Continuing the series in which I explain why I elected to include certain albums on my somewhat spur-of-the-moment best of the last decade list. This time, it’s those revolutionary, not-so-young-anymore men from Washington, D.C.
#9
Fugazi
The Argument
[2001]
I got to know Fugazi through my friend, Steven. I’ve got to know a lot of music through Steven. We have quite a long, shared musical history: introducing different artists and bands to one another; going to gigs; watching films about music; having lengthy discussions about music that would probably be mindnumbingly tedious and/or incomprehensible to anyone in the room with us (over the years we’ve even managed to develop a vocabulary of nonword vocalizations and hand gestures to describe certain emotional reactions to music). I think Steven is the only person I’ve ever had a telephone conversation with which consisted entirely of musical discourse.
Steven might correct me, but I believe this music-based camaraderie started when were about 15, when we realized we had similar listening habits. By that I don’t mean we listened to same bands, but we had a similar attitude to music. In particular, we both took an active approach to discovering new artists and to learning more about the artists we did listen to – something most of our classmates didn’t seem that interested in; or at least were not vocal about.
So this realization lead to some lunchtime symposia and CD exchanges. When, in the summer of 2000, I bought a secondhand bass guitar, he was the first person I ever played music with. He came over to our house and we played some Pixies and R.E.M. songs. That was the day he got me into The Clash, too.
And we’ve been great friends ever since. Aww!
Funnily enough, although that all began when were 15 or so, we’ve known each other since we were 7 or 8. In the early years we didn’t really get on at all. Hate’s a very strong word, but for exaggerated emphasis I’m going to go ahead and say we hated each other. I guess we can file this under the bridge-building power of music…
My introduction to Fugazi came from one of those early jam sessions in 2000. We were picking out songs to play and Steven suggested ‘Turkish Disco’ from the Instrument Soundtrack, because of its brilliant bass line:
After that piqued my interest, he leant me the 13 Songs compilation and Red Medicine. The former I found it difficult to get into. It was a little bit too “punk” for me at the time. (At least, that’s what I thought at the time. Thinking about it now, that was a somewhat unusual reaction to have.) Well, obviously I loved ‘Waiting Room’. But it’s impossible not to love ‘Waiting Room’:
Red Medicine was a different beast altogether. For one, it had possibly the best, most abrasive opening 50+ seconds to any album I’d heard:
And the songs were rich, varied, exhilarating… And I realize I’ve spent nearly five hundred words not talking about the album I’m supposed to be talking about. I really need to cut down on these extended introductions.
I will have another quick aside though: Instrument, directed by Jem Cohen, is THE BEST FILM ABOUT MUSIC EVER MADE. No exaggeration. I’ve watched it about half a dozen times and it never fails to inspire me. I heartily recommend buying it.
The Argument, their sixth – and, in all likelihood, their final – studio album, came out in October 2001. Steven got his straight from Dischord. He lent it to me shortly after. Like Red Medicine, this album has a 50(-ish)-second introduction. The intro on The Argument, untitled and not at all abrasive, gets its own dedicated track. The sound of radio transmissions and static with a simple cello part on top, it certainly sets a different tone from the openings to the other releases in their catalogue. It’s soft, almost ethereal.
The first song proper is ‘Cashout’, sung by Ian MacKaye. That sentence doesn’t seem especially surprising, but in the context of their earlier work, it’s a minor shock. Up to that point, Ian MacKaye wasn’t really known for his “singing” – in the traditional sense, at least. The division of vocals in Fugazi was, if you oversimplified it, Ian does the shouting, Guy (Picciotto) does the singing. Of course there were exceptions along the way. It’s not like we didn’t know Ian could carry a tune (and Guy has done his fair share of wailing). Still, there was something odd about the first vocal you hear being Ian cooing melodically. Although sonically soft, the lyrical content is still hard-hitting, as you’d expect. Halfway through [spoiler alert!] good old shouty Ian does make a return to hammer the point home. But set alongside the tuneful opening, it’s much more dynamic and feels fresher because of it.
Almost the exact opposite happend on the following song, ‘Full Disclosure’. This one careers along, Guy screaming “I want out” repeatedly over buzz-saw guitars and a groovy rhythm until – BOOM – an upbeat chorus with “oooooh” backing vocals. And then full-on harmonies in the middle eight. This running theme of juxtapositions continues on the next song, ‘Epic Problem’, where stop-start, shouty-Ian (and brilliant, by the way) verses and choruses give way to an almost folky breakdown, with just guitar and voice. The rest of the band comes back in, loud and hard, but the melody in the vocal part is preserved.
In the opening section of the album, they somehow managed to confound expectations and hark back to the strengths of their older material, all the time maintaining this excitement. It’s brilliant.
Things go a bit more left field over the next couple of tracks. ‘Life and Limb’ is probably my favourite on the album. Its verses are skeletal: Brendan Canty with a tight, restrained beat and guy playing an intricate but “light” guitar part and singing. When bass comes in, with the female backing vocal, it brings this amazing warmth. But at the same time, it has a very unsettling, nervy quality as all. This could be Guy’s ability to turn on the creepy stalker vibe (see the ‘Rend It’ demo on the Instrument Soundtrack). The track’s coup de grâce comes straight after the second chorus, where Guy sings “right away” and there’s short build up to a pause, which leaves you dangling precariously for four beats before …a guitar solo! Like Ian’s singing, guitar solos aren’t usually part of Fugazi’s repertoire. They allow themselves this rare one and it’s a treat. The whole song’s a treat:
‘The Kill’ and ‘Strangelight’, the two longest songs on the album, keep the sparse eeriness going. Especially ‘The Kill’, bassist Joe Lally’s lead vocal effort. Things get back to “normal” then, with ‘Oh’, ‘Ex-Spectator’ and ‘Nightshop’, before we end on ‘Argument’, probably the most radically different song on the album. Radically different for the band, in that features Ian MacKaye singing melodically through the whole thing!
It seems I’ve short-changed the latter half of the album. I think this is just a simple case of me being too tired to continue writing, unlike in my look back at XTRMNTR, whose second half just isn’t quite as good as its first.
In October 2002, Steven and I saw Fugazi play at the Red Box (now Tripod) in Dublin. Due to technical difficulties, there was a considerable delay before they went on. But when they did they were incredible. Thinking back, it just adds to the disappointment that, like the prospect of a new album, the chances of seeing them on stage ever again are incredibly slim.
So, no more of this:
or this:
