Fugazi: C or D?

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

I listened to the 3hr Bandsplain episode on Fugazi on a recent long drive. I didn't learn a huge amount but Brandon Stosuy is good company and of course the tunes were great. Aside, but this daft Britisher is constantly surprised that Guy's name is pronounced (unvoiced G) Gee Pi-CHOT-oh.

Ha. This American living in DC area sometimes heard his last name pronounced multiple ways

I'm reading the 33 1/3 In On the Kill Taker and it's really good. I've had a day listening to lots of Egg Hunt and Rites of Spring. My god what a talented scene.

Has anyone dipped into the live archive? I've not and was hoping someone would know where to start...

This blog may help.

Perfect, cheers.

The first time I crossed the border from the North of ireland into the Republic was for the McGonagles gig that is talked about on the blog that is linked to by JRN. So 31 years ago last Friday. Thanks wouldn't have thought of that if i hadn't seen that.
& I think first time i came to Galway would be within about a week afterwards.

I’m still so sad to have missed the initial release (and thus the physical CD editions).

I grabbed the physical editions of at least the first set at the time, and iirc I think they're just CD-Rs (that Joe burned?) with the same basic reused artwork. Though honestly I haven't taken out the actual CDs for years, so maybe they're not CD-Rs? That's how I remember them at least.

If I can shill for one second. A friend of mine has just started up a new little bespoke label, and the first release is this collab between Brendan and sound artist Stephen Vitiello.

https://playneutral.bandcamp.com/

Mods are asleep, post Long Hair Ian: https://www.instagram.com/p/CU5hejWDRHj/

xpost: listening now, sounds cool!

this is really cool, thanks. Taylor Deupree involvement! and Rebecca Gates is thanked for some reason <3

Also, happy 20th birthday, The Argument!
https://www.stereogum.com/2164172/the-argument-turns-20/reviews/the-anniversary/

oh no i’m old

The Argument Turns 20

In 15 years of doing Fugazi

Oh shit i never really put these numbers together, that they have not been a band longer than they were. Still by far the band I most regret not seeing live.

The Vitiello / Canty collab is so great!

They were a force of nature live

I saw them three times and every one of those times Ian stopped mid-song to dress down some jackass trying to crowd surf. Money well spent!

I maintain to this day that I saw Ian whallop a stage invader with his guitar when they played Brixton Academy on the Red Medicine tour

I saw them at least twice at Fort Reno in DC, once at the Electric Factory in Philly, once at Maxwell's in Hoboken, NJ, and I feel like there's at least one more I'm forgetting. One of them was in fact, I am pretty sure, the famous "I saw you eating ice cream!" show memorialized in Instrument, something I have only pieced together from vague memory combined with friend's account.

Re the berating (which happened at all of my shows too), I have a running joke with a friend about how Ian is "Dad" and Guy is "Mom." At the first show I went to, the Killtaker tour, it was worse than crowdsurfing, it was skinheads stomping people, including my friend who was in the pit. We were 14 years old. The crew let us sit and watch from the back of their truck after.

Absolutely electrifying live show, and the "YOU! YOU DOING THAT CRAZY, VIOLENT, SWINGY ARMS DANCE!" moments were every bit as much a part of it as Dark Star was for Dead shows.

*(not a direct quote)

This is the 'ice cream' gig - https://www.dischord.com/fugazi_live_series/washington-dc-usa-80993

Right, yup. That would in fact have been the same one at which my friend got kicked by skinheads and we wound up sitting on the truck. First one I went to.

Said gig is discussed in the introduction of Joe Gross's In On the Kill Taker book.

At the time I remember in the zines of the era there was a fair amount of clowning on Fugazi for show stopping and "policing" the crowds, but, as a relative slight (at the time anyway) teenager any really big punk/alternative shows at the time (91-95 esp in my experience) were so violent and could be so scary there were times I didn't even want to go see bands. Nirvana busting through to mainstream and moshing/slamming being on MTV made it instantly de rigueur for every single show where the bpms got above 80 and the spike in jocks at like every show. People were going to see bands to start fights essentially.

Add to that the low bar for entry to Fugazi shows (all ages/5 bucks) made them pretty much ground zero for all kinds of terrible behavior in the audience and I was always so happy and thrilled when Ian would call out some asshole and give him his five bucks back and tell him to leave.

Yeah, I mean I've always been a bit of a wuss, but if it's between "uncool policing" and "kids getting kicked in the head with steel-toed boots" I'm on the side of uncool policing.

Yes! I too always loved the scolding. I saw em for the first time at a tiny place (upstairs I even think it was) in Burlington Vermont. I had never heard them before, and I also hadn't heard about the Rodney King video, which had just come out, and they talked about it. I think they opened with the volume swells on "Turnover" which was incredibly exciting. All of it made me a lifetime fan.

Later that summer after Steady Diet had come out I saw them in Detroit at a bigger theater (the Majestic?). It was the day after the first Lollapalooza had played at the outdoor ampitheater in the suburbs, Pine Knob. Nation of Ulysses opened. There were frightening skinheads everywhere and it was the only time I ever felt genuinely unsafe at a show. Ian and Guy were on them the whole show.