Album: Repeater
Shut the Door
After Minor Threat dissolved, MacKaye decided he wanted to form a band like "The Stooges (I Wanna Be Your Dog) with reggae." Exactly what this means is anyone's guess -- I interpret it as punk with a groove -- but Fugazi was the triumphant straight edge result. The band released several albums between 1988-1995, two of which -- Repeater and 13 Songs -- are among my all-time favorites, and "Shut the Door" is perhaps my single favorite Fugazi song.
I recently played the above clip for a friend who is not so enamored with punk and he responded with a nod and a single word: "Art." And that's precisely my response too. Not exactly toe-tapping music, and not much for humor or lyrical subtlety either, but what're ya gonna do? Stravinsky wasn't exactly a barrel of laughs either. Oh, and Fugazi have been cited as an influence on many early emo bands. But they can't be blamed for that.
Can they?
Sorry about the title of the blog. I'll bet you were expecting something else altogether. Listen to the song, though, and all will become clear.
Ha! Crazy performance. I loved it near the end where they were kind of swaying in sync and then freaked out on the guitars. I have the album 13 Songs by Fugazi and I've never really been able to place their genre at all, besides post-hardcore, which really doesn't mean anything to me.
ReplyDeleteI also find it difficult to know if they accomplished their goal of sounding like The Stooges with reggae. The Stooges have more of a garage rock sound than a punk sound do they not? They were early punk though, I guess. I have not detected any reggae in their songs though, do you hear any examples of it?
Classification is seriously overrated but yeah I hear you. Sort of like Wire, Fugazi fill that nebulous place between punk and...something else. Ian MacKaye is always interesting though. His latest project is The Evens which I highly recommend. In fact I should probably do a post on them. Here's a taste: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X082AXpyCKw.
ReplyDeleteAs for reggae influences, heh, a tough one. As I said I think it refers to punk with a groove...but even that is hard to find in their music. :) But! "Shut the Door" provides some insight in my opinion. The CD version isn't funky at all, but in this live performance they hit a *serious* groove during the extended "cowbell" section. And it is kinda reggae in feel, emphasis on the back beats, 2 and 4 in every bar. So maybe his formulation is manifest in the live shows but not on CD. Maybe.
OMG! The female vocalist in The Evens is Amy Farina, who was previously a member of Ted Leo & The Pharmacists and I gave a first listen to one of their albums *today* just before work. That just blew my mind. But I love her vocals, that song is very badass.
ReplyDeleteI suppose I don't have a very strong background in listening to reggae music. I mean, Bob Marley would pretty much be the only thing I've listened to that I can think of.
Also, on your comment about emo groups. The very first bands to be considered emo weren't all that bad actually. I enjoy a lot of them, it's the new pop emo stuff like Fall Out Boy that really gives the genre a bad name, I think. Try listening to some Cap'n Jazz and see what you think. Kris out.