Fugazi is a band from Washington, DC. Between 1987 and 2003 Ian MacKaye, Joe Lally, Brendan Canty and Guy Picciotto played over 1000 concerts, covering all fifty United States, Europe, Australia, South America, Japan and many points in between. Over 800 of these shows were recorded by the band's sound engineers, often on high quality recording gear.
The Fugazi Live Series, officially launched on December 1, 2011, is a complete online archive of these concerts. Show pages will feature data from the concerts and (when available) related photos, flyers and MP3 downloads. Visitors will be encouraged to comment on the shows and recordings, and to contribute images and recordings to fill the gaps. The goal is to make the shows available to browse for free or to download for a small fee. Initially the band will release 130 concert downloads (100 new shows plus the 30 shows released on the now out-of-print Fugazi Live Series CDs). Additional downloads, photos, flyers, etc. will be added regularly until the entire archive is available.
In keeping with the band's philosophy of keeping music affordable, the suggested price of a concert download is $5. However, there will also be a sliding scale option where you can set your own price. Additionally, the site offers an All Access option that will allow the user to download every show on the site - that would include all 130 presently available downloads as well as all subsequent shows that will be added to the site over time.
Fugazi Live Series is a wing of the Dischord Records website and utilizes the secure Dischord online store for payment and delivery of the downloads. The site was designed and produced by Dischord's Alec Bourgeois and was developed by Jerrod Blavos of Rec Center. All shows were mastered by Jerry Busher except the 30 shows initially released on CD, which were mastered by Fugazi. Thanks to Peter Oleksik, Lindsey Hobbs, and Amy Breesman for their expertise and help organizing the Fugazi archive. And a special thanks to the many photographers who have generously shared their work.
It had been two years. Two long years since the forces of good, those souls making interesting and vital music, had been forced to evacuate the Philippine Islands. The evacuation had been necessary in the face of the unrelenting onslaught brought down upon the islands by the invaders, those evil entities creating mindless drivel in the form of music subsidized by Unclear Channel and Nonvitalcom. Before I was forced to leave I made a promise to the loyal listeners in the Philippines. I promised to return and liberate their ears, and I keep my promises.
Right now I’m standing in the rear of an amphibious landing craft making its way towards Leyte. Outside of the crewmen steering and monitoring the LCP the only other passengers are the three young men who make up War Dogs of the Pacific. Although they may look inexperienced, these men are grizzled veterans of their own island basement hopping campaign. When I heard their music, I knew immediately that they were just the band I needed. At the conclusion of their show, I approached and recruited them into my sonic warrior brigade.
For three days prior to the planned landing my air forces had been dropping thousands of musical care packages into every populated area of the island. Inside these packages were copies of War Dogs of the Pacific’s new album Publish or Perish. My strategy was to expose as many people as possible to the sounds of this band. This in turn would break the populace out of their musical stupor and lead to mass discontent. To channel those feelings I included one other item inside those care packages, a flyer announcing the band would be playing a free concert on the beach near the town of Palo on this date and time.
In an unbelievable bit of logistical magic, all of my landing craft hit the beach at exactly the same time. I could see the seething mass of humanity expectantly waiting for us on the beach. The front ramps on all the craft were lowered into the waiting surf, and with a determined battle cry my men sprung into action. Five minutes was all it took to assemble an elevated stage and get the band’s equipment up and in working order. My main engineer gave me the thumbs up, and I let the band know it was show time. They each gave me a feral grin and went to work.
War Dogs of the Pacific refer to themselves as a pop punk/post-hardcore band, and who am I to argue? Due to my unfamiliarity with the bands name dropped as important influences to their sound, I’m just going to jump right into the things I like about this group. I certainly love the fact that their album begins with some serious musical subterfuge. The first song, “People Are Gonna Get Hurt”, begins with a plaintive bass line that is joined by a rather delicate guitar melody. It’s very disarming and guarantees the casual listener will be caught completely off guard when the drums and distortion effects explode into the song around the thirty second mark. From that point on the song transitions into a full blown rocker until the entire band’s ammunition is spent.
Another aspect that I particularly like about War Dogs of the Pacific is that they sound like a bigger band than they are in reality. Now don’t misunderstand, I’m not referring to studio trickery employed to confuse the listener. Not at all. The guitar, bass, and drums are easily delineated upon an even remotely close inspection. No, some bands just produce a sound that can only be described as massive when played back. War Dogs of the Pacific, in my opinion, is one of those bands. Trust me when I say these three men know how to make quite a ruckus!
Vocal duties are split between the bass player and guitarist. While the bass player (Joshua Charles Boardman) takes more of the burden than the guitarist (Martin Erroll Slomka), both are important to the overall sound. This is where the post-hardcore influences appear easily in my mind. Several times across the album I get a definite Fugazi vibe from the dual vocals, and that is certainly not a bad thing! Honestly however, I can see someone listening to this music and not caring for the vocals due to their gruff nature. Respectfully, I think this type of person is an idiot as it is that very gruff nature which makes the vocals so ingratiating to me in the first place. The tonality fits perfectly with the music, and there is no lack of memorable vocal lines all throughout the album.
Outside of the tremendous first track there are a couple of other standout songs, although in truth not one of the eight compositions on offer fails to impress. “Playing to a Click” features non-stop furious riffing and a fantastic chorus that keep the heads bobbing and weaving and the fans singing along. “Anchors Away” blasts out of the gate, but then gradually devolves into near silence before rapidly building back up to a distortion filled eruption. The finale of the album, “Bridgeburner”, is epic. That’s all I can really say. It is an epic, wonderful ride!
After the band had finished their set, I took the stage myself to deliver a few words I had prepared for the occasion. “People of the Philippines: I have returned. By the grace of the Almighty Ripple Effect quality artists are heard again on Philippine soil – soil consecrated in the good taste of our two peoples. We have come dedicated and committed to the task of destroying every vestige of enemy control over your daily listening habits, and of restoring upon a foundation of indescribable strength, the musical liberties of your people.”
I’m not really sure who Victor is, or why the sun even needs fixing, but I can say with some relative certainty that Person Place or Thing is one of the cooler discs that’s been spending time rotating on my turntable. This Michigan based trio floored me with their post-punky, hard rockin’, devil may care sound the instant the needle hit the groove. This is the kind of band that you can’t completely or accurately pin down into one genre. Musically, they’re complex, yet raw; dynamic in sound, yet never sounding planned. Thought out, but never feeling scripted, Person Place or Thing is as edge-y an album as I’ve heard, making me think back on the later years of my teenage life and being reminded of the attitudes of a band like Fugazi, or on a more local SoCal level, Forced Down. But possibly most important is that every time I listen to this album, the more I like it. And I don’t mean simply like like it. I’m talking, well . . . y’know, LIKE it.
And what’s not to LIKE? From the opening of the album, as “My Friend the Guru” pipes out of the speakers, I’m instantly compelled by the initial thirty seconds or so of the drum roll to off time beat, the shimmering guitars cascading across the sonic soundscape, and then the explosive volley of notes as the tune starts moving. The music, up to this point, is working to perfection, so it was with a cocked eyebrow that I waited for the vocals to enter the mix. This was my point of defining whether this was going to be worth a second listen, let alone a keeper. Folks . . . the vocals sold me. Coming in with a hint of melody and then shifting to impassioned howl, the vocals captured my emotions and clung on like an agitated ferret in a tragic legging incident. Everything works so damn well that I can’t help but want to listen to this song over and over again. The bass is all over the place, but holds a steady groove throughout. The guitars never hit the seriously heavy crunch that I’ve grown accustomed to in recent weeks, and that’s okay. There are dynamics to the guitar work of Ryan Martin that are understated, but have a complexity all its own. Dare I say, virtuosity? Not in the Steve Vai sense of the word, but more in an emotional conveyance. The entire song seamlessly flows from one bizarre transition to another, and the whole thing is executed impeccably.
Remember folks . . . that was only the first song. We still have five more tracks to key into. Don’t worry, I won’t give away all of the little aural treasures on this one, but I will highlight a couple more of my favorite points and then I’ll usher you to the store to pick this baby up. “Paperthin Feather Fuck” blipped on my radar, mainly because it had a sound that I wasn’t expecting. It starts off almost sparse, propelled only by a guitar and those ever so compelling vocals. Once the entire band kicks in, the song takes on a feel of something leaning towards alt-country, and then suddenly disappears into a swirling cloud of distortion. Filled with great vocal melodies, this song has a vibrancy to it that is highlighted by the up tempo beat and primal vocal tirade as the song takes its final steps towards closure.
I mentioned that Victor! Fix the Sun have a great sense of dynamics, and no song captures this as well as the title track. Packed with off time starts and stops, manic and frantic vocals, instruments coming in and out of the mix and creating space between the flurries of notes, “Person Place or Thing” is an ambitious and majestic tune. One minute it grooves along at a nice and easy pace, the next, the band is in hyper-drive, throwing a tantrum on the floor of a supermarket. I’m highlighting the guitar work again on this one. Martin does a fantastic job of mixing in textures to the riffs and then backing away from the flurries of sound by creating huge waves of ambience. This song is a micro look at the entire album. The song takes the listener on a journey, riding the notes as they collapse into the next, ultimately depositing a weary form on the jagged rocks of some outlying island of the mind. “Person Place or Thing” is an example of three musicians who are so in key with one another that they’re practically one person. Everything about this song feels symbiotic. How else do three different personalities combine such loose effects with such tight execution of composition?
Person Place or Thing shocked me out of a bit of a rut. Recently, I’ve been transfixed by some of the darkest, creepiest, dreariest metal to ever assail an eardrum and having the opportunity to listen to a band with a number of fresh ideas, as well as an uncanny knack for delivering skin crawling emotion, was an unsuspected and welcome surprise. I never knew what post-punk meant until a few weeks ago (and I’m not totally sure I understand it now,) so I’ll use that term to describe where these guys are coming from sonically. I can’t tell you where they’re coming from emotionally. That’s completely up to you, Waverider. They use some progressive sounds and convey their ideas with power and conviction, and they have a unique enough approach that I can’t say they sound like one band or another. If you like guitars that come from a different part of the brain, Victor! Fix the Sun are the band for you. After listening to this, I’m sure you’ll find you LIKE these guys as much as I do. - Pope JTE
