Fugazi: C or D?

(the song, spock, is "margin walker.")

These days the term "emo" is like the Blob/Borg, threatening to absord everything in its path: "I really like emo, you know, like the Beatles and Moby."

No, sir, I don't like it one bit.

I think it's the only genre term I've ever seen change completely over the course of 4-5 years. I suppose that can be blamed, in part, on the people making it -- the term started with just-post-hardcore bands like Cap'N Jazz and would up stuck on bashy- poppy-punk bands like the Promise Ring (members of Cap'N Jazz). Regardless, any term variously applied to refer to Mineral, Karate, and the Get-Up Kids is beginning to lack meaning.

But so the question now is: with the Cap'N Jazz guys reforming as the Owls, will "emo" go back to being what it was, leaving the Get-Up Kids as just "crap?" Or will the Owls play funk, leading us to start referring to Parliament as "emo?"

Emo: supposed to have started with Rites of Spring is my understanding, who led to Fugazi. Now the term is meaningless, for reasons laid out expertly by Nitsuh.

North of America: not emo at all. Math rock, pure math rock.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guvwUUCvsKs&feature=share

^^Not showing up for me. What is it?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guvwUUCvsKs

I love how Albini said for years that Fugazi was one of the few bands he respected so much he'd record them for free. And then he recorded them and they didn't use it.

Hmm. I can sorta see why they scrapped this, but I say that as someone very, very familiar with IOTKT as it was released

But none of these versions are better than the album versions

(see also: First Demo. How many times have you listened to that one since you bought it?)

Ian Mackaye of Fugazi/Minor Threat/ Dischord Records at the #JuggaloMarch pic.twitter.com/acrebJ4zCd

— #retiredpunk (@NickKarpPhotos) September 17, 2017

http://cps-static.rovicorp.com/3/JPG_500/MI0002/018/MI0002018821.jpg

Saw that! Watched Brendan Canty playing drums with Lizzi from GangGang Dance & guitarist Dana Vorhees at the Hirshhorn Museum Yoko Ono tribute. Canty & Joe Lally will be backing Daniel Johnston on his upcoming DC gig.

Koolest Wizards jumbotron screengrab of all time? pic.twitter.com/XV6Xt4R8D1

— Chris _ _ Richards (@Chris__Richards) November 10, 2017

Also, had no idea Lally and Canty were in a new band together.

(With Anthony Pirog)

& Rites of Spring really surprised me

Welp, that rules.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0nFZe_e-qc

new canty/lally/pirog track

Another track here https://themessthetics.bandcamp.com/track/serpent-tongue

Messthetics album release is March 23. Brendan Canty is also gonna be busy touring with MC5 50th anniversary group with Wayne Kramer and others

End hits fucking rules

^otm

all fugazi albums rule

Steady Diet of Nothing doesn't imo but that's about it

No, that one rules, too. A lot.

Steady Diet a lot better than End Hits - the former a much better showcase for the rhythm section, which is the band's strongest point.

(what I mean is the instrumental-side of Fugazi is better in the context of short, tightly wound interplay where the bass/drums are at the forefront - 'jammy' Fugazi isn't the best Fugazi IMO)

i'd call red medicine jammy, end hits i guess is playing-wise but towards much more frictive ends? anyway that era is my favorite of theirs, i think the rhythm section gets plenty of shine and the compositions especially on end hits hit a great balance of punch and spaciousness (both of which iirc steady diet lacks a bit i comparison to their other records variously, though it still rules)

the argument hits that balance the most smoothly and so might be their best (it's a good record to end on as it ties together strands of their previous modes to creates its own). i listen to it less though bc i love their jammy mode

There is a case to be made that The Argument=Red Medicine/End Hits. End Hits is the one I listen to the least, for no good reason.

In On The Kill Taker is the band's most aggro album. "Facet Squared" - an awesome rush, but why even bother with lyrics? Blaaaargh!

...and their best, IMO. Probably their loudest album but also more dynamically nuanced than the earlier stuff. Plus "Sweet and Low" (an example of why I'm iffy about the longer, later material - they perfected the "this is a Fugazi instrumental" here)

"Facet Squared" - an awesome rush, but why even bother with lyrics? Blaaaargh!

ah but Facet Squared includes one of my absolute favourite Ian lines - "We draw lines and we stand behind them / That's why flags are such ugly things"

I love the lyrics to Facet Squared. 'Cool's eternal but it's always dated' has the ring of a stolen revealed truth.

Yeah, but did you catch any of those lyrics without a lyrics sheet?

Steady Diet is the one that most consistently slays from beginning to end imo. Maybe others have higher highs but it's still my favorite to play in the car.

xp "Irony is the refuge of the educated" was a line ahead of its time imo

That and "I hate the sound of guitars" are the fugazi lyrics I think about most

Messthetics LP is awesome, gotta check out more music by this Anthony Pirog guy

Good podcast interview w/Ian about some of the music that mattered to him: http://wypr.org/post/essential-tremors-ian-mackaye

Fugazi rules. my first album of theirs was "Red Medicine" and i was shocked it was only $10. soon enough picked up "Repeater" and listened to those two a lot in my first year of college. kept up with them off an on and always enjoyed their stuff. i remember really liking the "Instrument" movie, which was the last thing i heard of them.

i got to see them play a show in early 2000s. it was of course a great show, and they stopped it midway through to throw out somebody in the audience who was being unduly aggressive. as a small person who always had to be cautious around mosh pits at shows, seeing this in action was very much appreciated!

No one wants to discuss this Mesthetics record, huh? Quit living in the past!

Mostly kidding here. But this record is great and should be getting more attention.

Fuck it, I'm starting a thread

I don't think it was ever a strict rule to keep it to 5.... just low enough that normal people could afford it, costs were covered plus they could give someone their money back and ask them to leave it that person was a dick. the last shows they did in london 2002 were £8.

which is still mega low obviously

One thing I do remember is at their peak (91-93) when they sold out large venues (speaking specifically of the Hollywood Palladium, 3800 capacity) they would keep adding dates and shifting tour dates around to accommodate demand.

($6 though...)

lol ;)

I remember when they played the Aragon in Chicago in the summer of '93, because Aragon was a Ticketmaster venue, they couldn't get around the service charges. So tickets were $5.30. I can't imagine how they were able to get Ticketbastard to agree to a 30 cent service charge, but they never played the Aragon again (opting for the far better-sounding Congress Theater in 1998...and weirdly, of the five Fugazi shows I saw, the two in Chicago were by far the weakest).

MacKaye has famously cited the Aragon show as the only Fugazi show that actually *cost* them money.

I think it's in here:

https://www.soundopinions.org/show/722

Maybe they didn't lost money. Not from sound opinions but here's the story I found:

Now think about the fact that one of the skyrocketing costs of all the shows was security. I mean, there was a show we did in Chicago where the barricade made four times as much money as we did. The BARRICADE. And because you have a barricade, then you must have security people. You have to have security people - crowd management people - between the stage and the barricade. Because the barricade is a hole. So once you put a barricade in, then you have to staff the barricade. So it just costs more and more money, and this results in higher ticket prices. So these people that were just 'having fun' and just 'going off' - what they were really doing was they were perverting the peoples' music. They were creating a corporate climate. Do you follow?

This is something that I've spent a lot of time thinking about. I mean, this barricade in Chicago - we played at this place called I think the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago, and at that time there was these 'T' barricades. Are you familiar with that? It was a giant room that held 5,000 people, and the barricade was shaped like a 'T,' so you had the horizontal bit in front of the stage, but then right in the middle there was a barricade that goes straight down dividing the 'pit,' so to speak -- or the 'crowd,' if you prefer -- into two. But then you had to bring in even more security people to be in the middle slot. And we argued and argued about it, but the fix was in. The security people were connected, insurance rates drove up costs, and everything was just creating this insane confluence of things that jacked the cost of the show higher and higher and higher. I couldn't get them to waive it, so finally I said that I insisted that we include in the budget 100 balloons and a can of helium. And the guy was like, "What? What are you talking about!?" And I said, "If you're gonna have such a draconian set-up, and since when people are entering the room that's the first thing they'll see, it sets a contrary tone. So as a form of protest and an absurdity, I would like to soften it by having balloons tied to it all the way around." They did it! But I was just spitting in the wind, because that night we just got banged. We had 3900 people at that show, and we made less than the guy that drove the forklift. That's the risk we took by working percentages.

Didn't know that (nor do I have any recollection of the balloons)! I saw them again a few weeks later at the college I was attending in Vermont; it was VERY hastily organized, there were rumors that the band was pissed about the lack of publicity, the place was half full (maybe 250-300, if that)...and they apparently did better financially on that show than on a sold-out Aragon show.

And 3900 was "sold out" for Aragon shows until they started dangerously packing people in. I remember the '96 Sex Pistols show was shoulder-to-shoulder in the very back of the hall.

Left has already said they were just having some 'fun' with all of this. I knew Left must get some enjoyment out of life somehow somewhere sometime.

what I wanted to take issue with was the implication that all this was something more/less than what it is, the idea (which is popular, maybe more popular at the time, in these scenes) that running an "ethical" business, doing benefits, not merchandising in an obvious way, adopting a vegan diet, etc... is not just a (better?) way of operating within the system but is actually substantially outside of or against it. this way of operating sometimes then becomes a standard of purity to hold others to, something they could also have achieved if they'd really cared (and that part is where the ideological distance from neoliberalism becomes less huge than it seems at first)

also, even if these things were really difficult and a lot of money was left on the table, I imagine it was easier for MacKaye to be as successful within his own terms as he was, than it would have been without his relatively privileged background (which is also where GoBW comes in... still no excuse, now or ever)

sorry to keep with the politics but the problem with the "bernie owning houses" thing is that it's raised by people who have no opposition to capitalism or to people owning as many houses as they like - as an attempt to own people who sometimes might be expected to have at least some. not that bernie (or ian) isn't really a capitalist or isn't really bourgeois, or that this kind of wealth is actually ok as long as you're woke enough

"this kind of wealth" - ROFLMAO

stay focused on the 1% dude, eyes on the prize

I've seen enough.... Ian MacKaye is Elon Musk.

Not even the richest DC punk rocker .

sorry in what sense is this not wealth. I suppose he's less rich than a few guys

dude I'm probably worth $1 mil on paper and I have $2K in the bank and no retirement

(to be fair >50% of that is my wife)

upper middle class =! the 1%

I don't really understand the meaning of "ok" in that sentence. Socialism isn't kashrut, it's not a series of laws about what are "ok" individual choices.

(putting aside that one is his vermont residence, one is his DC residence -- something every member of congress needs -- and one is I believe a lake house his wife inherited from her parents. It's not like they're deliberately accumulating properties)

"socialism" is full of normative judgments (eg exploitation is basically a bad thing), some of the theory crowd has always been a bit in denial about this

so the defensiveness is really not necessary and there is not really an "ok" level of accumulation including what I engage in. I suppose there are some fundamental differences of opinion about what constitutes being rich. the fact that someone is a capitalist (as in "I've got my own business") or that they own more property than most people ever will should not be controversial though

lol are you a Maoist?

that's like one step away from Cultural Revolution shit IMHO

THE LOCAL SHOPKEEPER IS THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE

Home ownership in America is somewhere around 65%.

And a home bought in 1981 or whenever in what has since become one of the most valuable real estate markets in the country is going to go way up, even if you never so much as mowed the grass.

thing is though, dischord just kind of *happened* like they put out their own 45s and then were like oh we should put out our friend's band and oh cool we broke even, so put out some more stuff and hey cool we made some money let's put out some more records

the idea that it was some kind of plan to be a capitalist and not just putting out music they thought should be heard that no one would put out - AND pre-internet when you had to get things manufactured and distribute physical products - seems ahistorical and unfair

and like you actually have to live somewhere, is owning a home morally wrong when the only option is to participate in the rental market? putting money in the hands of some real estate company?

Not everyone lives in America, believe it or not.

To explain Left's perspective, not Ian Mackaye's living arrangements.

I'm not a marxist-leninist but business owners are capitalists in the most literal descriptive sense and it's true that property ownership is a kind of wealth a lot of people won't ever see. I don't know what's so outrageous, is this still about mackaye or something else

well now that you've downgraded your blanket judgement from "most" to "a lot" I'd say I'm good

again this is like a pragmatist vs idealist debate, like a lot of ILX

yeah if I cared about more than dreaming I would get shit done, anyone can do it as long as they work hard enough and understand that in the real world you have to cut deals

being white / male with a college degree from that generation pretty much guarantees you this kind of net worth

guilty of being (rich) white (male)

(from that generation)

guilty of being (rich) white (male)

these new song titles for the deluxe reissue lay it on a bit thick imho

Anyone with a net worth of a million bucks or more (and MacKaye is probably significantly ahead of that given his career and age) is in fairly rarified air. The median net worth even for Boomers is like $200k and that’s all tied up in their home equity.

It’s a big who cares here but weird to dismiss a rich guy being rich with some hand waving ‘well evvvvvverybody is like that.’

lol Simon

I suppose there are some fundamental differences of opinion about what constitutes being rich.

agreed

what is the right amount of money to have?

I guess to me he's like "normal people rich" as opposed to like CEOs of big companies or investment dudes

like my job before this was at a small PR firm, like 11 employees including the owners, they are my reference for normal ppl rich

some good and interesting takes here but i'll still take the average imperfect and often ineffectual dyed-in-the-wool-cap MRR-style 90s leftist punk - who at least had their hearts and brains in the right place - over their modern counterpart who decries capitalism, corporatization, and wealth inequality while simultaneously sucking at the teet of Netflix, Spotify, Amazon, and Twitter

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D1ZVPOsX0AACj17.jpg

Rich vs wealthy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fA4ufNSE7l0

thing is though, dischord just kind of *happened* like they put out their own 45s and then were like oh we should put out our friend's band and oh cool we broke even, so put out some more stuff and hey cool we made some money let's put out some more records

the idea that it was some kind of plan to be a capitalist and not just putting out music they thought should be heard that no one would put out - AND pre-internet when you had to get things manufactured and distribute physical products - seems ahistorical and unfair

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, January 7, 2021 2:02 PM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

and like you actually have to live somewhere, is owning a home morally wrong when the only option is to participate in the rental market? putting money in the hands of some real estate company?

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, January 7, 2021 2:04 PM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

otm and otm.

I probably spent something like 100$ on Fugazi/Dischord stuff over the past 10 years (with a 15% sales taxe, that's 15 for my two level of governments). That's why he has the net worth he does, that's pretty much it. I don't think there is anything sinister with that sort of transactions.

How would you all rate dischord in the pantheon of record labels just in terms of shipping product, keeping things in stock, paying people what they're owed on time, etc...?

A+ from all accounts