I had several choices available to me as I contemplated my exploration of Fugazi, a band that was very important to me in my formative years. Repeater, In On the Kill Taker and Red Medicine were the obvious choices, but I decided to begin at the end. Fugazi’s musical development was astonishing and characterizes the band as much as their artistic integrity, unflinching commitment to social justice and stunning guitar interplay. Beginning with the last stop on the journey seemed a more interesting approach than following the chronology, but I have to say there was more behind the decision than coming up with a clever way to go about it. No Fugazi album has more personal meaning for me than The Argument, in large part because of the serendipitous timing of its release.

The Argument arrived at a time when all of America was united by fear and hatred. The album hit the alternative airwaves a little over a month after 9/11 and only a week after the United States invaded Afghanistan. The country was already feeling fragile, having experienced the collapse of the bubble that fueled a period of unabashed greed characterized by massive speculation in dot.com lunacy and the traditional American huckster’s stand-by, real estate. I was just starting my third of college when the planes hit the towers, and over the next few weeks I watched with utter dismay as my previously liberal and tolerant classmates allowed themselves to be consumed by the fear and loathing generated by Bush, Cheney and the BREAKING NEWS flashes from CNN. During this period of intense anxiety, The Argument came out, and I walked down to the record store in the village to get a copy. I took it back to the apartment I was sharing with a girlfriend and listened to it in private, on my headphones. What I heard amazed me even more than the patriotically racist outbursts of my peers.

Sanity.

In the midst of the murderous fervor of revenge driving American foreign policy and the collective psyche, here was a penetrating exposé of the insanity of war and violence. In a culture full of people desperately trying to protect their personal financial portfolios from bursting bubbles, here was a powerful reminder of the destructive nature of untamed capitalism. In a culture where “every man for himself” is considered a worthy motto, here was a set of songs arguing that dismissing those who can’t get a break as hopeless, parasitic losers is the most self-and-socially destructive act of all. Seeing that it was impossible to share these insights with my wild-eyed classmates, I kept The Argument to myself, pulling on my headphones whenever the ugliness that surrounded me seemed more threatening than usual.

If The Argument was just a political manifesto, I doubt if I would have clung to it as tightly as I did. The music is a range of dark and edgy soundscapes characterized by strong motifs and tightly woven interplay. The sound is light years away from the strictly hardcore sounds of Repeater, and a good many Fugazi fans did not care for the new direction that began with Red Medicine and reached its peak with The Argument. I always admire artists who follow their instincts without regard for fan approval, particularly when their musical instincts are supported by intentionality and solid aesthetic judgment. Work for The Argument began two years before its release, as the band took the time to build the foundation and pull all the pieces together into what emerged as a brilliantly designed package.

The Argument begins with an attention-grabbing introduction that mingles airwave chatter, what sounds like a fighter jet taking off in the background, and a mournful cello; a screech from the cello cues Brendan Canty to begin the drum skip that leads us to “Cashout.” The drums are joined by the sound of distorted electric guitar establishing the main motif on the left channel, soon joined by undistorted guitar on the right; the weaving of guitars continues throughout the song, providing tonal contrast and dramatic punctuation. The opening verses are still and reflective, supporting Ian McKaye’s matter-of-fact vocal approach as he quietly recounts the oft-repeated storyline of greed-motivated tenant eviction. Midway through the song there is a furious explosion of electric guitar matched by Ian’s growling, angry vocal; the electric guitar motif returns to create a bridge back to the stillness, then the band kicks it into gear for the ending. The music is perfect for the storyline: the quieter verses express the disgustingly procedural process of throwing people out of their homes and the louder sections express the righteous anger at officially sanctioned tactics of dehumanization.

This song hits home because I grew up amidst the real estate madness of San Francisco, which became a complete loony bin during the dot.com boom. As the rich moved in and jacked up prices, many lower and middle-income people had no choice but to flee; artists and musicians flocked to West Oakland and the few remaining areas that had yet to experience the latest version of the gold rush. Ellis Act evictions—based on a law that allows landlords to evict tenants in order to “go out of business”—peaked in 1998, as landlords decided to cash in and sell to developers who then turned apartments into overpriced condos. This was a big issue in my family because my father owned seven houses in San Francisco—houses that he had bought, fixed up and turned into rentals (three single-family homes and four homes divided into apartments). My father’s primary motivation in getting into the housing business had nothing to do with speculation; he was motivated by the artistic challenge of making ugly houses beautiful and livable, and by his desire to give back to the community where he grew up. When interviewing prospective tenants, he talked to them about his philosophy, and how it was important for them to feel as if the place was theirs and to view the home with the same amount of pride that he took when restoring it. His socialistic belief that compensation should be based on need led him to set rents that covered expenses, often significantly below the market price, and in almost thirty years as a landlord, he never evicted a single tenant. He did get shafted a couple of times but never wavered on his intention. During the dot.com insanity he was approached by all forms of slimy developers urging him to cash in on the rocketing prices. He turned them down every time. When he and my mother decided to retire, they could have sold all the houses at market value and become instant multi-millionaires, but instead they spent two years figuring out ways to either sell the properties to the tenants or sell only to buyers who would agree to maintain the status quo for at least five years.

Fugazi’s approach to this continuing crisis is blessedly simple: call out the bullshit for what it is.

on the morning of the first eviction
they carried out the wishes of the landlord and his son
furniture’s out on the sidewalk next to the family
that little piggie went to market, so they’re kicking out everyone . . .
the elected are such willing partners
look who’s buying all the tickets to the game
development wants, development gets
it’s official
development wants this neighborhood gone so the city just wants the same

“Full Disclosure” opens with a high-speed distorted guitar picking, soon accompanied by counterpoint distortion, rolling drums and thick, filling bass. Guy Picciotto then launches into a series of guttural screams of the phrase, “I want out!”—x 1000, according to the lyrics in the liner notes. Meanwhile, the guitars are weaving a wild and wicked pattern over a static chord, creating a soundscape of terrible tension that is both mesmerizing and frightening at the same time. The tension continues to build when Guy breaks free from the mantra to cue the next stage of the song so that when they finally change chords and shift into the melodic chorus, the effect is positively orgasmic. The background oohs and harmonies over the repeated phrase “full disclosure” are as close to power pop as these guys can get, but the almost sweet vocals are balanced by the continuing harshness of the background. After a very tasty guitar solo, both guitars kick into the high-speed picking, this time with even more urgency, like a siren that is out of control. The shift placing the sounds in deep background is deftly executed, and all you can do at the end of this song is say, “fucking fantastic” and reach for a cigarette. I don’t need to tell my long-time readers how passionately I felt that “I want out” message towards the end of my life in America.

The McKaye-Picciotto guitar duets are as good as it gets, and while you can chalk that up to the fact that both are enormously talented guitarists, that’s far too simple an explanation of just how fucking good they sound. Lead guitarists are often insufferable hams, eager to show off their technique and wow all the wannabes in the audience who haven’t yet mastered the F-chord. McKaye and Picciotto not only collaborated successfully but they arranged their parts with precision and intent, never overplaying their hand. There are lots of spaces in “Epic Problem” that feature only a single guitar, and when they go into either duet mode or call-and-response, it’s done with the sole purpose of creating a specific soundscape true to the moment of the song. The opening passage features muffled picking in one channel and dissonant riffs in the other, creating the feeling of disconnection that reflects the psyche of the narrator (the guy with the epic problem). After the two herky-jerky opening verses, full of the stops and stutters of the clueless mind, we are treated to a lengthy instrumental passage that begins with a power-chord stop time passage and fabulous bashing from Brendan Carty followed by a not-long-enough passage where the two guitars blend intricate harmonies at blazing speed. The bash comes to an abrupt stop when we enter the self-reflective section of the song, where our 21st-century nowhere man identifies his problem while rationalizing his inability to do anything about it:

i’ve got this epic problem
this epic problem’s not a problem for me
and inside i know i’m broken
but i’m working as far as you can see
and outside it’s all production
it’s all illusion set scenery
i’ve got this epic problem
this epic problem’s not a problem for me

The world is phony so it’s okay for me to be phony; my excuse is supported by the fact that I’m just as fucked up as the rest.

The arrangements in The Argument are uniformly outstanding, with clear production values and an intuitive sense of integrating the right sound at the right moment. “Life and Limb” is a good example; the song starts out in tune-up mode, the drums kick in and the arrangement remains starkly minimalist through the opening verse: vocal, drums and simple but eerie guitar pattern. A breathy “oh” and a layered vocal intensifying the “Don’t you feel it now” line is the only variation until a seamless transition brings in a chorus of harmony, faint low-end guitar, the full sound of Joe Lally’s bass and Bridget Cross’ response vocals. We return to the minimalism for a bit before Joe Lally’s brief bass solo pairs with Guy’s “viva viva” lines before it all reconnects with the fuller arrangement of the chorus. This phase ends on an unexpected chord change prior to resolution, followed by a full stop. On cue, bass, drums, rhythm guitar and nimbly picked lead guitar come together for an extended solo, and right in the middle, for no other reason than it happened to be the perfect thing to do at the time, we hear a pair of quick handclaps. Little touches like that make me shiver in ecstasy: my Count Basie Theory is real! I love the chorus fade and the clarity of Brendan Canty’s cymbals at the very end. The skills demanded on this song are so radically different from the skills required on Repeater that you have to marvel at the expansion of Fugazi’s thinking and musical ability.

Joe Lally’s “Kill” opens with guitar flashes echoing in and out over a superbly clear bass pattern. Joe’s vocal has the flat tone of descriptive prose, more than appropriate for a narrative recited from the perspective of a soldier numbed by the insane violence he is asked to commit on behalf of his country:

laying in this cold field
waiting for the call
feeling right here in this uniform
i think i got them all
academic or street education
obtain a degree in annihilation

Ian McKaye’s haunting counterpoint lines, “I’m not a citizen, I’m not a citizen” are chilling indeed, as they raise the question of the meaning of citizenship in a society that trumpets democracy but denies democratic rights to anyone who works for a living, whether you’re in the military or toiling for a business. How does following orders that contradict both conscience and human dignity square with the concept of freedom? Even more chilling are the points of suspended time in the song where Joe plays a single, repeated bass note like the thud of an indifferent heartbeat. Like the soldier in the song, we can all become numb to the continuing madness around us.

“Strangelight” opens with a lovely guitar-piano duet that transforms into a darker guitar duet comparable to the bleak external and internal conditions of modern humanity. Three lines describe a withering environment (“the sun’s a strange light/nothing grows right anymore/scars on every stalk”) followed by two lines reflecting the inner decay of the human spirit (“whose mouth should i use to talk/the force that marks the routine”). This pattern of mirroring external reality with internal continues with consumerism (“now it’s hard to punch the clock/on a site where production’s stopped/i’m just a warehouse filled with junk”) and rampant development (“beige concrete goes on for miles/hiding cities under it/fill my mouth with non-mouth spit”). The dissonant darkness of the background shifts to an ironically sexy guitar-heavy section marked by the repeated cry for companionship to relieve the tension (“come on over get your shoes on put your feet on baby come on over”). Pounded piano chords add to the swirling guitar mix to reinforce the feeling of alienation. “Strangelight” is a dark song, but a very effective one.

“Oh” is an anti-globalism, anti-greed anthem with pungent wordplay (“lapse of luxury”) and more pointed commentary about the financial bubble (“cruising towards a bruising crash/thread held anvil’s gonna break”). The music is slow bash and Guy’s vocal reeks with a bitter sense of the absurd. “Ex-Spectator” opens with an extended drum riff that finally expands to include distorted power chords and runs that support Ian McKaye’s strong vocal; the rhythm accelerates for the chorus and returns to the original pattern where the fragments of meaning start to come together in a series of questions that get to the core issue of individual responsibility for the general mess:

here’s some questions that the writer sent
can an observer be a participant?
have i seen too much?
does it count if it doesn’t touch?

We’ve elevated “out of sight, out of mind” to an art form; and when Ian sings, “i’m an ex-spectator/never let my, never let my, never let my/vision get in the way of/me,” the complexity of human perception and motivation becomes apparent. We choose to be blind if being blind allows us to ignore inconveniences that get in the way of our limited vision of life—a life that exists in a universe where we’ve placed ourselves at the center.

“Fuck your fucked directives,” is the line that opens “Nightshop,” a delightfully twisted version of “Take This Job and Shove It” driven by expansive guitar sounds and sudden time shifts. The forever haunting fade lines, “who works for who/who you working for?” ring true for me, for whenever you think you’re in control of your destiny, folks, think again. You can be a wage slave, a management drone, a top executive or own your own business and if you have any sense of self-reflection at all, you’ll find that you can’t come up with a real answer to the question, “Who you working for?” Everyone is limited by a combination of imaginations weakened by our mass production educational system and by the opportunities defined by the economy—and the economy is something that you have to fit into, whatever your calling. In this world, no one’s going to pay you for being you. That idea—that someone would pay you for being you—may sound like a silly idea, but what if we changed our educational and economic systems to base them on individual strengths and interests rather than manic consumption? Might the end result be more capable, less atrophied human beings?

Fugazi always gave you a lot to think about.

This brilliant final album ends with “Argument,” featuring Ian McKaye’s intensely sane and logical reasoning for a full commitment to non-violence and the end of war. The track opens with the same kind of radio airplay that opened the album, disappearing into a moderate, steady beat and clean arrangement that gives maximum emphasis to the piercing lyrics. Ian MacKaye has a way of translating what seems to be a radical, unthinkable idea into plain common sense, using disarming phrases like “but i can’t help thinking” and “so here’s what’s striking me” before he makes his point. Even though it’s likely that all he’ll get in return is an argument or “folderol,” he makes his point in stark, memorable language that shines a bright, bright light on our assumptions that mass murder under the self-canceling guise of moral war against “them” is the inevitable way of the world:

when they start falling
executions will commence
sides will not matter now
matter makes no sense

how did a difference become a disease?
i’m sure you have reasons
a rational defense
weapons and motives
bloody fingerprints
but i can’t help thinking
it’s still all disease

here comes the argument/here comes the argument/here comes the argument

folderol
it’s all about strikes now
so here’s what’s striking me
that some punk could argue moral a b c’s
when people are catching what bombers release
i’m on a mission to never agree

At this point, the music becomes slightly ethereal for a few measures before a metallic guitar plays a brief motif that explodes into the full band supporting the double-sword lines, “here comes the argument/here comes the argument/here comes the argument/here it comes.” The song ends suddenly as if the conversation has ended abruptly—either because it’s pointless or because all that needs to be said has been said.

Reconnecting with The Argument has been a cleansing experience, reconnecting me to beliefs that I have had to compromise over the years. I have a year to go until my employment contract runs out and I can choose a different path, but in that year, my partner and I are going to figure out how we can avoid living lives as drones, working only to make money in a world structured to discount idealistic motivations. The Argument is not only a musically fascinating and poetically strong piece of work, but an intensely inspirational work that almost forces you to try to imagine a world where human beings actually matter . . . and maybe do something about it.

I’m in.