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I watched Instrument last night, a film collecting footage from the first ten years of Fugazi. Formed in 1987 and on hiatus since 2002, Fugazi is one of my favorite bands, and arguably one of the most influential in the past two decades. I’ve heard their importance to my generation compared to that of Dylan and my parent’s.

Instrument convinces that it wasn’t just the music of Fugazi that gave them such significance, thought it certainly helps when a band just sounds so fucking good. Within the volume and intensity easily generated by post-punk/hardcore bands, Fugazi achieves an inspiring discipline, an almost ascetic ecstatic excitement.

“…it’s never scripted. So like at any moment, everyone in the band has to be ready to go into any one of the seventy or eighty songs that we’ve written over the years. It’s really important that you almost enter a group mind or something.” -Guy Picciotto

This quality of signal in noisy noise is something that really attracts me to a band. Other bands dear to my heart, like Khantra (and many other NotRock bands) and Lightning Bolt, exhibit the same practiced passion and precision.

“Our concern was to be a band and to play.” -Ian MacKaye

I’ve never before looked back on my own involvement in the DIY punk scene forged by friends in NJ to consider the impact that Fugazi, along with other bands on theDischord label, had on me. It’s apparent to me now how they were most likely the strongest influence of what I think makes an enjoyable and respectable band. I doubt what we called Reznor would ever have happened without it.

Motivated by forces greater than and even opposed to profit, commercial success outside of the mainstream music industry was never Fugazi’s intent, but it was something they achieved with a steadfast DIY ethos.

“it sucks to have to tell people to behave themselves, but there’s other people here too, alright? So try to be a little more kind.” -Ian MacKaye

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I’m getting way too many hits from search terms like “leg-cast”, “full cast”, “hips body cast”, and the like. Does this look like some kinda pervy plaster fetish site to you Google, huh? Pervs!

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Well, kind of.

I recorded two songs today, couldn’t get the third to sound right. Little Lovesong is exactly that, kind of silly too. Collider on the other hand, sounds to me like one of the best songs I’ve ever written. This may not be the best performance or recording of it, but I think the potential is there. This bum knee is just the kick in the ass I need to finally finish recording Year Two.

Also today, with help from Quinn, I set up a simple little tool for browsing and listening to music on my site without having to download anything. Powered by Musicbrowser, you can try it out here.

The rest of the day was spent wrestling with Illustrator and playing Glass Bead. The latter is so much more fun.

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