Tonight (Sunday, June 7) at Wavelength, we host the Toronto debut of Joe Lally. Playing tonight in a trio along with Elisa Abela and Ricardo Lagomasino (a WL alumnus via The Future Has a Silver Lining), Joe is of course best known as the bass player for Fugazi. Yes, FUGAZI.

Now, what bums me out a little is how many mini-history lessons I've had to give out to explain the importance of a member of Fugazi performing at our little series. It's been eight years since Fugazi released their last album, and weirdly enough it doesn't seem like consciousness of their pioneering stature has passed down to the younger, Internet-reared generation.

Where does one start with a potted history of this crucial band? Let me start by putting it this way: they were a great band, possibly greater than they even usually get credit for, but they were also more than just a band. From their inception in 1987 through to the start of their now seemingly permanent "hiatus" in 2002, they were the true exemplars of the D.I.Y. do-it-yourself spirit and self-contained self-reliance. Each of their nine records was released on the indie label Dischord Records, co-owned by guitarist/vocalist Ian MacKaye, a label so dedicated to its local scene that to this day, it still only supports artists from the Washington, D.C. area. The quartet sold hundreds of thousands of albums without major label support, and booked their own tours all around the world. It is impossible to overstate their influence and how inspirational they were to people such as myself and the other founders of Wavelength, as well as labels (sorry, workers' co-ops) like Blocks.

Unfortunately, I would say that talk about Fugazi's business practices and ethics (especially MacKaye's loose connection with the straight-edge movement through his earlier band, Minor Threat) tended to overshadow their music. I'm of the opinion that Fugazi should have been the biggest band in the world, that at their best — especially live — they were our generation's version of The Who. Just watch their Jem Cohen-directed documentary Instrument if you don't believe me. 

Fugazi took their roots in hardcore punk — a sound which, through Minor Threat, Embrace and Rites of Spring, they were already pioneers of — and expanded it into something both more danceable and dynamic through the use of reggae and funk rhythms, dramatic stop/start patterns, and chunky rock riffage. Later on, they experimented with more complicated, dissonant guitar work and musique concrète elements, putting them more in league with Pere Ubu or Television than anything resembling hardcore. As a result, they most of the bone-headed part of their fan-base. I remember seeing them on the tour for their brilliant 1995 album Red Medicine and their audience had shrunk in half from what it was just two years earlier, when they were still inadvertantly jetstreaming off the popularity of grunge.

Joe Lally was the most understated member of Fugazi, naturally overshadowed by MacKaye's status as a cultural figure and singer/guitar foil Guy Picciotto's insane, Capoiera-driven stage presence. Even drummer Brendan Canty and his stop-on-a-dime rhythm train seemed to get more attention. But it was Joe's bass playing that really was the beating heart of the band's sound, and their best-known tune, "Waiting Room," wouldn't have been the same without that bassline. Not only that, Lally was the first person MacKaye approached back in '86 about starting the "new band" that would eventually become Fugazi. On later albums, Lally began to step up to the mic as the band's third singer/songwriters, contributing stand-out tracks like Red Medicine's "By You" and End Hits' "Recap Modotti." 

Joe Lally released his first solo album, There to Here, on Dischord (of course) in 2006, followed a year later by Nothing Is Underrated. I must admit that I haven't followed his solo career as religiously as I did Fugazi, but what I've heard follows in the low-key, amped-down and more tuneful direction of songs like "Modotti," but — as with MacKaye's project The Evens — still with enough tension to be recognizably Fugazian. I don't think it will ever be possible for Joe or any of the other three "former" members to really distance themselves from the legacy of their old band — and if I may be so bold, it would be a little disingenuous if they did.

That's it for today's history lesson. I'm looking forward to catching up with Joe Lally and his last eight years of new music-making.

— posted by Jonny