Bobby Sullivan is a musician and activist. He grew up in the

Washington, DC Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and Federal district of the United States, federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from ...

punk Punk or punks may refer to: Genres, subculture, and related aspects * Punk rock, a music genre originating in the 1970s associated with various subgenres * Punk subculture, a subculture associated with punk rock, or aspects of the subculture s ...

scene. Forming Soulside in 1983, their first release under the name Lunch Meat was a split 7" with

Dave Grohl David Eric Grohl (; born January 14, 1969) is an American musician. He founded the rock band Foo Fighters, of which he is the lead singer, guitarist, principal songwriter, and only consistent member. From 1990 to 1994, he was the drummer of th ...

's first band, Mission Impossible. After the first 7", all their work (three albums and another 7") was produced by

Ian MacKaye Ian Thomas Garner MacKaye (; born April 16, 1962) is an American musician. Active since 1979, he is best known as the co-founder and owner of Dischord Records, a Washington, D.C.–based independent record label, and the frontman of hardcore pu ...

and released on

Dischord Records Dischord Records is a Washington, D.C.–based independent record label specializing in punk rock. The label is co-owned by Ian MacKaye and Jeff Nelson, who founded Dischord in 1980 to release '' Minor Disturbance'' by their band the Teen Id ...

. Soulside toured extensively in the US, Canada, and Mexico, and toured Europe in 1989, including Eastern Europe. Soulside were the only American band to play at one of the illegal punk shows held in East Berlin in the 1980s, shows put on in tolerant Lutheran churches against the wishes of the dictatorship and its security organs such as the Stasi. The shows normally featured banned East German groups, and only rarely did international bands appear, traveling into East Berlin on tourist visas and playing in borrowed gear. After Soulside's split, Sullivan formed 7 League Boots in Boston, a band which blended reggae and rock. After releasing two 7"s and one album on Constant Change/Cargo Records, they broke up and Sullivan joined Rain Like The Sound Of Trains in DC, before forming Sevens with his brother Mark Sullivan. Both bands released albums produced by

Tim Kerr Timothy E. Kerr (born January 5, 1960) is a Canadian former professional ice hockey right winger who played 13 seasons in the National Hockey League (NHL) for the Philadelphia Flyers, New York Rangers and Hartford Whalers. Known for his goal- ...

. In his later years, Sullivan became an activist. Mentored by Eric Weinberger, a

Civil Rights Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' political freedom, freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and ...

activist who had been on the

Freedom Rides Freedom Riders were civil rights activists who rode interstate buses into the segregated Southern United States in 1961 and subsequent years to challenge the non-enforcement of the United States Supreme Court decisions '' Morgan v. Virginia' ...

, he worked with

Food Not Bombs Food Not Bombs (FNB) is a loose-knit group of independent collectives, sharing free, usually vegan and vegetarian food with others. The group believes that corporate and government priorities are skewed to allow hunger to persist in the midst of ...

(soup kitchens for the homeless) for five years in DC and Boston. He also helped form the DC chapter of the

Anarchist Black Cross The Anarchist Black Cross (ABC), formerly the Anarchist Red Cross, is an anarchist support organization. The group is notable for its efforts at providing prisoners with political literature, but it also organizes material and legal support for c ...

, a political prisoner support network, giving him close relationships with Ramona Africa from the

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Organization and various former

Black Panthers The Black Panther Party (originally the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense) was a Marxist–Leninist and black power political organization founded by college students Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton in October 1966 in Oakland, California ...

and

Weather Underground The Weather Underground was a far-left Marxist militant organization first active in 1969, founded on the Ann Arbor campus of the University of Michigan. Originally known as the Weathermen, or simply Weatherman, the group was organized as a f ...

members. Today Bobby still makes music with Soulside and recently put out a book calle
Revolutionary Threads: Rastafari, Social Justice and Cooperative Economics
2018).

References

Washington Post interview about Soulside reunion - Dec. 2014Bandwidth coverage of 2nd album's reissue on vinyl - 2014Interview on 24 Hours blog about the Prison Ministry - 2013
* ''Dance of Days'' by Mark Andersen & Mark Jenkins pages 169, 188, 211, 217-218, 232, 284-85, 275, 357, 383, 425, Akashic Books 2009. * ''Banned In DC'' by Cynthia Connoly, Leslie Clague & Sharron Cheslow, Sun Dog Propaganda, 1998. Lest. * '' American Hardcore: A Tribal History'' by Steven Blush pages 52, 175,

Feral House Feral House is an American book publisher founded in 1989 by Adam Parfrey and based in Port Townsend, Washington. Feral House is known for its taboo and provocative publications, but has had significant influence in both underground circles an ...

2010. * ''The Dave Grohl Story: Nirvana, Foo Fighters'' by Jeff Apter. * ''Visual Vitriol'' by David Ensminger page 110, University Press of Mississippi, 2011. * ''This is a Call: The Life & Times of Dave Grohl'' by Paul Brannigan, Da Capo Press. * ''The Philosophy of Punk'' by Craig O'Hara page 60, AK Press 1999. {{DEFAULTSORT:Sullivan, Bobby Living people American punk rock musicians Year of birth missing (living people)