Fugazi: C or D?

I'm broadly pro-Rollins, but "acts" very much in scare quotes!

I mean literally, lol.

https://ih1.redbubble.net/image.808362073.3904/gptr,1400x,front,black-c,313,133,750,1000-bg,f8f8f8.u2.jpg

Ian McKaye owns real estate in Arlington Virginia and property values there have risen exponentially in the last 20 years. I have a feeling that’s most of his wealth and it’s not exact liquid so that he’s now lighting his doobs with $50 bills.

not lighting any doobs iirc

everyone got outraged over beto o'rourke not because he'd missed the point but because it was too painful to acknowledge that he hadn't

mackaye smokes weed has been a thing for decades I have no idea if there was ever any truth to it

not lighting any doobs iirc

Shit Velvet Puma

xps plz parse that Beto post for me

yeah 5 mil is nothing for someone who's owned NVA property since the 80s

In addition to Dischord, he also owns a for-profit corporation:

https://opencorporates.com/companies/us_dc/EXTUID_2814696

"Betonomics would have certain punk-rock edge"

He may be from inside the Beltway, but MacKaye is a Washington, D.C. native more familiar to Generation X college students than America’s political class. In the hagiographic profile of O’Rourke that Vanity Fair published to coincide with the candidate’s announcement of a 2020 White House run, he said of MacKaye: “I have so much reverence for him and he means so much to me in my life.” Your humble columnist can relate.

MacKaye fronted two seminal bands categorised as independent, or underground, rock during the last two decades of the 20th Century: Minor Threat and Fugazi. As influential as the music he produced was, it was more the ethos MacKaye and his bandmates adopted toward their craft that resonated. Fugazi was effectively a startup from which valuable lessons in governance, business and sustainability might be inferred about the way an O’Rourke administration will approach the American economy.

Fugazi capitalism would be inclusive, consumer-friendly and ethical. It would favor the interests of small businesses over corporations. It would reject cronyism. As O’Rourke described MacKaye, he “really did represent this super-ethical way, not just of being in a band, or running a label, or putting on shows, but of just living.”

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-united-states-economics-breakingviews-idUSKCN1R91H8

the notion of indie DIYism being revolutionary in some way has always been dubious but people really want(ed) to believe it

capitalist pig, "straight edge" pioneer, author of the most famous white nationalist hardcore song ever... your fave is problematic

I'm really not interested in purity tests, and sure I dig the music (and grew up in proximity), and idk where you got "fave", but sure at least two of those objections are legit. he's only a "capitalist pig" by having a clue about how to manage money, imo. but hey by your logic I'm a homeowner so I'm the enemy even tho I booked punk shows for almost a decade so I guess I'll have to be "problematic" as well

(FYI we probably agree on >90% of weirdo lefty niche shit, as I hope u have been able to tell from my posts re e.g. anarcho-primitivism)

wow ian you participated in capitalism....disappointing

I like fugazi lol don't take it too personally. everyone is problematic. loads of my favourite artists are capitalist pigs. it's just fun to pick on someone whose upright/uptight moralism is such a huge part of his public profile. (almost wrote brand which I know he'd really hate)

I mean, it's easy to say it but they did the shows for almost nothing when they could have gotten $20 at least at their peak, and didn't have merch but instead would have amnesty international booths instead of t shirts

Left - copy that, and thanks for providing the Beto context! which was indeed gag-worthy

I know you're not mounting a Serious Critique but...I mean, I'm struggling to think of another band who left a comparable amount of money on the table.

The Screamers, but for different reasons

Crass maybe?

I wish I was old enough to have seen Fugazi when they were still going. I'm not preaching to anyone here so much as to my past self and some people I associated with who would interpret what they did as "politically revolutionary" instead of "pretty cool". I do think the tension between the liberal/radical/reactionary impulses in punk/indie is interesting though, there is/was just so much confusion and misplaced...everything going on in those scenes

agree w/ all that for sure, scenes are problematic by their very nature

(cf. "I Was A Teenage Anarchist")

I mean....you think Crass or the Screamers were going to be as big as Fugazi in the 90s?

no, I was reaching, I think Simon is probably otm

(well, maybe The Screamers)

but they were like the inverse of Fugazi, holding out for a major

(and thereby remaining obscure for decades)

I guess SFA have to be in contention for (supposedly) turning down a "seven-figure" Coke ad.

The Mummies are a band that rejected multiple major label deals and refused to out their music on cd

What about Inside Out?

I wish I was old enough to have seen Fugazi when they were still going. I'm not preaching to anyone here so much as to my past self and some people I associated with who would interpret what they did as "politically revolutionary" instead of "pretty cool". I do think the tension between the liberal/radical/reactionary impulses in punk/indie is interesting though, there is/was just so much confusion and misplaced...everything going on in those scenes

― ftp (Left), Wednesday, January 6, 2021 8:19 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

As someone who was old enough to have seen them a bunch of times in their prime, I think you have to view them in the context of whatever "the left" was at the time. It was still the immediate wake of the cold war. Communism/socialism felt somewhat dead as an idea and limited to old cranks and campus weirdos. People with leftish politics were into Ralph Nader, Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn. There were strains of anti-globalism, anti-corporatism, anti-racism, gender critique and intense criticism of US foreign policy, but there wasn't really a unifying left economic theory with any popular traction.

I hate the word "problematic." I think it's a weasel word for when you want to say something is bad-ish but can't actually say it's bad. It falsely implies that there is someone or something in this world that is "unproblematic." MacKaye wrote "Guilty of Being White" when he was literally a teenager, and subsequently rejected it. Even as a teenager I don't think he had any intention of being anything resembling a white nationalist -- I think it was more just a confused kid's reaction to stuff he probably heard growing up in DC and attending heavily black public schools. What people might today call a reaction of "white fragility."

The "he owns a record label" stuff feels a lot like "Bernie has three houses." I guess in some limited sense it makes him a "capitalist." But the pejorative sense of "capitalist" usually means earning money for nothing by exploiting the labor of others. I suppose you could find some exploitation somewhere in the Dischord chain. Maybe there are underpaid interns, idk. Maybe the company who actually presses their CDs doesn't pay its employees well. I still think overall that the little ecosystem Dischord created was a great thing, and it also probably brought a lot of people into other types of left politics. I would bet that, among today's left who are old enough to have gone to Fugazi shows, you'd find a lot of Fugazi fans.

So, no, I reject the idea that they were "problematic."

yes

I didn't mean (assuming you meant my post) that "he owns a record label" as indication that MacKaye is the Man or anything. Just a statement of fact. He owns a record label that he founded decades ago, he owns a house in NoVa that he bought decades ago. They both have value. The only way he could *not* be worth some money is if he gave them away. And for that matter, he's recorded hundreds of sessions for free, spent lots of that money releasing those sessions, gave up no doubt even more money through more equitable (and not predatory) agreements with the bands on that label, let untold numbers of people crash or work in that house rent free, etc. I don't think he's "problematic" at all, certainly not by today's standards. If anything he remains some sort of platonic ideal of how to be an ethical businessman in a business that actively discourages such a thing.

TBC, I think it's worth interrogating the idea that DIY is any kind of substantive left politics. But I also think DIY can be a human thing that's good on a human level, like hugging or dancing or food that tastes good. I don't think we should extend it into a political philosophy or buy into any myth that we are better off with everything being smaller scale and less interconnected. But I also don't think the whole concept should be thrown out.

I'm not sure DIY is at its core necessarily close to a leftist policy. Just look at all the lunatics with "go bags" or survivalist gear or shelters full of wheat or whatever. I think the reason MacKaye et al. favored DIY was because it allowed them to (for lack of a better phrase) control the means of production, which some obviously branded as political. But in reality it was ultimately no more political than, say, Black Flag (no leftists) crisscrossing the country in a van finding new places for bands to play.

Yes DIY Capitalists who just charged $5 for gigs, reasonable price for cds, vinyl, etc and did lots and lots of benefits

https://dcist.com/story/19/05/06/data-punk-a-new-exhibit-explains-fugazi-with-graphs/?fbclid=IwAR1pTgCx3zstIELy27leCi89DorpPzGmUpUZ37q_K2EaJXz28Bh8D_PHBdI

One infographic maps the non-traditional venues where Fugazi played, from outdoor concerts at Fort Reno, to small churches in Mount Pleasant and Columbia Heights, to the original 9:30 Club near Metro Center.

Another work illustrates how Fugazi raised some $250,000 for local charities by playing around 80 benefit concerts. D.C. organizations that benefited included the Whitman-Walker Clinic, Washington Peace Center, Alexandria Tenants Association and the Women’s Crisis Center

The above data is just regarding dc gigs

I also remember there often being organizers tabling at their shows, which was encouraged.

Being anti-capitalist/trying to live ethically under capitalism does not not require giving away all earnings beyond a subsistence amount, not owning property, or being bad at capitalism imo.

the only band of any repute I've personally seen eschew merch tables and distribute literature / fundraise instead is Propagandhi

Fugazi def did it

oh yes I was just mentioning to emphasize how rare that is

i mean...they could have easily doubled ticket prices and sold out every show no question....and sold merch instead of having organizer tables...i don't think it's crazy to think they left $10K on the table every single 21+ club show they played, not to mention all the all-ages gigs or non trad show

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).

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.