American Eyes

Oct
26th

Mon

Well, the band hasn’t broken up. It’s one of those weird things where we never could agree amongst the four of us what the nomenclature should be for what was going on. It’s not one of those situations for us where we got together, formed a band, then played a few shows, released a couple records, and then decided to call it a day. We had been friends since even before the band started. I mean, I’ve known Brendan, the drummer, since I was like 14 years old. Up to this point I had only ever been in bands with him; I’ve been in like 6 groups with him. That’s a friendship that predates the band and will go to the grave with me, and the same with Joe and Ian. There’s a bond there that goes beyond whether or not we have a gig booked next week or we have a studio date booked, it’s just different than that. Initially I was kinda like, “Well, maybe we should say we broke up just so we can stop the phone from ringing and take a break.” But nobody felt right about it because it seemed kind of false. The band may do something again; we don’t know. We see each other all the time. We certainly always have work to do concerning the band, and we’re still working on projects within the band—like right now we’re trying to get every live tape that we have from the group archived on the Internet so people can listen to 1200 Fugazi shows! [Laughter] If they want to! You know, shit like that. We’re always dealing with stuff, there’s always an outside chance that we may decide to do something.

—

Guy Picciotto, Fugazi - Gothamist

This interview with Guy is mostly about his current work as a sideman for Vic Chestnut, but this is him explaining that Fugazi is in some way still something that exists. Though I hold out hope for those guys to make more music or tour again, I mostly just want to hear new music from Guy. He’s one of the great rock and roll vocalists of all time* as far as I’m concerned, and it’s a shame that he’s not out there with new material of his own.

(via perpetua)

* (and absolute #1 dead sexiest)

I had no idea that dude was playing with Vic Chestnutt; I’d assumed he was still just putting out Orthrelm records in DC or whatever. (Sorry, this is an “or whatever” kind of day.) I regret that I’ve never really checked out VC, despite affiliations with/praise from Kristin Hersh and other musicians I really admire. Back in the “Sweet Relief” era I was a wee thing who shied away from anything I perceived as “folk music”, and I’d assumed he was exactly that. More recently, he’s just been a casualty of late-oughts music consumption - too many bands, not enough time or attention. (Plus I think he made an album with Widespread Panic, right? While I like to think I’m less judgy than at age 14, that collab didn’t exactly pique my interest.)

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