Tag: hardcore

[Listen] FUGAZI: “Never mind what’s been selling, it’s what you’re buying”

BETO O’ROURKE’S #1 FAVORITE BAND

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AND I LIKE THEM A LOT TOO, BUT IT’S NOT LIKE ANYONE HERE CARES FOR MY OPINION.

“Burning Too”, from 13 Songs (1989)

“Blueprint”, from Repeater (1990)

“Rend It”, from In on the Kill Taker (1993)

They know just where to prod you, how to jar you, capture your ear and hold it hostage. Their rhythm section is tight and relentlessly heavy-hitting, and their guitar never fucking sounds like one. And they’ve got not one but TWO singers that BOTH scream but one yells in tune sometimes. Besides their rhythm, though, what gets me is their lyrics. Each of these songs has brilliant lyrics, mostly centering around one’s inherent moral duties as a human being. As an artist. As a citizen of this planet.

As A mEmBeR oF sOcIeTy.

It’s not surprising, considering the lifestyle they lead and the community they support – being celebrated musicians that refused to sell merch or charge more than $5 for tickets, living simply, DIY-ing their shit. Not to get all utilitarian and anti-art and that, but it’s inspiring to have music that stands for something. That isn’t absolute shit.

It’s hard to write individual descriptions for each song, because even as a fan freshly infatuated by Fugazi’s ethics and philosophy and eardrum-busting jams, I have to admit that their songs all follow a similar format.

More like, they can be broken down into their constituent captivating parts, which of course doesn’t make them any less captivating. Also, I’m lazy.

So besides the head-jerking grooves and tear-jerking lyrics, each song’s got these one or two lines or phrases that repeat, like a chant, so that you, as a member of an audience at some show in 1998, can scream along to the very much active band performing very much live, very much in front of you.

Sigh.

But don’t despair, they’re just as addicting to sing along to these twenty years later, only you have to do it under your breath because you’re on the subway and there are decent folk about. Rhythmic body jerks are OK too, but don’t do it too much.

 

I said what I said.

-Mans

P. S. No, goddammit, I feel bad for saying what I said (guess I’ll rend it) about their songs all sounding the same. These three kinda do, but you know what THAT means.

Fugazi pt. 2 coming soon.

[Listen] FEARLESS IRANIANS FROM HELL: “Monkey in the White House”

Who the hell are these people and where did they go????????????????#$#@

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All I could find was that they’re from Texas and that they’re Iranian and possibly fearless but don’t quote me on that.

They were and then they weren’t, all in the decade that starts with an 8. Except they bled into the 2000’s by accident, it would seem, when they released an EP called “Peace Through Power”, and it turned out to be a bunch of demos of old songs and ONE new one.

 

“Burn the Books”, from Holy War (1988)

“Special Delivery”, from Foolish Americans (1990)

“Die for Allah”, from Die for Allah (1987)

 

These Iranians really were fearless, in that they did the same thing the Kominas are doing now, except instead of playfully wagging a finger at Americans that don’t like that they’re all that Iranian or Hellish or whatever, they go all the way and condemn them as… well “ignorant” seems like the worst thing they say. They devoted a whole album to it! Their last one, Foolish Americans.

But they (implicitly) condemn other people too! Like Iranians. Overall, though, they just seem to hate war and death and how it (alongside fundamentalist Islam) has come to define certain areas in the East, in the eyes of the West. The best part is that all those lovely messages are conveyed exclusively in the form of hyperbolic satire, with lyrics featuring a whole lot of bloody war imagery and extremist rhetoric. I mean, they have a whole song called “A Martyr in Every Home”.

Wait wait no, let me try that again.

I mean, they have a whole album called Holy War. No wait no there’s an even better one.

I mean, they have a whole album called Die for Allah. Wait no no no wait.

I mean, they have a whole song called “Dogsperm”. Yeah, I think that says it best.

 

But even besides their lyrics, these guys are just really good at writing catchy riffs. There’s an average of like three per song. And they’re aggressive as shit! Shit’s aggressive! Aggressive shit! Angry poopies!

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmusic.

 

“Burn the Books” will come back to you in all these fragments that you think are from different songs but then when you listen again you’re like OH SHIT IT’S ALL IN HERE and pure aural ecstasy ensues. Its form is really interesting, where it starts slow and builds up to neck-breaking speed-chorus, predictably, but then it… cycles? Like Black Sabbath to Slayer and then back again. It was weird to listen to at first, but these guys pull it off really well. And it lets them cram like twelve distinct riffs and motifs into less than three and a half minutes. The weakest aspect for me, personally, is the lyrics, I think. Perhaps it’s just hard to hear what the guy’s saying, but I can’t quite tell what books we’re burning and who’s “the sore loser at the end of the line”. All that being said, “God gave up on you, so did I” still hits hard, despite its context-less-ness. Heh.

“Special Delivery” is just so ANGRY! Aw it’s SO angry! At America! Americans. “Another monkey in the White House because of you!” This is from 1990 though so they’re still going on about Bush. The FIRST one. It’s pretty easy to forget that, though. ‘Cause y’know. Trump, and that. Anyway, it starts out all heavy with a coupla different riffs and fun lil’ rhythm changes and then rises a little bit with all these happier-sounding power chords while the singer’s screaming at you before breaking again into instrumental riff-town. It’s amazing, how much they manage to do in just two minutes. The singer’s got a great scream, too, and the rhythm in the lyrics is extremely gratifying. And so simple!

“A mis-sile aimed di-rect-ly at the ass-hole of the Earth!”

1-2-3-4 1-2-3-4. Love it.

“Die for Allah” has this incredible opening showcasing the drums. I don’t usually give a care for drums, just because I, personally, severely under-appreciate their role in making literally every amazing song I know as amazing as it is. But this song’s got drums that even a dumbass like me can’t ignore! And the guiTARS. You’ve got all these tappy light melodic scalic passages that get beaten back down with an onslaught of monotonic sixteenth notes and the singer commanding you to DIEEEEEEEEEE FOR AAAAALLLAAAAAAAAAH. It’s so CATCHY. j-j-j-j (that’s the sound it makes) j-j-j-j j-j-j-j j-j-j-j-j. My favorite part is what I think is the chorus. And I’m only calling it that because that’s where he actually says “Die for Allah”. Just good. Fast. Headbangin’ shite.

 

Really though, with only three short albums left to us by these intrepid Persians of the inferno, there’s no excuse not to just listen to the whole fucking-brilliant catalog. And I say this because goddamn was it hard to pick three songs. I had to leave out “Forced Down Your Throat”! “Martyr in Every Home”! “The Trinity”! “What’s in the News”?!?!!?!!

Go listen or go to hell.

-Mans