how that affected me and how the world — the physical world — affects me. I just took the blame myself. ITVA provides information to give you a better guide to go out and actually experience music and art and culture. To me, accessibility isn’t about physical spaces. Full accessibility is about having access to culture and aspects of life that go far beyond getting into a physical building. And I think when you cut that off from a segment of people, it’s hurtful and bad for society.

When I’m not able to get to a show, I don’t just take it as being inaccessible. What that promoter, building or band is saying to me is, “You’re just not allowed to go to this show.” It sounds harsh, but that’s the reality that I and many other people with disabilities live with every single day.

“I’ve been lucky enough to see shows that have changed my life, but I also wonder how many shows I’ve had to miss that could have changed my life.”

On the lack of awareness around young people with disabilities:

Accessibility isn’t really a sexy concept. We’re going through a political election, and I assure you, you will not hear any politician on any side talk about accessibility and disability in young people. You’ve got young people and babies used as inspiration porn, and then you’ve got older people who are disabled, and there’s this gap in between. So there’s this blank space of representation for people with disabilities, and that’s why it’s very rare to see people with disabilities going to shows.

I’ve had promoters or bar owners say that they just don’t see people with disabilities there, and my response has been that you would see people with disabilities at these venues if you actually provided them with the information necessary to come.

On how inaccessibility hampers personal enrichment:

I did a talk at SXSW… and I asked the crowd, “How many of you here can say that you’ve gone to a show that’s changed your life?” Everybody raised their hand. Then I said, “Imagine if the show that changed your life, you weren’t allowed to go to. Not because your parents said you couldn’t go, and not because you had to work, but because you just couldn’t get in. That happens all the time to people with disabilities.” I’ve been lucky enough to see shows that have changed my life, but I also wonder how many shows I’ve had to miss that could have changed my life.

On accessibility as an overlooked social-justice issue:

We live in an age where there are a lot of bands, for good reason, talking about inclusion and oppression, and that’s great. But the thing that always seems to be lacking is accessibility. I saw a drawing once, and it was like a DIY house, and on the front it said, “We do not tolerate homophobia, sexism, racism, ageism,” and everything else, and the way to get into the house were these broken, rickety steps.

On the ambitious goals of the “Is This Venue Accessible?” app:

I’m trying to give the user the total experience of going to a show and planning that out. I want to build an app that I want to use, so anywhere in the world it’s connected to Google Maps, it knows where I am, which venues are around me, which venues have accessibility information, what information I need to make my choice to go to that show. I could have put together an app that just reflects the website, but that’s not the goal. It’s not just about changing attitudes about going to shows for people with disabilities, but making it an experience that is less stressful and less worrisome.

On how punk drove him to make a difference:

Punk has taught me that if nobody is going to do it for you, you do it yourself. ITVA was born out of my frustration of not being able to experience what I love the most — being told that I couldn’t be a part of it. I just wouldn’t settle for that.

When you have a disability, you’re sort of thought of to not be angry, to not be emotional, to not be sexual. There are things that you’re just not allowed to have, and you’re socialized to enjoy the fact that you can just get out of the house — or that you’re alive. In anything that I’ve done, [I’ve been determined] not to settle. It’s OK to be disabled and angry, or to want to see a band and not have to feel like this is a privilege that somebody’s helping you.

I want this site and this app to make people think differently. I think things are changing, and it’ll be a good wake-up call for bands and venues that haven’t thought of this or taken it seriously.

Listen: Sean Gray discusses accessibility on WAMU’s Kojo Nnamdi Show

Take the Lincoln Theatre, the legendary music venue at 1215 U St. NW. Owned by the District but booked by 9:30 Club operator I.M.P., it’s no longer the epicenter of black music it once was. Then there’s the high-end apartment building at 1301 U St. NW. Called the Ellington, the residence pays homage to a music giant born in Washington, but costs far more than many jazz musicians could afford.

Shellée Haynesworth doesn’t want U Street’s black cultural history to be washed away in the undertow of development. That’s why in 2013 the multimedia producer — who’s also a third generation Washingtonian — started “Black Broadway on U,” a sweeping, grant- and donation-funded digital project that remembers the black artists and innovators who made U Street as vital as New York during the Harlem Renaissance.

Saturday, Haynesworth co-presents the show “Black Broadway on U: Echoes of an Era” during the Funk Parade, the daylong music festival expected to shut down U Street for part of an afternoon. In advance of the event, Bandwidth contributor Paulette Mensah talked with Haynesworth about her research, the state of black hangouts on U Street NW and whether D.C. schoolchildren are being taught enough about U Street’s history. Here are snippets from their conversation.  —Ally Schweitzer 

This interview, conducted by Paulette Mensah, has been edited for length and clarity.

Bandwidth: What circumstances led to you starting the “Black Broadway on U” project?

Shellée Haynesworth: My grandparents both grew up in the U Street corridor. That’s where black D.C. [was] because of redistricting, segregation and housing laws. We got pushed out of Georgetown. So one day I was driving [my grandmother] on U Street, and she was like, ‘Oh my God,” and started telling the story of what was here and what they did. That influenced me to get out and do something because [the neighborhood] was changing rapidly.

Haynesworth’s grandmother (center, age 12) with her parents when they moved to 936 Westminister St. NW from Louisiana, circa July 1932 (Courtesy Shellée Haynesworth)

I feel like a lot of people in my age group — in their 20s and younger — don’t necessarily understand the history of U Street.

Exactly. And I don’t like to make blanket comments about African Americans, our people, but I just don’t think we care enough, you know? And I think it’s that institutional knowledge — that knowledge we just don’t pass down. Because it’s painful for some people. On this project journey, I’ve had older people tell me that it’s too sad, no one wants to talk about it. Well, we need to talk about it, and we need to celebrate it. That’s really my goal, and I’m trying to get more funding [to help tell a] deeper story… so I can create more content that supports and reflects why this community was significant to black America at large, not just D.C.

How do you do your research?

My goal is to tell the authentic story [from] people who lived through the history, so a lot of the information I’ve gotten from people I’ve interviewed. Historically, [black history] hasn’t been a priority when you look at these American institutions. They don’t document it unless it’s to their benefit. So I discover places that aren’t listed anywhere, people that live in the community by interviewing a lot of authentic voices. But of course I’ve done the traditional research by reading a lot of books and going down to [historical societies] and the Library of Congress.

What are your thoughts on the recent closure of jazz club Bohemian Caverns and the financial troubles plaguing the historically black Howard Theatre?

We’ve got to get back to understanding that in order for our businesses to survive and thrive, we have to support [them]. And I think by getting a better sense of the culture and history behind some of these places, maybe people will be more inclined to support [them]. I think we’re walking away from this cultural legacy instead of embracing it, you know?

How do you think we should continue to preserve black history on U Street?

We need to collaborate, the African-American community. I think what happens is there are so many things happening every day, there’s this issue, there’s crime, there’s this — so somehow, we’ve got to realize that everything is important. The people who want to preserve and revive and keep the history alive, somehow we have to collaborate.

[I hope] to get more people to understand why we’ve got to get this history out of the boxes and get people to understand that this was really a significant community, and I think more significant than Harlem. I mean, no disrespect to Harlem, but we didn’t own the Cotton Club and some of the major venues. They were owned by the external community.

“They’re teaching our students here in D.C. about the Harlem Renaissance, but they don’t teach them about the black renaissance in their own backyard.” — Shellée Haynesworth

I’ll just share this little story. I was doing some online research and came across this [image of] Ella Fitzgerald … at 18 years old, at Howard Theatre, performing with Chick Webb. So that just gives you a sense. This is 1935. The story is that Ella Fitzgerald actually won amateur night at 17 at Howard Theatre, and that’s how she hooked up with Billy Eckstine and Chick Webb. But all you hear about is her starting in Harlem. Well, she actually performed here before that — and won amateur night. They were doing amateur night years before they were doing it at the Apollo Theater. And you had folks like Billy Eckstine. He won. And he went to Armstrong High School here in D.C.

They’re teaching our students here in D.C. about the Harlem Renaissance, but they don’t teach them about the black renaissance in their own backyard. Just recently I went to Anacostia High School with Blair Ruble, who wrote a book about U Street. You should’ve seen the kids. They were blown away. Just blown away — because they had no idea.

All-American Insurance Company Parade on U Street (between Vermont and 9th streets), circa 1950. (Scurlock Studio via National Museum of American History)

And there were black [people] thriving in Georgetown long before white people lived there.

Yes, and Anacostia. So my goal is to show our people that even in the midst of this gentrification — which in my opinion is like the second coming of what we experienced in black Washington in the early 20th century — here’s what we did during that time, and we can do it again. That’s my goal. It’s to inspire, educate and elevate.

“Black Broadway on U: Echoes of an Area” takes place May 7 at Mulebone Restaurant. Explore the project on blackbroadwayonu.com. Top photo: Ave Marie Odell (center, DCPS educator) with family and friends at the Lincoln Colonnade Ballroom, formerly located underneath the Lincoln Theatre, circa 1940s. (Gina Strange Family via Black Broadway on U Archives)