Some time in 1988, in Washington DC, a brave new musical force was formed. They called themselves Fugazi. The band believes strongly in their anti-corporate stance and refuses mainstream press and television play. Members of the band, Brendan Canty, Joe Lally, Ian MacKaye, and Guy Picciotto; will only do interviews for underground fanzines.
Much like myself, Ian MacKaye will refuse to charge more than Five dollars for a concert. He also tries to keep album prices low by releasing them on his own label, Dischord Records. Without any commercial push, Fugazi has still managed to push their way up from the underground.
In 1999, Fugazi was the subject of a documentary called Instrument. The film was produced by filmmaker, Jem Cohen. It contains live concert footage, studio cuts, home-movie tapes, and a very personal look at Fugazi.
This was followed by a soundtrack appropriately called, ‘Fugazi Instrument Soundtrack.’ Released on March 23rd, 1999, this soundtrack basically gives an overview of Fugazi’s career in 18 songs. This album was produced in true indie fashion with no discredit to it’s quality. It unleashes many never-heard-of tracks and studio outtakes. The album starts off with a very dark ‘pink frosty demo’ and then goes straight into five tracks like ‘arpeggiator demo’, ‘lusty scripps’, and ‘afterthought’ that show how tight, but helter-skelter at the same time, Fugazi is. There are tracks like ‘I’m so tired’ with Ian MacKaye playing piano and singing, and “closed captioned demo’, that show the true depth of the band. The album finishes with a hypnotic but very inspirational ‘slo crostic’, that just makes you want to put the album on repeat. I don’t care what anyone says either, Fugazi IS NOT a rock band, and they ARE NOT rock stars.
