11. FugaziIn On The Kill Taker
Fugazi was another important one for me because they straddled a lot of different lines and were imitated quite often and never replicated. They had their own sound. It was in their bodies, it was in their hands, it was in their voices. That’s what made them sound like who they were.
I stopped listening to them for a couple of years. I think it was an over exposure thing where I’d heard Fugazi a lot just from being with friends – I’d had enough. Then after having a break from actively listening to them for a while, I went back to it, and I still go back to it now. I find it very enduring music. It was powerful for me at the time. It was really melodic and catchy and anthemic but also really nuanced. And there is an ingenuity in the way that they crafted songs that makes them compelling to go back to over and over, to just hear how they did things. There was some stuff that was unconscious to me at the beginning and then ten years after hearing Fugazi for the first time, going back to it and realising that this is an amazing rhythm section, like really one of the best of all time. So much of the songs were driven by the bass and drums. It was fun for me to have that revelation some time later. A band might hit you initially because of a chorus or a guitar hook but the ultimate power of a unit is often about all of the people and elements combined. Fugazi is one of those bands that was powerful for me as a teenager and now in my mid-40s I can still put on and thoroughly enjoy.
