Fugazi - D.I.Y. Without Compromise

From Minor Threat to Fugazi: the post-hardcore vision of Ian MacKaye

In the beginning there were Minor Threat, a band that, with just a handful of songs, sketched out (alongside Bad Brains, Black Flag and a few others) the landscape on which the entire post-hardcore aesthetic of the US East Coast would be built. In that band Ian MacKaye (Washington, April 16, 1962) was the voice and guitar. Once the incandescent Minor Threat experience burned itself out in a handful of songs, MacKaye first conceived Embrace, then Egg Hunt, other short-lived outfits, and in 1987 Fugazi, stylistically combining the hardcore-punk of Minor Threat, the jazz-core of the Minutemen and the slo-core of Slint, engineering a hybrid capable of going well beyond the sum of its parts, thanks to extraordinary performing, compositional and reflective skill.

Ian MacKaye is among other things one of the founders of Dischord Records, a label based right in Washington, fundamental to the growth and development of the entire local hardcore scene. MacKaye has also worked as a sound engineer, and has produced albums for key bands, including Rollins Band and Bikini Kill. Fugazi, together with Minutemen, Fear and Mission Of Burma, would create – each with their own clearly distinguishable traits – a body of work that would prove extremely significant for the history of rock, institutionalizing emo-core and laying the groundwork for the subsequent birth and development of post-rock.

After having inspired, encouraged, supported and produced – even putting it out on his own label – one of the first emo-core bands in history, Rites Of Spring (we're in 1986), MacKaye shelves the project and invites drummer Brendan Canty (Teaneck, New Jersey, March 9, 1966) to join the first core lineup of Fugazi, alongside bassist Joe Lally (Silver Spring, Maryland, December 3, 1963). Shortly afterward, the former Rites Of Spring leader himself, Guy Picciotto (Washington, September 17, 1965), joins in – for the time being only on second vocals – completing what would become one of the longest-running line-ups in the history of contemporary rock. By that point the band was already playing live a lot: the quartet's first live show is traced back to September 3, 1987.

Fugazi's music starts from hardcore premises but leans toward the abstract, the primitive, the impersonal, a tormented urban sound performed with supreme technique, never straying from the classic three-instrument setup and never venturing into any effect that couldn't be reproduced outside the recording studio. Theirs is an innovative way of approaching hardcore, with the technical-compositional component coming – for the first time – to the absolute forefront, never overshadowed by the emotional one. As cerebral as they are meticulously crafted, the compositions come across as varied, intricate and complex, with constant tempo changes, stop and go dynamics, melodic fragments, accelerations, slowdowns, pseudo-metal solos, dub/reggae elements, rage and contemplation that would prove hugely influential. The vocals trace out melodies that, at other tempos and volumes, would be called "pop", but which suddenly burst into devastating screams, or else deliver the words borrowing hip-hop meters, all while strictly adhering to a Do It Yourself ethic.

MacKaye with his hoarse, thuggish voice, Picciotto with that immature, immaterial falsetto, trading off, elevate their music to absolute formal heights, at times countering expressionless music with expression, at times doing exactly the opposite. The rhythm section is flawless, sublimely unflappable, the guitars are in constant tremor, with an overall effect that attributes the scattered melodies more to the former than to the latter, following one of hardcore's general rules: to be the anti-riff par excellence. Fugazi's influence (as well as, for example, that of contemporaries Jesus Lizard, from Chicago, active from 1987 to 1999) would be enormous on the entire rock scene of the 90s; in Italy successful alt-rock bands, such as Marlene Kuntz, would certainly owe them a debt, and even more so vividly oblique underground bands, such as Uzeda and Pierpaolo Capovilla's One Dimensional Man.

Like much of post-hardcore and all of avant-garde rock, Fugazi don't conceive of "songs" in the properly defined sense: not only because their tracks ignore the "song form", but also because they systematically disavow its individual parts (from melody to vocals, from accompaniment to verse, to chorus). With Fugazi there are no "beautiful" or "ugly" compositions: far from being an alibi to dodge criticism, this trait should rather be read as a shift of focus toward a judgment that no longer concerns aesthetic or formal categories, but mathematical or substantive ones. The verdict has far more to do with weighing the amount of technical and compositional innovation brought to each single track than with its quality or beauty.

The first EPs

The debut comes in 1988 with the EP Fugazi: seven tracks for a total of 23 minutes. A work among the most innovative and eternally relevant in rock recorded in the 80s, its landmark track is "Waiting Room", a jazz-core sabbath fought over between MacKaye's constipated growl and Picciotto's dematerializing choral echo. "Bulldog Front" is an elegant psalm of damnation, with Picciotto's voice backed by a splendidly merciless rhythm section and an ending that already anticipates Nirvana, who, not by chance, would declare themselves Fugazi fans (and they would hardly be the only ones). "Bad Mouth" condemns even the rap-core of Red Hot Chili Peppers to refinement, laying down a carpet that reaches as far as the crossover of Faith No More, in some dynamics even anticipating it and, between slowdowns and fresh starts, keeping the sound always crisp and ineffably concrete.

"Burning" imposes a mix of a Pere Ubu-style progression, with Picciotto particularly indebted to the aesthetic hedonism of David Thomas, and a Sonic Youth-style ending. "Give Me The Cure" sees a laughing Picciotto weep over that merciless child represented by the glacial sonic backdrop. "Suggestion" dismantles and dissects a thoroughly Minor Threat-rooted hardcore lineage and launches MacKaye into a suffering, furious, dejected repetition of the title. "Glue Man" shows how Fugazi's is not a rock of searching or of the subject, but rather one of formal perfection and the object. 

In 1989 the EP Margin Walker confirms the band's stature, with six tracks condensed into just 17 minutes, more fluid and energetic than their previous work. The standout track is the title track, a two-and-a-half-minute hardcore piece ravaged by garage and jazz rhythmic intrusions, screamed by Picciotto (normally this would be MacKaye's job) with a power that is not viciousness but a sphere of childlike beauty. "And the Same" is a chant caught between hardcore hiccups and a skeletally garage-rock procession. "Burning Too" is a call-and-response of voices (already Rage Against The Machine-like) interspersed with cyclical guitar whirlwinds. Several years ahead of its time.

"Provisional" brings back the minimal, powerful garage sound of the Gang Of Four, diluting it with talcum-powder obstetric states, courtesy of Picciotto's vocals and the band's clinical rhythm section. "Lockdown" is yet another masterful (sung by Picciotto) rant that seems to say nothing, because it defies definition, and precisely for that reason, it says everything. "Promises" is an avant-garde ballad that, with great class, injects itself with hardcore screams and dirges always balanced between singing and rapping: in its second half it stretches out even further, closing on a hard-garage progression.

The two debut EPs would later be collected on 13 Songs, and seen as a whole, one can already glimpse — and observe even more clearly — what would become the band's defining traits: the alternation of the two voices, the politicized lyrics, the distorted, dissonant, scratchy guitar sound that nonetheless remains overall composed and calculated, never impulsive, a sort of ordered chaos. Picciotto, not entirely satisfied with handling vocals alone, decides to pick up a guitar, opening up new horizons for the band's future.

The first results come the following year with Three Songs, an EP of just three tracks condensed into seven minutes. "Song #1" is almost a tribute to the Rolling Stones' "Stray Cat Blues", a two-voice anthem in which all the band's characteristic traits chase each other. "Joe #1" is a cadenced instrumental with a slow, merciless thriller-like gait, charged with pathos, dominated by the bass, while the sizzle of the guitars slowly sets the listener alight. The brief "Break In" is a fast hardcore track that sees Picciotto launch into an irrepressible, relentless nursery-rhyme delivery at breakneck speed.

The masterpieces

The same year brings the first album. Repeater, in just 35 minutes, establishes itself as the peak of the career of one of the most revolutionary musical forces of the late millennium — the true Milestone of Fugazi. Repeater continues the artistic path laid out by the earlier EPs, embodying their maturation and managing to carry it all to a higher level: what was once a naive explosion of youthful fury now becomes measured and calculated. These aren't simple anthems to rebellion: behind every track lie the individual and their relationship with contemporary society, true concentrates of tension and anguish that dig deep without hesitation, through sounds carved out by a solid rhythm section and decorated by guitars that move between the restrained and the devastating. "Turnover", the overture, is a game of slowdowns and accelerations, shaken by the tectonic tremors of Picciotto's six-string, where every one of their accents is synthesized into a single melody: rap, garage, hardcore, prog-core. The intro is slow, the finale explosive, irregular, scorching — the epic chorus will remain among the best in their catalog. It's the perfect introduction to what will be the alienated, tormented, dissonant atmosphere of the entire record. The ferocious title track stars the leader's raw, guttural vocals and a wall of abrasive, distorted guitars, all so well arranged as to feel improvised, almost like Faith No More steeped in the amniotic fluid of Sonic Youth, inserting funk and crossover elements that anticipate the success of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. MacKaye lays out his whole philosophy here, his bleak vision of the brutality of Western society, where the law of the strongest reigns and the individual is reduced to helplessness. On the instrumental "Brendan #1" the lion's share goes to the tribal rhythm section, as perfect as ever at chiseling pauses and accelerations, giving the Sonic Youth-esque guitars room to sketch an apocalyptic backdrop. The more immediate "Merchandise" toys with hard rock only to grind it down, an anthem of striking impact with the ferociously violent refrain "We owe you nothing / You have no control!".

As usual, Fugazi upend and transcend the traditional song format, and this holds true even in the most seemingly controlled tracks like "Blueprint", a structurally intricate noise power-ballad, with a melodic opening and a crescendo finale. On "Sieve-Fisted Find" the atmosphere turns feverish, tension rises, and Picciotto's vocals shift from passionate and childlike to a sob. The violent "Greed" is a punch to the gut, driven by shifting time signatures, with MacKaye inhumanly screaming a single simple line: "You wanted everything / You needed everything". "Two Beats Off" is yet another display of class, with the band proving capable of crossing multiple styles, anchored to Lally's deep, murky bass. "Styrofoam" is a whirlwind of guitars, a linear yet always savage track in which Fugazi act as sonic terrorists, such is the jolt triggered by the exploding refrain and the relentless screaming. "Reprovisional" is a more dramatic reworking of a track already released on the "Margin Walker" EP, a modern '90s dance between indie incense, tight, essential rhythms and skillfully calculated noise regurgitations. The melodic opening clashes with Picciotto's hoarse vocals, which edge toward despair by the end. "Shut The Door" keeps the tension sky-high, paying tribute to Slint with its glacial chords, bowed guitars and drop-by-drop rhythm section, as Mackaye, scream after scream, lungs in his throat, turns into the new Rollins.

Repeater perfectly codifies the defining traits of post-hardcore, building a bridge both toward emerging post-rock ideas and toward some of the genres that would become most fashionable in the '90s, such as crossover and emo-core. It would also become something of a small miracle of the independent scene, managing to sell over 300,000 copies within a few months — a far from negligible figure for a record released by a label operating with a bare-bones promotional budget.

On the strength of that success, many labels tried to sign Fugazi, but every offer was turned down. Repeater has since reached the remarkable figure of a million copies sold in the United States, and over two million worldwide, paving the way — with its sound — for the alternative-rock and grunge giants soon to come. A few years later the album would be reissued with the addition of the three tracks that made up the 3 Songs EP.

The following year came Steady Diet Of Nothing: eleven tracks in 36 minutes, ranging from "Latin Roots", which shatters every possible sense of tempo, to the instrumental "Steady Diet", capable of making metal out of Sonic Youth, from a "Polish" that strips even rock'n'roll of all its life force (see the central riff surrounded by rhythmic desert) to the closing "KYEO", which stands as the most intensely strung-out summation of it all. But the rest of the tracklist is no joke either, starting with the opening "Exit Only", instrumentally Slint and Faith No More in its heavy, rhythmic vocal delivery, through to a "Reclamation" that redeems Sonic Youth (noise) with Slint (rhythm section) thanks to a particularly dejected and ever-extreme Mackaye, always able to find new tricks for the choruses.

"Nice New Outfit" follows the Mackaye-hardcore rule, with Picciotto's danceable slo-core adding metal rhythm guitars; "Stacks" returns to Mackaye's hooliganism, always channeled into sonic geometries; "Long Division" is a Mackaye chant, as sorrowful as a child who had only one toy (hardcore) and had it taken away. "Runaway Return" is the most "regular" track, while "Dear Justice Letter" is a convoluted rock'n'roll crushed under metal heaviness, rhythmic estrangements and landscape-gorging excess.

The rest of the '90s

After 1991, Fugazi (who were then barely between 25 and 30 years old) could do little else — much like the Jesus Lizard — but consolidate their legacy: great class, several notches above nearly all their contemporaries, but fatally so far ahead that they could no longer produce anything able to surpass the innovative drive of their early work. In On The Kill Taker (1993) follows in the wake of the two previous masterpieces without disgracing itself, trying to renew and expand the formula. The situation is clear right from the opening one-two of "Facet Squared" / "Public Witness Program": Fugazi are the best in the world in their category, and by now any emerging band wanting to find a place in the post-hardcore landscape can only take them as a reference point.

Adored by audiences and hailed by critics, they don't rest on their laurels but keep inserting fresh ideas into their compositions and experimenting with new sounds and intentions. Just listen to the sonic massacre that defines "23 Beats Off", nearly seven minutes of musical reprisal, an unusually long running time for the Washington band. The record was initially recorded under the supervision of Steve Albini, but the band — dissatisfied with the results — decided to redo everything from scratch, later finding Albini himself in agreement with their decision. In On The Kill Taker became Fugazi's first album to enter the Billboard charts, selling a remarkable 180,000 copies in its first week alone. Once again they were courted, and once again politely turned it all down, by several major labels; legend has it that Atlantic declared itself willing to offer any sum whatsoever just to get the band's signature. Fugazi also turned down an offer to take part in the 1993 Lollapalooza, preferring to keep organizing their live outings on their own terms.

Red Medicine is one of the best albums released in 1995, even as it's the work of a band whose innovative drive is running dry, pushing instead toward an increasingly intellectualized hybrid of experimental art-rock. "Do You Like Me" is an anthem caught between the aesthetic and the hedonistic, "Bed for the Scraping" a multifaceted, high-level jazz-core piece with a ferocious finale, "Latest Disgrace" a sado-masochistic indulgence, "Birthday Pony" a roar ennobled from several angles, "Target" an exquisite power-Slint, "Long Distance Runner" a droning, chant-like formalism (in its effects) elevated to post-modernist ecstasy. These are tracks that rank among Fugazi's very best, able to move toward song form only to refine it into disguise.

But this doesn't allow one to assign this album a value even remotely comparable to its predecessors, which aren't its cause but rather fully contain and exhaust it. It's no accident that the other tracks are: "Forensic Scene", for all that it's the best song Pearl Jam never wrote, the record's point of fracture, after which things start to feel almost always contrived; "Combination Lock", a tedious instrumental formalism; an unlikeable "Fell, Destroyed"; "By You", where the tribute to Slint is too internalized, too much made their own, to avoid feeling hypocritical; "Version", the instrumental deja vu (the sax especially feels out of place); "Back to Base", hardcore pour jouer; "Downed City", a mere synthesis, culminating in melody, of the record's highs and flat spots.

End Hits, released in 1998, may lack the revolutionary charge of the band's early days, but it still confirms Fugazi as the ultimate reference point of the post-hardcore scene. The anger, the cathartic verse, the politicized fury are all still there, but the quartet now attempts a semi-apathetic approach, through which it contemplates reality without proactively intervening, trading passion and adolescent impetuousness for maturity and awareness. In the process, they craft (on a par with Sonic Youth) a vision of experimental alt-rock to hand down to future generations ("Foreman's Dog" and "Guilford Fall" are brilliant examples of this), anthology-worthy instrumentals ("Arpeggiator"), nocturnal, narcotic and unsettling moods ("Pink Frosty").

The quartet can still be savage (see the one-two punch of "Five Corporations" / "Causitc Acrostic"), but also conjure up moments of delightful melody – oblique, but melody nonetheless – on "Closed Captioned" or "No Surpise". This is a less celebrated side of Fugazi, yet it still proves head and shoulders above any hypothetical "rival": the thunderous opening trio of "Break"/"Place Position"/"Recap Modotti" would be worth an entire career for any other band. End Hits has a title that might suggest a future break-up is on the cards, but for the time being Fugazi are still alive and kicking.

In 1999, Instrument is a thoroughly respectable collection of "leftovers" serving as a companion piece to a documentary film about the band directed by Jem Cohen. The record doesn't include the live material seen throughout the film. It's the seal on a story as important as few others that unfolded in the '90s. Far more peripheral than the grunge, Britpop, trip-hop or electro storms of the time, but essential in shaping the landscape that would follow.

The Argument and the long hiatus

Fugazi's new millennium opens with The Argument (2001), a work that once again distances itself from everything that came before, through which the quartet proves it still has the strength to write impressive songs of the caliber of "Full Disclosure" and "Epic Problem". It opens with a micro-intro that smells of GY!BE – though all that's borrowed from the Canadians is the strings and a few scattered bits of background noise – followed by the rising riff of "Cashout". The departure from the classic Fugazi template is sharp and inevitable: a melodious voice and sparse rhythmic interplay that have nothing to do with the evolved arabesques of the past.

The guitar and vocal interplay turns clean and relaxed on "Life And Limb", with its near surf-punk rhythm, marking the deepest break yet with the band's past. Cleanliness and order also return on the following "Kill", almost a stripped-down outtake from the "Steady Diet" era. The arrival of second drummer Jerry Busher and the sonic guitar/voice explosions generate new interlocking patterns on "Ex-Spectator", and the title track sits on the same emotional plane, a manifesto of the Fugazi state of the art: stop-and-go dynamics without distortion, melodic singing and bitter irony. For some, an overall disappointing record; for others, just a touch of confusion creeps in; either way, it's clear Fugazi had already given their best.

Even more certain – though it would only become fully clear in the years to come – is that The Argument represents the last studio record released under the Fugazi name. The band has never been officially disbanded, but has in fact been on hiatus since 2002, broken only at the end of 2014 by the release – to the delight of completist obsessives – of First Demo, containing recordings laid down in January 1988 and distributed at the time only on cassette during the band's fiery live sets of that era. At that point Fugazi hadn't recorded anything yet and had barely a dozen shows under their belt. These demos were recorded at Inner Ear Studios, with Don Zientara – who would go on to work with the band for a long time – behind the desk. The eleven tracks included are not-quite-polished (but far from embryonic) versions of songs that would later appear on Fugazi's first official releases: the EPs "Fugazi" (1988) and "Margin Walker" (1989), later collected on "13 Songs" (1989), and their first true full-length, "Repeater" (1990).

The only recordings that remain more or less obscure are "Furniture" (released on the EP of the same name only in 2001), "The Word", "In Defense Of Human" (both featured on later Dischord compilations), and the completely unreleased "Turn Off Your Guns". Otherwise, this selection lets us trace the formative journey of tracks like "Waiting Room", "Bad Mouth" (which would shortly after appear on the first EP) and "Merchandise" (later included on "Repeater"), true anthems of early Fugazi. The trio of "Song#1", "Joe#1" and "Break-In" (the only track here credited to Picciotto) would instead go on to enrich the reissue of "Repeater". The band's attitude is already crystal clear, the Fugazi sound is hyper-defined, incendiary rage oozes from every groove, hardcore visions turn post-everything, blended with dub and hip-hop influences and more than a few killer riffs to form an original and devastating crossover. These were the first cathartic proclamations that announced to the world a band that would make integrity its status symbol for years to come, right up to that "The Argument" which in 2001 would mark the end of the story. A story for which the release of this First Demo stands as an essential prequel, for fans and newcomers alike.

The ongoing hiatus was prompted by the need to devote time to family and solo projects. Rumors of a possible reunion have circulated for years, but have always been denied, just as the band has always turned down invitations to numerous festivals, despite receiving decidedly tempting financial offers. The members of Fugazi still get together from time to time to play privately, a sign that their relationships have remained intact.

In early 2018, Lally and Canty announce the birth of Messthetics, an instrumental trio in which the storied rhythm section shares the spotlight (and the workload) with jazz-rock guitarist Anthony Pirog (previously of New Electric and Skysaw): the two hadn't appeared on the same recording since 2002. In March of that same year they release, again on Dischord, the self-titled Messthetics, centered on jazzcore, math and post-metal sounds and perhaps overburdened by Pirog's acrobatic virtuosity. Things improve on the subsequent tour, with plenty of energy making up for that slightly indigestible whiff of academicism, testifying to the two formidable musicians' inexhaustible appetite for music. The trio get a taste for it, and the following year they already have a new album ready, Anthropocosmic Nest, sailing through choppy hard-fusion waters.

Two years later, in June 2020, here's another work bringing together two former Fugazi members. This time it's MacKaye and Lally who reunite, joined by Amy Farina (MacKaye's wife, who had already stood by his side in the Evens) to form Coriky, releasing their self-titled album. The core elements of Coriky's sound don't stray too far from the well-established tradition of the Washington D.C. scene, but Amy's vocal presence allows for interesting shifts in the sung parts, not just in the choruses but also when she takes center stage on "Say Yes" (a triumph of funk and guitars) and in the gritty, Sleater-Kinney-like mood of "Too Many Husbands" and "Jack Says".

The approach is less uncompromising than the one that made Fugazi immortal, but the twists keep coming without a break, with tracks that burn out in under two minutes ("Bqm"), noise digressions ("Shedileebop") and frequent shifts in dynamics ("Inauguration Day", practically three songs condensed into one, the furious closing section of the opening "Clean Kill"). The trio can also play it subtle, building "Have A Cup Of Tea" from Lally's pulsing bass, or giving in to the atmospheric, almost whispered epilogue entrusted to "Woulda Coulda".

Contributions by Ossydiana Speri (Messthetics)

Thanks to Tommaso Franci, author of the previous Fugazi monograph, fully revised in August 2018

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