Disc of the day
Heaven 17 - Penthouse And Pavement
From Sheffield, synth pop and funk to stick it to Thatcher. Currently being played live!
Features Disc of the day
Fugazi
13 Songs
(Dischord, 1989)
Their first two EPs from 1988/89 on one maxi CD. Thank you sirs.
As Esther Rantzen might say, our thanks to MOJO contributor Stevie Chick for bringing to our attention a 40-minute sound clip of the talkie bits from Fugazi live shows, as posted by the esteemed Chunklet magazine on their website. Not everyone's idea of fun perhaps, but for those who fondly remember the Washington DC band's peerless live shows it offers an oddly nostalgic thrill. The fragments of song intros that punctuate their pointedly polite anti-violence diatribes snap the synapses back into remembering how great a band they were (now on indefinite hiatus since the birth of drummer Brendan Canty's third child. Even Fugazi struggle with flexible working it seems...). A 20-year recording career began here on the fade-up into Waiting Room, the audacious start to Fugazi's debut 7 Songs EP. An exemplary case of heavy yet accessible with its nimble bass groove and shout-along chorus, Waiting Room remains arguably the group's definitive statement (imagine if Smells Like Teen Spirit had been Nirvana's first breath). Bad Mouth lurches around the kind of rhythmic skank later reprieved on the Margin Walker EP's compelling Burning Too, a proto-eco anthem ("The world is not our facility/We have a responsibility/To use our abilities to keep this place alive"). While the Guy Piccioto-sung Provisional was a live standout from a band so fiercely drilled that their every setlist could be improvised on stage.
From this distance Fugazi look like early up-takers on all fronts: side-stepping traditional industry machinations, dictating their own CD and ticket pricing and generally putting the 'do' into DIY to a degree that puts Radiohead's efforts in the shade. And as the Chunklet link goes to prove, no-one addressed a crowd quite like guitarists Ian MacKaye and Guy Picciotto, the pair's inspired dressing down of hardcore goons ranging from calling troublemakers "sir" and recounting salutary lessons from the American Scientist on the mating habits of the Bonobo Ape to the somewhat more direct "You don't like it? Take your five bucks and get the fuck out of here!"
Jenny Bulley
Posted by Ross_Bennett at 6:00 AM GMT 15/12/2009
Further Listening
Fugazi – Instrument (Dischord DVD, 1999)
Hüsker Dü – Land Speed Record (New Alliance, 1982)
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Heaven 17 - Penthouse And Pavement
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Oh fail, MOJO. the Fugazi relgion was never any fun. Their acolytes shun fun. MacKaye is a blowhard.
Posted by Funcrusher Plus at 9:43 AM GMT 15/12/2009 Report Abuse
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