Fugazi
Fugazi (/fuˈɡɑːzi/; foo-GAH-zee) was[b] an American post-hardcore band formed in Washington, D.C., in 1986. The band consisted of guitarists and vocalists Ian MacKaye and Guy Picciotto, bassist Joe Lally, and drummer Brendan Canty. They were noted for their style-transcending music, DIY ethical stance, manner of business practice, and contempt for the music industry.
For other uses, see Fugazi (disambiguation).
Fugazi
Washington, D.C., United States
1986–2003[a]
Fugazi performed numerous worldwide tours and produced six studio albums, a film, and a comprehensive live series, gaining the band critical acclaim and success around the world.[1] Highly influential on punk and alternative music, the band has been on an indefinite hiatus since 2003.
History[edit]
Formation and early years (1986–1989)[edit]
After the hardcore punk group Minor Threat dissolved, MacKaye (vocals and guitar) was active with a few short-lived groups, most notably Embrace. He decided he wanted a project that was "like the Stooges with reggae", but was wary about forming another band after Embrace's breakup. MacKaye recalled, "My interests were not necessarily to be in a band, but to be with people who wanted to play music with me."[2]
MacKaye recruited ex-Dag Nasty drummer Colin Sears and bass guitarist Lally, and the trio began practicing together in September 1986. After a few months of rehearsals, Sears returned to Dag Nasty and was replaced by Canty (earlier of Rites of Spring). One day, Picciotto, Canty's Rites of Spring bandmate, dropped by during a practice session to see how his friend was getting along; he later admitted he secretly harbored the idea of joining the group. But Picciotto was disappointed that there seemed to be no place for him.[3]
After some uncertainty from Canty about what he wanted to do with his future, the trio regrouped and booked their first show at the Wilson Center in early September 1987. The group still needed a name, so MacKaye chose the word "fugazi" from Mark Baker's Nam, a compilation of stories of Vietnam War veterans, in there being a slang acronym for "Fucked Up, Got Ambushed, Zipped In [a body bag]".[4]
The band began inviting Picciotto to practices. Inspired by the use of a foil in hip hop, Picciotto sang backup vocals. After his band Happy Go Licky broke up, he became more involved with Fugazi. MacKaye eventually asked Picciotto to become a full member, and he accepted.[5]
Fugazi EP & Margin Walker – 13 Songs (1988–1989)[edit]
Fugazi embarked on its first tour in January 1988. In June 1988 the band recorded its debut EP Fugazi with producer Ted Niceley and producer/engineer Don Zientara (who became a longtime collaborator), and shortly afterward embarked on an arduous tour of Europe.[6]
At the tour's conclusion in December, the band recorded songs for its intended debut album, but the band was exhausted from touring and found the resulting sessions were unsatisfactory. The track list was cut down to an EP and released as Margin Walker the next year. Both EPs were eventually combined into the 13 Songs release in late 1989.[7][8] Upon the band's return from Europe, Picciotto, unsatisfied with singing, began playing guitar too.[9]
Repeater and Steady Diet of Nothing (1990–1992)[edit]
With Picciotto playing guitar full-time, Fugazi made the transition into jamming and writing new material as a band as opposed to performing songs composed solely by MacKaye. In addition to working on new material, songs they had been performing live were refined, such as "Merchandise" and "Turnover", for inclusion on their first official full-length studio album.[10]
Released on April 19, 1990, through Dischord Records, Repeater did not initially reach the Billboard 200 charts or become a commercial success. But the band spent most of 1990 and 1991 touring heavily behind Repeater, performing 250 concerts between March 1990 and June 1991, routinely selling out 1,000-plus capacity venues throughout the world. By summer 1991, the album sold more than 300,000 copies, a large number for a label that relied on minimal promotion. Major labels began to court Fugazi, but the band stayed with Dischord. It was critically well received and featured an alternative rock sound that predated significant releases such as Nirvana's Nevermind and Pearl Jam's Ten, which unexpectedly broke the genre into the mainstream.[10]
For Fugazi's second studio album, Steady Diet of Nothing, released in July 1991, the band again asked Ted Niceley to produce. Niceley had become a chef and had to reluctantly turn down the job, so the band decided to produce the record themselves.[11] After the success of Repeater and its subsequent world tour, Steady Diet was highly anticipated. Six months before its release Dischord had more than 160,000 pre-orders for the album.[12]
In on the Kill Taker and Red Medicine (1993–1996)[edit]
Fugazi recorded its third album, In on the Kill Taker, in the fall of 1992 with Steve Albini in Chicago, but the results were deemed unsatisfactory and the band rerecorded the album with Niceley and Don Zientara. With the breakthrough of alternative rock in the early 1990s, In on the Kill Taker; released on June 30, 1993, became the group's first record to enter the Billboard album charts, receiving critical praise from Spin, Time and Rolling Stone, and becoming the band's breakthrough album.[1]
By the In on the Kill Taker tour, the group began to sell out large auditoriums and arenas and receive more lucrative major label offers. During its sold-out 3-night stint at New York City's Roseland Ballroom in September 1993, music mogul and Atlantic Records president Ahmet Ertegun met with the band backstage in an attempt to sign them. Ertegun offered the band "anything you want", their own subsidiary label and more than $10 million just to sign with Atlantic. Fugazi declined.[13] The organizers of Lollapalooza also attempted to recruit the band for a headlining slot on its 1993 tour, which the band considered but ultimately turned down.
[edit]
In the hiatus, the members undertook side projects, with MacKaye forming the duo the Evens with drummer and singer Amy Farina (formerly of the Warmers).
In 2004, MacKaye produced the DC EP for Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist John Frusciante, which also featured Jerry Busher.
Canty has been doing a variety of soundtrack scores and playing bass in the trio Garland Of Hours alongside frequent Fugazi guest contributors Jerry Busher and Amy Domingues, and has played bass live with Mary Timony. Canty also appears on Bob Mould's 2005 album Body of Song and on Mould's 2008 album District Line, and has toured with Mould, appearing in the live DVD Circle of Friends. He is currently working in the Burn to Shine DVD series which is being released by Trixie DVD. Now, he is playing in Deathfix alongside Devin Ocampo (Medications, Faraquet, Smart Went Crazy, Beauty Pill), Rich Morel (Bob Mould, Blow Off) and Mark Cisneros (Medications, the Make-Up). They will release their album in February 2013 on Dischord Records.
Lally has released three solo albums, There to Here (2006), Nothing Is Underrated (2007), and Why Should I Get Used to It (2011). He has also appeared on fellow DC post-punkers Decahedron's debut album Disconnection_Imminent, as well as on a project with Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarists John Frusciante and Josh Klinghoffer, known as Ataxia. The group has recorded two albums, Automatic Writing (2004) and AW II (2007).
Picciotto currently works as a record producer most notably with Blonde Redhead and the Blood Brothers, and he has performed alongside members of the Ex at the Jazz festival in Wels, Austria. Picciotto also contributed guitar on two Vic Chesnutt albums, 2007's "North Star Deserter and 2009's At the Cut (co-producing the latter), for Constellation Records and performed live with Chesnutt and members of Thee Silver Mount Zion Memorial Orchestra and the Quavers in Jem Cohen's program entitled, "Evening's Civil Twilight in Empires of Tin at the Vienna International Film Festival (Viennale) in 2007 (a DVD of the program was released in 2009). Picciotto played guitar on Chesnutt's Fall/Winter 2009 North American Tour. He has a daughter with musician Kathi Wilcox from the band Bikini Kill and the Frumpies.
In July 2011, Minneapolis based record label Doomtree released an album of mash-ups between Fugazi and east coast veteran rap crew the Wu-Tang Clan. The album is titled 13 Chambers, group name Wugazi. However, Fugazi itself did not have any involvement with the release.[32] Bassist Joe Lally was asked about his thoughts on the Wugazi release, and stated "I think they could've found better Fugazi pieces to sample with Wu-Tang guys rapping on it. I mean, it's enjoyable, and I do appreciate it for the fact that somebody enjoys our music enough to bring it into that. But, you know, I don't know. I guess I should shut up, because I suppose I'm about to run into these people at the Fun Fun Fun Fest festival and talk to them. But I'm afraid that is my opinion on it. It's like, get better samples of our stuff, do better work."[26]
In October 2012, Chris Lawhorn released Fugazi Edits. The album includes 22 instrumental tracks, which sample 100 songs from Fugazi's discography.[33] As in other cases, the band had no involvement in the production. But, the album was authorized for release by MacKaye, with the proceeds going to charity.[34]
In 2016, Canty and Lally joined with guitarist Anthony Pirog to form the Messthetics, Canty and Lally's first project together since Fugazi's hiatus.[35]
In March 2018, the Messthetics released their self-titled debut album and embarked upon a tour of the US and Japan.[36] The band toured further and released a second album entitled Anthropocosmic Nest in 2019.[37][38]
In 2018, Ian MacKaye, Amy Farina and Joe Lally debuted a new band.[39] In February 2020, it was announced that the band, now called Coriky,[40] would release their first album on March 27, 2020.[41] The debut single, "Clean Kill", was released on February 11, 2020.[42] The band previewed their album at a free show in D.C.'s St. Stephen and the Incarnation Episcopal Church on February 22, 2020.[43] Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the release of Coriky was delayed to June 12, 2020, in part to accommodate independent record stores closed due to the pandemic.[44] Upon release the record was favorable reviewed in a few publications; often drawing comparisons and contrasts with MacKaye and Farina's other band the Evens, as well as Fugazi.[45][46][47]
Musical style[edit]
Fugazi's style has been described as post-hardcore,[50] art punk,[51][52] alternative rock,[53] and experimental rock.[54] Fugazi's music was an intentional departure from that of the hardcore punk bands the members had played in previously. Fugazi combined punk with funk and reggae beats, irregular stop-start song structures, and heavy riffs inspired by popular rock bands such as Led Zeppelin and Queen, bands that the punk community of the time largely disdained.[55] When questioned by Guitar World in 2002 about the band's influences, singer/guitarist Ian MacKaye responded, "Too many to mention. And not just from the last few years. Some of them predate us by decades, and most of them wouldn't be punk. I would hope any musician would be inspired by a lot of different kinds of music." In a 2004 interview with Indonesian magazine Deathrockstar, Picciotto named "D.C. groups" such as Bad Brains ("who inspired all of us so much at the beginning"), the Faith and Void as influences, in addition to Minutemen, Black Flag, Sonic Youth, the Ex and the Beatles, the latter of which all the members "share[d] a major love for". Despite this, he similarly conceded that "[i]ts [sic] impossible to narrow it down to one band or record because we didn't just crib from one blueprint, we were grabbing ideas from all over the place and then filtering them through our own limited and personally shaped skills."[56]
Picciotto became the group's second guitarist when he realized MacKaye's typically chunky, low-end riffs and Lally's dub-influenced basslines allowed him to focus on high-pitched parts. In both vocal and guitar roles, Picciotto assumed the role of a foil to MacKaye; employing a Rickenbacker guitar for its scratchy single-coil sound in order to "cut through MacKaye's chunky chording like a laser beam."[9] Their inventive, interlocking guitarwork often defies the traditional notion of "lead" and "rhythm" guitars and features unusual and dissonant chords and progressions filtered through a hardcore punk lens. Later, Fugazi more fully integrated elements of punk rock, hardcore, soul and noise with an inventively syncopated rhythm section.
Picciotto's assumption of guitar duties allowed all four members of the band to jam together and write songs that way, where previously they had played songs largely as MacKaye had arranged them.[57] When writing songs, the band often rearranges them with different structures and different singers.[1] Spin has listed MacKaye and Picciotto together at No. 86 on their list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time for their unique and interlocking guitar style in Fugazi.[58]
Generally, MacKaye's lyrics and singing are more direct and anthemic (MacKaye admits that he loves audience sing-alongs and writes songs with shout-able slogans), while Picciotto usually favors a more abstract, oblique approach.[1] Lally has contributed vocals to a few songs as well, in which he sings in a more relaxed, quiet style as opposed to MacKaye and Picciotto, whose lyrics and vocals often feature strong emotional intensity.
Each of Fugazi's albums since Repeater have featured an instrumental. By the time of 1995's Red Medicine bassist Joe Lally also began contributing vocals to the band and the group was implementing many of their broader influences into the overall sound. Critics Ian McCaleb and Ira Robbins declared that Fugazi's music combined an "unprecedented dynamic range ... and previously unimagined elements" such as "clattering musique concrète ... piano and sound effects ... murky dub and lancing clarinet" and "loose-limbed jammy funk ... into an ambitious, experimental format that raises more stylistic questions than it answers."[59]
Business practices[edit]
On their first tours, Fugazi worked out its DIY ethic by trial and error. Their decisions were partly motivated by pragmatic considerations that were essentially a punk rock version of simple living: for example, selling merchandise on tour would require a full-time merchandise salesperson who would require lodging, food, and other costs, so Fugazi decided to simplify their touring by not selling merchandise. The band was also motivated by moral or ethical considerations: for example, Fugazi's members regarded pricey admission for rock concerts as tantamount to price gouging a performer's most loyal fans. Fugazi's inexpensive target goal of $5 admission was spawned during a conversation on an early tour when the band's members were debating the lowest profitable admission price.[60] Everett True has said that MacKaye and Fugazi "had a mind-set that believed that any involvement with the system was corrupting and that you should create completely alternative structures outside".[61]
In later years, Fugazi was unable to negotiate ticket prices below about $10–$15 total. However, it never saw the $5 rule as inviolable, instead aiming to charge a price that was both affordable and profitable. Unlike some similar, independent rock contemporaries, Fugazi's performances and tours were always profitable, due to the group's popularity, low business overhead costs, and MacKaye's keen sense of audience response in given regions. Many times the band performed sold-out shows multiple consecutive nights at the same venue.[60]
Fugazi's early tours earned it a strong word-of-mouth reputation, both for its powerful performances, and also for the band's eagerness to play in unusual venues. The group sought out alternatives to traditional rock clubs partly to relieve the boredom of touring, but also hoping to show fans that there are other options to traditional ways of doing things. As Picciotto said, "You find the Elks Lodge, you find the guy who's got a space in the back of his pizzeria, you find the guy who has a gallery. Kids will do that stuff because they want to make stuff happen."[62]
The group (MacKaye in particular) also made a point of discouraging violent, unwanted slam dancing and fistfights, which it saw as relics of the late 1970s/early 1980s hardcore punk era. Michael Azerrad quotes Mackaye, "See, [slam dancers] have one form of communication: violence ... So to disorient them, you don't give them violence. I'd say, 'Excuse me, sir ...'- I mean, it freaks them out – 'Excuse me, sir, would you please cut that crap out?'"[63] Azerrad writes, "[MacKaye's] admonitions seemed preachy to some. And by and large, people would obey – it wasn't cool to disrespect Ian MacKaye."[63] Occasionally, Fugazi would have an unrepentant slam-dancer escorted from the concert, and give them an envelope containing a $5 refund (the group kept a stock of such envelopes in their tour van for these occasions).
During the summer of 1990 MacKaye formed the corporation Lunar Atrocities Ltd.[64] in order to shield his own and his bandmates' personal assets from the threat of lawsuits. As MacKaye's financial advisor, Seth Martin, explained to The Washington Post in a 1993 interview: "protection from liability is the main reason to form a corporation, and for these guys it makes sense. If someone got hurt stage-diving and decided to sue, it would be harder to go after their personal assets."[65]