The Untold Truth Of Fugazi

Many people might think they don't know anything by the band Fugazi, but when they hear the opening funky, throaty, floaty bass notes, hit-the-ground-running drumbeat, and prickly guitar of their generally best-known song, "Waiting Room," by the time the vocals start, they'll be singing along: "I am a patient boy. I wait, I wait, I wait, I wait," and then say, "Oh! That's who does that song?"

Fugazi was a college radio darling by the early '90s; considered underground at the time, much like most other bands your weird friend back then lovingly put on a mix tape for you, their audience and familiarity have grown exponentially in the decades since. But there are a lot of interesting things about the post-hardcore band from Washington, D.C. that aren't widely known.

Britannica tells us that bassist Joe Lally, drummer Brendan Canty, and vocalists-guitarists Guy Picciotto and Ian MacKaye formed Fugazi in 1987 after the demise of each members' many bands before. Their ages ranged from 21 to 25 years old, and they bonded over shared anti-racist and anti-sexist political views, a lack of interest in substance use of any kind, and their love of the explosive hardcore music scene in their D.C. home. Over the course of the next 16 years, they would release the studio records "Repeater," "Steady Diet of Nothing," "In on the Kill Taker," "Red Medicine," "End Hits," and "The Argument," and be the subject of director Jem Cohen's 1999 documentary, "Instrument." This is the untold truth of Fugazi.

Once the band solidified, they needed a name that would hit as hard as their music and politics, yet be unfamiliar enough that people wouldn't get pre-conceived ideas. In a 2013 interview at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., Ian MacKaye said that around that time, he was reading "Nam," a book of recollections of Vietnam War veterans (MacKaye cites the author as Michael Herr, but "Nam" was compiled by Mark Baker). He said, "[I saw] the word fugazi ... I thought, 'what is that?' And I went back to the glossary at the back of the book, and it just said 'a f***ed up situation.' And, I thought that was a great term!" He said that he thought it must be some kind of acronym but couldn't find any further information. MacKaye said, amused, that people's guesses at what the word meant ranged from a Japanese motorcycle to an Italian dessert.

He said that in 1997, Fugazi were playing in Singapore, and after the show, a young woman named Venita and her brother approached him. The brother asked MacKaye what Fugazi meant, and before he could answer, Venita said "F***ed Up, Got Ambushed, Zipped In" (presumably, into a bodybag). It was the first time he'd heard what the acronym stood for. He asked her where she'd heard it, and she said she'd found it while researching their name. "Well, that's incredible!" he responded.

In 1980, ambitious teenagers Ian MacKaye, Nathan Strejcek, Geordie Grindle, and Jeff Nelson founded the Dischord label initially to release a record by their band, the Teen Idles, MacKaye told The Guardian. They pressed 1,000 copies of the record and used recycled cardboard, scissors, and glue to create the sleeves. The band broke up later that year, but MacKaye and Nelson have kept the label going to this day.

The punk rock scene of D.C. had exacting standards when it came to music and money. MacKaye said, "Releasing a record, and monetizing music, some people looked at a little askance. So we declared any money made would go to documenting other bands." To keep Dischord operating, MacKaye held down three jobs and kept the practice of taking cardboard from people's trash to make their label's record sleeves going. Dischord was run entirely by volunteers, and no one got paid for their work until the label had been around for eight years.

And, unlike major labels, they've never used contracts. Kim Coletta, bassist for the former Dischord band Jawbox, explained the simple philosophy to SPIN magazine: "Ian always told me that [contracts are] unnecessary, because if bands are happy, they'll stay on your label." The basic agreement is that bands get a small advance to record and produce a cover, and once that money and the cost of production are recouped, the band and Dischord split the profits.

Fugazi didn't exactly have a cushy setup or living situation along the way, even after their first two successful and groundbreaking studio records. Of course, they started in what had come to be known as "Dischord House," the headquarters of the record label and the place where Ian MacKaye lived. But as the label's catalog and mail-order business boomed, its space shrank, and the band had to figure out another place to practice and record.

Guy Picciotto told Pitchfork in 2002 that after Dischord House's basement couldn't hold them anymore (the label needed the space for storage and shipping), the band relocated to Mom and Dad Picciotto's basement, then bassist Joe Lally's basement, and then ... off to grandmother's house they went.

MacKaye's grandparents took enough pity on them to lend their Connecticut house, where the band conjured and recorded 1993's "In On the Kill Taker" and 1995's "Red Medicine." Picciotto said of their idyllic time there: "We would set up in the living room, wake up, have breakfast, play for four hours, go into town ..." The band would spend their days at the batting cages, cooking dinner, then playing all night. "We had our eight-track set up and all the songs for [those 2 records] were kind of crafted in that space," Picciotto said. 

In 2019, graphic designer and Fugazi fan Carni Klirs presented the exhibition, "Visualizing Fugazi," by combining his artist's eye with extensive data on the band to create colorful infographics, along with complementary ephemera like fliers, fanzines, and photos chosen by curator John Davis. WAMU reported that Klirs had accumulated the extensive data by going through the band's meticulous records of live shows and crowd attendance, as well as their extensive digital archive of shows. The infographics include a map of the unconventional venues (noting which ones still exist) that the band played in keeping with their all-ages commitment, their activism and fundraising numbers, and a "Fugazi Family Tree," which shows Fugazi's members' connection to about 5,300 bands. "This is my fanzine," the artist said, "an obsessive documentation of a band I love, told through their own data."

The Washington City Paper explained that Lost Origins Gallery in Northwest D.C. was the perfect spot for the exhibition, as its owner, Jason Hamacher, was in a bunch of bands featured in the Fugazi Family Tree. Klirs himself had been going to punk shows in D.C. since the early 2000s, performing in various bands, and operating a recording studio in the city. "Visualizing Fugazi" was a true labor of love and product of its beloved environment.

The fact that Fugazi's audience skewed largely male makes their vocally anti-misogyny stance all that much more significant. The Guardian reported that it was during archly conservative 1988 America that they released a song called "Suggestion," which Ian MacKaye wrote about some heartbreaking experiences a female friend of his had told him about. Verses like "Why can't I walk down a street, free of suggestion?" and "Is my body my only trait in the eyes of men?" speak of the experiences women often face.

The feminist punk community's reaction was mixed, with the main criticism being that it wasn't really a man's place to sing from a woman's perspective. Yet, the song's importance remains, because to say that all-male bands in the hardcore scene generally didn't even glance at this issue would be an understatement. Bikini Kill and the Julie Ruin frontwoman Kathleen Hanna explained to SPIN her complex reaction to the song: "I have issues with Ian MacKaye — who I love — singing as if he was a woman. But that song changed my life, because it was the first time I ever heard a man singing about something that was predominantly a woman's issue ... It's not about being perfect, it's about opening the conversation." Unfortunately, the song remains as relevant now as it was then.

Another D.C. organization, the Library of Congress, also took interest in the Dischord and Fugazi archives. They hosted an event in 2013 centered on citizen archivists, and Ian MacKaye was a guest of honor. Butch Lazorchak wrote for the Library of Congress "The Signal" blog, "MacKaye has documented music coming out of the Washington, D.C. underground for the past 30 years. Much of the music and art he's compiled is not being comprehensively addressed by major collecting institutions, but that's not unusual."

MacKaye's lecture at the LOC touched on many points. SPIN printed some of their favorite highlights from the talk, including his own beginnings as archivist: His grandmother, Dorothy MacKaye, wrote a column about marriage advice for the Ladies' Home Journal. She'd record conversations of couples speaking to counselors and write about them. She then extended her recordings into her own world, informally documenting her life, and her grandson would come across the invaluable historical recordings years later. "There was just something about the documentation of these moments that were really nice, really interesting things," he said.