Fugazi: C or D?

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.

FTR this predated Nirvana. I first noticed it at a Red Hot Chili Peppers show in 1990. The pit was full of thick-necked assholes in Duke caps randomly punching people.

The one Fugazi show I saw (Exeter, UK, 2002) someone attempted to crowd surf and the crowd just parted. They got carried out covered in their own blood from a head wound. Ian stopped and gave a short lecture, obviously.

I remember seeing "slamdancing" at the very first show I went to, Living Colour circa 92. So it had already migrated beyond hardcore punk by then into bigger bands.

I also have a vague memory of being at a Dead Milkmen show and someone breaking their arm in the pit. I generally stayed away from the pit at that age (we're talking like middle school).

FTR this predated Nirvana. I first noticed it at a Red Hot Chili Peppers show in 1990

Yeah I meant more like They Might Be Giants where I saw slamming and crowd-surfing in the era

Their penultimate UK tour they played this scary-ass, over-sold venue in East London, the Rex, and some guy who'd been snapping the show from the stage gave his camera to someone else side of stage and did a huge leap into the crowd. When he got back onstage, Ian made him stand up, stripped his photo pass from him and, after a sturdy lecture, sent him back into the crowd, onstage privileges permanently revoked.

Their last UK tour I saw them in Brighton, and they had this awesome local band Cats On Form playing support. I was reviewing for Kerrang!, and the photographer, Nick Stevens, took this fantastic shot of Guy pretty much doing the splits while playing guitar in that awesome Nijinsky-of-hardcore style he's made his own. It was such a good photo that Kerrang! included it as a pull-out poster a couple of weeks later, and blown up to A3 or whatever you could clearly see Cat On Form watching, sat on the side of the stage, watching in awe. This band influenced so many other groups, and that influence can only have been positive.

https://live.staticflickr.com/3663/3407839766_320d1d9ea1_b.jpg

I was at the Rex show as well. I remember Ian issuing a stern rebuking to a guy about flyer distribution (he had thrown a load of flyers on stage).

Dear Justice (don't) Litter

FTR this predated Nirvana. I first noticed it at a Red Hot Chili Peppers show in 1990

Yeah I meant more like They Might Be Giants where I saw slamming and crowd-surfing in the era

― chr1sb3singer, Tuesday, October 19, 2021 5:06 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

the height of this for me was watching some concert on MTV and people were crowdsurfing to "Linger" by the Cranberries

do u have to
do u have to
do u have to mosh to "linger"

https://podbay.fm/p/the-alphabetical-fugazi

^Thanks!

That's awesome.

Saw dcer Chris Richards loving and touting that. Haven’t listened yet myself

oh wow, looks like I have my next several weeks of podcast bingeing cut out for me then.

The wrap up conversation with Guy and Ian is incredible.

Most interesting part for me was the thing about the drums on Margin Walker being sample-replaced without the band's knowledge, and no one knowing about it for all those years.

:O

Very much hoping some enterprising soul is listening to the wrap-up episode and is now writing to Ian to take charge of the process of editing and releasing all the amazing rehearsal recordings they have <praying hands emoji>.

https://i.imgur.com/WgwoJYN.jpg

lol

I saw the debut of new doc “We are Fugazi from Washington D.C.” Saturday night. It’s not a conventional doc but is instead a series of old live gig songs, a few old interviews, footage from a dc exhibit from 2019 with data about Fugazi dc gigs and how most were for charitable causes . Plus new interviews with the folks who lugged big video cameras in those pre- I phone days to Fugazi gigs . The doc was put together by Joseph Pattisall ( who had done a doc on dc graffiti artist Cool Disco Dan); Jeff Krulik ( Heavy Metal Parking Lot ); and Joe Gross ( wrote a 33 1/3 on a Fugazi album and used to live in DC area before going to Austin). Ian Mackaye was involved in helping provide access to some audio of shows and film footage and knowing some folks who made films .

I enjoyed it. Some aspects might not be clear to those not familiar with band. The semi famous “ice cream eater” spiel from a Fort Reno park in Dc show is included plus lots of other dc gig footage as well as from shows elsewhere in the world. Most not on YouTube. One omission that surprised me was no footage of “No blood for oil “ protest gig in Lafayette Park by the White House.

I may go see it at AFI when I'm in DC - they added dates. I may even see myself.

Is there Mark Anderson content?

I have, um, some feels about Positive Force

Yes, you even see a young Mark. I had some up and down uh feels about Positive Force . But more up than down. There is also the 2019 data study guy who looked back at all the Fugazi free and benefit shows. But it doesn’t go into deep detail about Positive Force.

Tickets still available for the 18th and 23rd. At opening night there were folks there who came from Atlanta, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, New Jersey

At the Q and an after the screening, an East LA guy now in his 40s spoke about how inspired he was by seeing them when he was 14 at the Anti Club in Los Angeles.

I kept looking for myself in the crowd footage of various DC shows but didn’t see myself. The crowd at Fort Reno park free Fugazi gigs were in the thousands. The bands that play there now just draw 100 at most

The folks whose live and interview footage was used were there and they discussed afterwards the difference between lugging big old video cameras then and using cellphones now. Jim Saah who is also a professional photographer and has a book of dc punk and more photos out, was doing the standard over age 50 grumbling about people holding up cell phones and doing bad quality footage. Another participant Sohrab who used to play in bands responded to him— I was 14 then and my skill level was terrible. I was lucky enough to have parents who had a big video camera and let me use it. Who are you to set rules now regarding who is allowed to tape and who isn’t.

While there were women photographers at Fugazi shows back in the day, none of the video folks in the doc and at the AFI Silver were female.

Unrelated observation—Also while the film has some brief old interviews with Ian and Guy, there’s no interviews with drummer Brendan or bassist Joe Lally.

Oh, one of my fave clips in the movie is when Amy Pickering , who worked At Dischord and played in bands, was the guest vocalist on “Suggestion.” Having Amy sing lyrics including “Why Can’t I walk down the street free of suggestion “ made the song so much more powerful

Pretty sure the last significant time we went to Fort Reno was the allegedly final Dismemberment Plan show (2003 or 04?). It was absolutely pouring rain and there was cake. Were you at that show, curmudgeon? My main man Jason Hutto (appearing as "The Aquarium") sang "someone left my cake out in the rain." Then his keyboard shorted out due to rain and things started to fall apart.

Travis said that it was bullshit and they would do another club gig in the fall to make it up to Plan fans. I don't remember going to their last 9:30 show but we saw Travis solo at Galaxy Hut shortly thereafter. He played Ludacris and Mary J. Blige.

We may have been once or twice since, but the magic was kinda gone and it wasn't the same.

I met my now-wife through these connections, so they retain sentimental value even though it wasn't quite my music at the time. She was a big PFDC devotee so I got exposure to that scene mainly through her.

We've seen various Minor Threat and Fugazi-adjacent acts but I don't think either of us ever went to a Fugazi gig. Some years later we lived on 10th Street and our local 7-11 and dry cleaner was upstairs from Dischord.

Fun times.

Hopefully much better to have a plethora of footage than have things skipped. THough hope it doesn't mean things aren't valorised as worthy
Such a shame that there is no Pere Ubu pre Birdies from Urgh A Music War or the only classic era classic line up Television is the clipmof Foxhole that was on OGWT, though do dream that there may be more of that appear at some point. There's so much more with Richard Hell for some reason.

they sound like red hot chili peppers. some good songs though.

Frusciante of RHCP was a Fugazi fan. But whatever

X-post — yeah I think I was at that Dismemberment Plan Fort Reno gig

xp where is the Fugazi song with slap bass, "funky" scratch guitar, and Kiedis-style vox?

Or maybe the question I'm asking is, where is the RHCP song that sounds like "Facet Squared"???

https://external-preview.redd.it/DyGgfXk_6agulpnt8MsRjLSPVoZZouUpXbRs3ITWJKE.jpg?auto=webp&s=6e80f3d9d0975a20c7201c1e03407e728482a922

"Flippy-dippy doo, flippy doopy doo-doo!"

https://www4.pictures.zimbio.com/gi/2013+Coachella+Valley+Music+Arts+Festival+eBKFlxy5vMel.jpg
"Why can't I walk down the streeeet, free from bass-slappin' ..."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wweoL5v9vW8

sorry to ruin a fugazi thread with a video of the red hot chili peppers playing live but you'll hear "latest disgrace" at the top

That's cool. Imagining an alternate world where Joe Lally wriggled around like Flea.

I don't have a specific memory of it, but statistically speaking I am pretty sure I bought a cup of Haagen-Dazs raspberry sorbet from that guy at least twice.

I do get a little tired of thinking about him, though, because he had a brief period of urgent relevance and has had an EXTREMELY long period of being interviewed about his brief period of urgent relevance.

You know how Olympic gymnasts peak at approximately age 14? and then spend the rest of their lives coping with the fact that they were globally famous when they were 14 and now they're just... normal people? Yeah, that.

Taking sides: Häagen-Dazs vs. Frusen Glädjé

It's like the death metal of dessert products

some of their songs sound like rhcp

No they don't

I don't ever wanna feel
I'm in the waiting room

brief period of urgent relevance

uhhh if you think of 1981-2001 (20 years) as "brief", I guess?

Joe Lally’s dub reggae inspired bass playing seems different than Flea’s funk influenced bass

Sleeve, comrade,I like you and I like Ian and Brendan and the whole crowd.

But seriously. When a documentary filmmaker interviews someone with the last name MacKaye, they are not asking him questions about what he was up to in 2001.

Just kinda guessing here but I think most people want to know about the period of highest urgency, which is 1980 or 81 to 1990 or 91.

If you or someone you know was deeply into Fugazi in 2001, well, good for you. Pat yourself on the back for how well-versed you are in harDCore. Congrats.

I assume MacKaye has spent the majority of the last 20 years methodically transferring live recordings and videos to digital storage.

https://www.dischord.com/fugazi_live_series

They often used the audio from here for the movie doc rather than the sound recorded by the video cameras

Most of the songs in the doc are from the first two albums.

YMP drop the old guy act, plenty of people I know found this band extremely inspiring in the late 90s and beyond, sorry you're jaded

PS I have lived on the west coast for 30+ years, the band's enduring influence has nothing to do with your insular DC viewpoint

and re: questions asked in some doc I will never see, well maybe they should be asking about the Evens and maybe the 2005 tour with The Ex or y'know any of the other cool things Ian & Amy have been up to, do the fucking homework

at least they're fucking trying...

If you or someone you know was deeply into Fugazi in 2001, well, good for you. Pat yourself on the back for how well-versed you are in harDCore. Congrats.