photo by Glen E Friedman Guy Picciotto from Fugazi, once wailed "You Should Pay Rent In My mind." I love that lyric, epsecially in this age of hyper-intrusive advertising, thousands of television channels, internet addiction and spam bombardment. However, Fugazi should be paying rent in my mind and not the other way around, as that damn band has squatted my brain for long enough.
The third of September 2007 is going to be the twenty year anniversary of Fugazi's first gig and photographer Glen E Friedman is going to put out a collection of photos, titled Keep Your Eyes Open to commemorate it. I'm going to buy it. I'm going to hum the song Merchandise as I walk to Powell's books to pick up a copy. Maybe I'll buy it online. I'll plug in my WankFargo debit card in and have UPS deliver me an over-packaged copy to my doorstep. Maybe, I'll order from Amazon. It is OK because its Fugazi, right? As long as you are consuming the right things, it will be fine. The right records, the right books, the right ideas... then it must be OK to obssess over merchandise.
In all sincerity, I'm looking foward to this book. I love the band and the photog even though I've read and heard some interviews with Friedman that suggest he doesn't have much faith in today's kids. While I disagree with GEF about the lack of cutting edge youth culture these days, I do think he captured the scenes he was involved with amazingly.
Despite the publication of this book, I thought it was pretty cool of Fugazi to just dissappear, not to announce an official and dramatic 'break up,' just to be on permenant hiatus. They influenced a generation to do shit themselves without compromising their values. Of course, they have been hero-worshipped for this, which goes against their efforts at being anti-rock stars but shit... we need some heros about now. So yeah, I'll be consuming some more Fugazi...
If you don't know much about this band, check out Jem Cohen's film Instrument. Here's a clip.
