At the very beginning, they helped the white suburbia to get out of their habit of drinking, then they taught them about variety. Without even trying, Ian MacKaye and Guy Picciotto had already founded various scenes before becoming Fugazi together with Joe Lally and Brendan. There’s a good reason why the straight-edge-community still worships »Out Of Step«, the one-and-a-half-minute track by MacKaye’s band Minor Threat, while Picciotto helped paving the path for emo with his band Rites Of Spring in the mid-1980s. When they founded Fugazi in 1987, they remained true to their values: They didn’t solicit their concerts, didn’t sell any merch and they sold their records for extremely low prices (even for those days back then) which were to be kept low by the record stores. If the stores sold their records for more, the label actually reimbursed their fans. However, when it came to their music, they were soon to change their course: Rich reggae bass lines were now wrapping themselves around notched guitar figures; their originally cathartic riffs made room for softer grooves. This wasn’t the sound of angry young men clenching their fists anymore. Instead, they were joining hands with anyone they came accross. Countless gigs worldwide and numerous legendary records later, Fugazi decided to call it all off in 2003. Still, they never broke up officially, considering that there’s no way to break up with an idea, anyway. Instead, MacKaye and his label Dischord attended to administrating their former material, planning to release hundreds of live-gig-recordings on the internet (for little money, obviously). Now, their »First Demo« from January 1988 has been made public – and never before and never after has hardcore sounded like it sounded on these very first Fugazi tracks, all eleven of them recorded in the Inner Ear studio. Since then, Hardcore has approached this or that trend, has remained with this or that style for a little and has yet always kept its status as a monad. Fugazi, on the other hand, have always been different. Their »First Demo« proves it once more, being the raw document of the permanent revolution it is.
First Demo
