FUGAZI
The argument
CD/LP, Dischord
Fugazi
is one of the most important bands on this planet. Their music, their
principles and their lives are perfect examples for everybody of how to live
with respect towards everyone and everything else, how to pursue your own
goals without exploitation or cheating. No relativities here. No ifs or
when’s, no “in my opinion” or other personalizations. Fugazi is one of
the most important bands on this planet in every aspect that a band can be
viewed. It should be clear to everyone now, that it is hard for me to write
about that band. I respect them so much, love their music so much, regard
them as “heroes”. (I am not a fan, since I don’t think, they’d like
to have fans as such.) They give such a good example on so many things.
How
happy I am to be able to say, that “the argument” is just as good as any
of their regular records, reaching both back and forward in time. Well, back
is a long way to go in this case. The band formed in 1987 and has come a
long way since then. They have made erratic, emotional hardcore-record,
always using their own special beat and disintegrating melody-lines and
moved on towards a postrock-album, a soundtrack to their own road-movie. On
“the argument” any fan will be happy to find both. Carefully constructed
songs with a fragile structure clash and mingle with the fast’n’furious
drive of the earlier days. Guitar-feedback and cellos on one record in close
proximity. They even whistle and it fits.
Fugazi
have found a perfect middle-way between where they came from and where they
want to go. There is really no need in burning the bridges behind you. If
people change their style completely, that would mean, that what they have
done up to now wasn’t any good, their life was a lie. What a horrible
thing to have to admit to yourself. I don’t think that Fugazi ever made
themselves a lot of irreal wishes on how the world works, so they never had
to call back and destroy their history. They also know, that to reach the
future, the way you are on right now is just as important as the places you
have been. In some ways, “the argument” is a conservative record. The
issues of the songs are close to where Fugazi has always been. The
business-terminology cleverly woven into narratives of personal destroyal,
e.g. as in “Oh” or “Nightshop” are a new idea, though. They mirror
the US-American zeitgeist of before the 11th September, where
business was supposedly good and everybody was in full comply with the needs
and demands of big business. That bubble burst a few weeks ago for good. In
Europe the expectations for 2001 as an economic year were low all the time,
but the USA hid behind a drive that even endured the Internet-stock-crash of
the year before. And this feeling developed only in the last few years in
the US population, that big business will finally make it, achieve luxury
for everyone (in the USA). And wasn’t to be so. And Fugazi, as a sort of
very sensitive social hydrometer, sensed that before. This is also to say,
that Fugazi are a band with eyes and ears open, with clear-cut opinions on
many things, but without any ambition to make political small-change. Fugazi
is about a choice of lifestyle. One that will make you feel a better person,
maybe. If they were a sect, I’d be in. But they ain’t because true
emancipation cannot be learned, only experienced and developed from the
inside.
You
can and you should read the whole story elsewhere. There is just too much to
say, to keep it in line with a short (?) review like this one. The words
keep flowing out of me, while I sit here and listen to “the argument”,
writing these very words. Every song and every lyric has so many
implications and interpretations, that I could go on for hours. Just take a
look at the cover and then think about Washington D.C., democracy, global
politics - even without putting it all into a new context with the war on
Afghanistan, it will give you lots of stuff to ponder about. I love this
record. (Just as I did with every other Fugazi-record.) You know it and I
know it, that I would have loved this record regardless, but here I am to
say, that I love it even more. Can you do that? I mean, can one really love
a record or a music? I guess, you can. Sometimes I wish I was 13 years old
again, so I would be able to discover all of this again new. That feeling
was so incredible, and then the following years, that were accompanied by a
ongoing slew of new discoveries, of worlds behind worlds, new meanings and
ideas. But time and experiences are a fact that no philosophy can do away
with. But I have some help, of course, in Fugazi, who have experienced the
same thing. They are all well over thirty, parents, in the middle of their
lives. And they still go on, refining their vision, living their dreams.
That in itself is an example.
