Anyway, here's...
January 11, 2018 10:50 AM   Subscribe

Among other things, legendary DC band Fugazi is famous [satire] for their stage banter and between-song noodling. Experimental theater and music company Object Collection dove into 1500 hours of live show recordings to isolate the interstitial moments and create a pretty insane opera.
posted by functionequalsform (24 comments total) 40 users marked this as a favorite
 
Literally the only specific thing I remember about the one Fugazi show I saw is Ian McKaye stopping in the middle of a song to call a guy out for smoking (this was back when it was still legal in bars in Canada).
posted by The Card Cheat at 10:57 AM on January 11, 2018


omg this is so rad. I can't wait to watch it.

(My first Fugazi show was like 1989 in Dallas)
posted by Annika Cicada at 11:12 AM on January 11, 2018


I know these folks! And I've seen them in some mighty strange performances, but I think this is gonna be the strangest. Looking forward to it!
posted by moonmilk at 11:29 AM on January 11, 2018


We need the Ian McKaye Automatic Insult Generator

It can either be a recurrent neural net or a band, or both
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 11:52 AM on January 11, 2018 [3 favorites]


I hope they included the "Ice Cream Eating Motherfucker" bit from Instrument.
posted by Ufez Jones at 11:55 AM on January 11, 2018 [8 favorites]


This is the best thing that has happened to me since the election.
posted by lumpenprole at 12:03 PM on January 11, 2018 [1 favorite]


Mmmm not since the Wutang/Fugazi mashup have I ever been so excited.

posted by Dichoto-me at 12:35 PM on January 11, 2018 [1 favorite]


So is "anyway, here's..." to Fugazi what "it's..." is to Monty Python's Flying Circus?
posted by oneswellfoop at 12:43 PM on January 11, 2018


I was at the Ice Cream Eating Motherfucker show. I think it was the summer I graduated high schools (Wilson, the school next to Fort Reno where the ICEM incident occurred). A beautiful moment.
posted by feckless at 1:02 PM on January 11, 2018 [4 favorites]


And bless Fugazi, Dischord, and the fans for being so dedicated about recording all the shows, so that treasured incident can live on in so many forms, including hopefully opera.
posted by feckless at 1:04 PM on January 11, 2018 [2 favorites]


I was at the Ice Cream show too. Ha. Fort Reno.
posted by trbrts at 1:06 PM on January 11, 2018 [1 favorite]


I haven't even listened to much Fugazi but I would love to see this show. I hope there's a recorded version.
posted by limeonaire at 1:14 PM on January 11, 2018




aw dang i miss fort reno shows (although half the times i went it ended up thunderstorming)
posted by halation at 1:50 PM on January 11, 2018


A band with good stage banter and a large library of taped shows is a great thing.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 2:52 PM on January 11, 2018 [1 favorite]


X X
posted by humboldt32 at 2:56 PM on January 11, 2018


I remember seeing Fugazi in '93 or '94, touring on the release of "In on the Kill Taker". They played Friday, Saturday and Sunday at the old Hollywood Palladium, and I went to shows on both Saturday and Sunday.

Saturday night: They hit the stage, and before playing a note Ian asks "How many of you were here last night?"
{Enthusiastic roar from maybe 1/3 of the audience}
"Ok, we'll try to play some different stuff then!"
{Excellent rock and roll happens}

Sunday night: Ian again on the mic, "How many of you were here Friday night?"
{Enthusiastic roar from what now seems like 1/2 the audience}
"How many of you were here last night?"
{Louder roar from what sounds like the entire audience}
"...Ugh... Ok..."
Ian looks back at the band, they all kind of shrug. "...I guess we'll try and mix it up a little then."
{Very excellent rock show happens, with occasional pauses between songs, as they try and figure out what to play next}

There were also several pauses in the show where Ian berated people in the front for slam dancing, but that's such an expected part of a Fugazi show that it's hardly worth mentioning.
posted by Anoplura at 3:29 PM on January 11, 2018 [3 favorites]


Ooh ooh ooh I know one of the founders of this collective! The awesome thing about following other theater nerds from high school is sometimes they go from playing Laurey alongside your Ado Annie to doing edgy shit so loud and obscure that they apologize when you show up at their performances, saying "nobody should feel obliged to come to this."

I enjoy their stuff, though! It's really good, if you can handle an hour or two of highly experimental theater. Their piece No Hotel investigated the no-rules space of hotel rooms, while actors performed in the middle of a hotel-room set which you gradually realized was being disassembled and re-assembled. And they did a hilarious live re-dub of Steven Seagal's Under Siege which involved video game sound effects, communist propaganda slipped into otherwise plausible lines, and a well-placed playing of Sinead O'Connor/Prince's Nothing Compares 2 U. Emasculated/denationalized the crap out of that movie.

thanks for reminding me about this show, I need to check it out!
posted by gusandrews at 7:07 PM on January 11, 2018 [2 favorites]


I was at the Fugazi show in Phoenix, AZ on 9/9/1991 when Ian McKaye fell through a hole in the stage. A lot of other crazy stuff happened at that show, and I bought the audio recording of it from their website a few years ago. Such wonderful memories.
posted by ArizonaJedi at 8:25 PM on January 11, 2018


how long did he yell at the hole for?
posted by thelonius at 9:41 PM on January 11, 2018


This is kind of horrible, it's redolent of a certain version of the academy that co-opts what it understands as underground culture to display its own radicalness to the world, or at least other academics.
Say what you will about Fugazi, they remained true to the set of values they spoke about, which might be the most quaintest thing of all in this era.
And yes, I saw them a very long time ago and still play their early albums.(My gosh albums like 13 Songs and Repeater hold up well in the age of Trump.)
posted by Phlegmco(tm) at 12:51 AM on January 12, 2018 [3 favorites]


I mean, I went to a good dozen Fugazi shows, on a couple of different continents, so I'm digging it, but also I wonder what other people who aren't immersed in that nostalgia of those times and places would get from it, so much of that banter was the push and pull of that moment, this supposes the opposite.

also...live edit of suggestion with Amy Pickering
posted by eustatic at 5:25 AM on January 12, 2018


He didn't even yell. He was like "Did you see that?! That is a first for me." He definitely saw the humor in it.
posted by ArizonaJedi at 3:24 PM on January 12, 2018 [1 favorite]


Oh god, I saw them several times an embarrassing number of years ago. My favourite moment was someone tossing a sneaker on stage and Ian stopping everything and refusing to go on until the shoe-thrower confessed. And then he lectured him about how they could hurt someone and told him he should be ashamed of himself. I kind of want to see this.
posted by frumiousb at 7:17 PM on January 12, 2018 [2 favorites]


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