60 Songs That Explain the '90s - “Merchandise”—Fugazi

Episode Date: August 9, 2023

Rob blends his memories of watching Pee-wee Herman with flash backs of his punk rock era while praising Fugazi and their 1990 alternative rock head banger, “Merchandise.” Later he is joined by Touché Amoré singer and host of ‘The First Ever Podcast’ Jeremy Bolm to discuss how intimating Fugazi was as a post hardcore band and much more. Preorder Rob’s new book, Songs That Explain the ’90s, visit the Hachette Book Group website. Host: Rob Harvilla Guest: Jeremy Bolm Producers: Jonathan Kermah and Justin Sayles Additional Production Support: Chloe Clark Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Subscribe to The Ringer NFL show on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. And be sure to follow the Ringer NFL on Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter at Ringer NFL. This happened when I was 16 years old, maybe 17. And so just to quickly give you some insight into me at that time, what was going on in my head, and really who was going on and on and on in my head. This pretty much sums up the vibe in my head at the time. Yeah, 16 years old, I'm still walking around with the Peewee's Playhouse theme song, running in a loop in my head. I don't remember exactly how this started the Pee-Wee-Herman thing, meaning Pee-Wee-Herman's colossal and enduring an entirely sincere importance to me and to my family.

Our lifelong reverence for him. We've always loved this guy in our family. We've always loved this guy as though he were a member of our family. Pewee's Playhouse ran on CBS on Saturday mornings from 1986 to 1990, and it was somehow more cartoonish than any of the actual Saturday morning cartoons that I loved also. But I didn't love the cartoons as much. Cindy Lopper sang the Pee Wee's Playhouse theme song. I had forgotten that. But then again, I have always known that. Of course, that's all youself up a chair. Cindy Lopper. Who else possibly could have sung that? All right, Pee Wee Herman, late 70s, L.A. Underground

Sketch Comedy Star, 80s movie star, Saturday morning children's show star, tabloid infamy, star, heartwarming comeback from tabloid infamy, star, early 2010's Broadway star, etc. Pee Wee Herman, a profoundly silly pop culture sensation, and in my universe, at least, a universally beloved character. A fictional, but somehow also spectacularly real-life character created by the comedian Paul Rubens, who died on July 30th, 2023 of cancer. And that news has really weirdly hit me hard. And now he's back in a loop in my head. He was 70 years old. But I will never think of him as 70 years old.

I will always remember Pee We as however old he was when I first came to revere him. back when I was seven years old. He'sing, Mr. Herman. Mr. Herman, you have a telephone call at the front desk. That's not his voice. That's not Pee Wee's voice there. The joke there is that this isn't Peewee's voice. He's playing himself as a bad actor,

playing the role of a hotel bellhop in a movie within a movie about his life. It's a dubbed voice. That scene is absolutely hilarious in context, but that scene is also much harder to explain that I anticipated. Sorry, this is Pee-Wee Herman's voice. Good morning, Mr. Beckfast! This is Pee-Wee Herman in his quote-unquote normal voice in another easier-to-explain scene

from the 1985 cinematic masterpiece, Pee-Wee's Big Adventure. In this scene, Pee-wee is carrying on both sides of a conversation with his breakfast, Mr. Breakfast. who is a stack of pancakes with a face, two eggs for the eyes, a strawberry for the nose, and two strips of bacon for the mouth. Mr. Breakfast is also hungry. Is that tea cereal? Don't eat my cereal.

Yes, indeed. That is Pee Wee, voicing Pee Wee's breakfast, asking Peewee for its own breakfast. This scene is also hard to explain. For such a simple, tremendously goofy, and defiantly childlike, universe, Pee-wey Herman is very much an if you know you know situation. He is world historically absurd, but somehow profound in his total commitment to his own absurdity. He is a man-child in a gray plaid suit with a red bow tie, but crucially he is a kind man-child. He is often indignant and petulant and unreasonable, but somehow even his childish temper tantrums have a kindness,

a benevolence, a winsomeness to them. And everyone, except the guy who steals his bike and also Randy, the bully puppet. Almost everyone in the Pee-Wee Herman universe loves Pee-Wy, and they don't think Pee-Wy is weird, and they treat him with warmth and generosity and acceptance. And all of those people are pretty weird as well, from Cowboy Curtis to the lady who leads the biker gang and the tequila scene, to the king of cartoons, to... large marge, but peewee in turn doesn't think they're weird, and he treats them all with warmth and generosity and acceptance. Even large marge, uh, sort of. Mr. Rogers plus punk rock

equals peewey Herman. It's an ethos. It's a secret handshake. It is a lifelong philosophy, or perhaps a religion. It is a universal language. about you guys French fries Nancy for Pee Wee Me'sepoombe Pewee's big adventure is probably objectively the best thing

he ever did Big Top Pewee from 1988 is also a movie but I'm a Peewee's Playhouse man myself Best show on TV in the late 80s

my favorite TV show of all time from the ages of 7 to 37 and my family loved it too My mom loved it, my brother, my cool aunts and uncles. We bonded over Pee-wee. My mom asked me to make her an eBay account, just so she could buy the complete run of Peewee's Playhouse on VHS

and display the tapes in her home. I will never forget my mom laughing. When Pee-wee made himself a salad at the salad bar, and he got to the sprouts. Looks like it. Smells like hair. Just kidding. Or maybe you prefer the time Pee-wee said, I love fruit salad, and everyone said, then why don't you marry it?

And so then they staged a wedding between Pee-wee and a bowl of fruit salad wearing a wedding veil. Or maybe you prefer the very first episode of Peewey's Playhouse when he makes ice cream soup. Today we're going to make ice cream soup. Hmm, that's my favorite. First ingredient in ice cream soup is ice cream. Ice cream soup is where you dump in a bunch of ice cream and chocolate sauce and swirl it around for 10 to 30 minutes. Kids love it. Most adults grow out of it.

That's too bad. The thing about mourning a celebrity, an actor or musician or whatever, a cultural figure, someone whose work and public persona, you know intimately, but you never met them. You don't know them as a person at all. The thing about this sort of mourning is that you don't always control which celebrity death hits you the hardest. cultural grief is especially impervious to emotional logic it is ridiculous maybe to say paul rubin's death hit me hard but it did when cheney o'connor died on july 26th 2023 at 56 years old that hit hard i find out chnade o'connor dies and that's the end of my day as a productive citizen i walk into the sea of my mind.

Right? I spend the rest of the day just thinking about Chenade's son and Chenade's mother and Saturday Night Live and Chris Christofferson. And that tweet I saw going around something about how the bravest people in real life are not treated in real life the way the bravest people in stories are treated in stories. Bravery is not rewarded in life as it is in fiction. The bravest people in real life are lonelier.

And while we're at it, childlike silliness is for sure not rewarded in real life as it is in fiction. That I know for certain. I know that from experience, dude. The silliest people don't date much in college. But the artists, the bands, the cultural figures, the people I've never met, but I nonetheless know intimately who keep coming up on this show. Peewee, Weird Al, they might be giants, Beavis and Butthead, the folio artist for the fart scene for blazing saddles. This is the profound silliness vibe that got to me between the ages of seven and 16, and it made me. There's that semi-costic internet meme, right?

Blank taught me it was okay to be weird. I always associated it with David Bowie, you know, when David Bowie died and someone would tweet, David Bowie taught me it was okay to be weird, and someone else would reply, you're an accountant. I'm telling you that Pee Wee Herman taught me it was okay to be weird. And I mean it. And I know how ridiculous it sounds, and that's how you know I mean it. Pee-Wee Herman more or less sat out in the 90s. Let's leave it at that.

But Pee-wee was a crucial strand of my DNA in the 90s and my teenage years and long into adulthood. I saw Pee-Wy on Broadway in 2011 when I was like 33. He started out by reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, standing next to a flag on a mostly darkened stage. And when the stage lit up behind him, the full playhouse set, the jagged red vinyl door with a portal and cherry and globy and conky and whatever the map was called. And when that set lit up, I lit up to. I teared up. I regressed. I self-actualized. That might be the purest moment of childlike joy I have ever experienced in adulthood. This is who I love. And therefore, this is who I am. And I'm not a. violent person or a confrontational person and I don't stage dive. And generally I do what I'm told, but I nonetheless fear that I am at heart an ice cream soup eating motherfucker.

Let's go. Don't you want to see the rest of the movie? I don't have to see it, Daddy. I lived it. So that's me, but I'm not talking about me right now. I'm talking about who I could have been. This happened when I was 16 years old, maybe 17, early 90s, my first job at a grocery store, bagging groceries. I've been there half a year maybe, 5.25 an hour. And you best believe I am giving this job $5.25 an hour's worth of effort and emotional investment. And I stumble into work one morning, and there's a baby lion in the store. A baby lion in a cage with a handler.

and you can take a picture with a baby lion for $10 or something. The baby lion's on a leash, perhaps, as well. Don't ask me the logistics here. It was either a baby lion or a baby tiger. I forget which. I think a baby tiger is more plausible, but a baby lion is funnier. So baby lion in a cage.

Come have your kid take a picture with a baby lion. And I just think, what's like, all right, but we got protesters outside. out on the sidewalk, waving signs at cars driving by protesters, fellow teenagers, classmates of mine most likely, I didn't know them. Furthermore, they were punk rock types. I could tell they were punk rock types because they made me uncomfortable. Spiky and or dyed hair, nose rings, patches on their ripped jackets touting bands I was not familiar with. confrontational attitudes, and they're all waving homemade signs protesting the grocery store,

protesting the exploitation of the baby lion, protesting animal cruelty. And I get an idea. No good ever comes from my ideas at this age in this era across this decade. I'm a teenager. I'm in high school, and I'm a reporter for the school paper. My recent articles address such salient topics as Afrodisiacs, Kurt Vonnegut, Radiohead, and how the vice principal should quit telling corny jokes during morning announcements. Just to give you a sense of where else my head was at at this point. And now my idea is I'm going to interview for the paper, the punk rockers protesting outside the grocery store where I work. This is what is known in the journalism industry as a conflict of interest. My boss at the grocery store may very well have pointed out this conflict of interest

to me, or anyway, he was not psyched when I asked him for comment in my capacity as a reporter for my school paper. My boss declined to comment, and for several weeks thereafter, he called me scoop, which, as I think about it now, I think he may have meant that pejoratively. So I'm on break for my job bagging groceries, and I go out to interview the scary punks protesting the exploitation of the poor baby lion in my grocery store and one of my fellow grocery backers is out there protesting i don't know her well but i know her i work with her she is protesting her own place of work and she's on the schedule today she's supposed to clock in like 20 minutes and i'm like are you really going to work and she's like i don't know and i'm scare

quotes interviewing her, right? And she's like, I got to go get something to drink. And I can't go in there yet, right? I'm going to go to the gas station, grab a soda or something. You come in and I'm like, all right, I get in her car. She starts her car. Her car's got a tape deck. The cassette tape in the tape deck starts blaring at incredible volume. Minor threat. Hey, no offense to you, whoever you are, but I had the single greatest possible introduction to the legendary 80s Washington, D.C., hardcore band, Minor Threat. In one day at 16, I learned about animal cruelty, political protest, journalism ethics, and minor threat. Just an exhausting Saturday for 16-year-old me. And on the seventh day, he rested. I forget the exact minor threat song playing when she

started her car. I would tell you the exact song if I knew it. But the rule is, if I tell you I don't remember it, then I get to just make something up. So maybe it was that song. Maybe it was the minor threat song called Minor Threat. Or maybe it was another minor threat song. Let's try another one. I get in her car. She starts her car. Her car's got a tape deck. The cassette tape and the tape deck starts blaring an incredible volume. Minor threat. Ooh, what a thematically appropriate a minor threat song to start blaring out of that girl's tape deck at that precise moment. I don't want to hear it. Hey, we got a baby line on the store today.

I don't want to hear it. None of your bullshit. What a cool coincidence. Is there a paradoxically uncool option? Would you think less of me if I told you that my favorite minor threat song is their cover of I'm not your stepping stone by the monkeys? I just love the way the drums come in. It's a production thing.

I'm doing it. I get in her car. She starts her car. Her car's got a tape deck. The cassette tape and the tape deck starts blaring an incredible volume. Minor threat covering the monkeys. I think it's cool. Listen, I forget the exact song, but minor threat starts blasting in her car at incredible volume.

And riding shotgun, I physically recoil from the pure volume, but also from the sheer density of coolness and harshness and intimidation and punk rock. And I yell, who is this? And she yells back, minor threat. And I yell back, oh, cool, because I'm trying to convey while yelling that I totally know all about minor threat already. I hadn't heard a single minor threat song. And of course, she doesn't buy my attempt at sounding cool.

And we drive off and she buys a soda. And we drive back to the grocery store. And we park where the employees are supposed to park. And we walk in so she can clock in to start work. And this girl gets one look at the baby lion sitting in the cage. and she bursts into tears in front of God and everybody. She turns around, walks out, never comes back. It's the most punk rock action I've ever personally witnessed.

And I'm left standing there. And now everybody in this grocery store is staring at me, the boy who happened to be standing next to the cool and principled and empathetic punk rock girl. And I am so shocked and moved and confused and sensory overloaded that I, too, seriously consider quitting for somewhere between, between five and 30 seconds, and then I tie my apron back on and get back to work. I don't quit because that's not who I am, but I consider quitting because that's kind of sort of who I wish I was.

My name is Rob Harvilla. This is the 103rd episode of 60 songs that explain the 90s, and this week we are talking about merchandise by Fugazi from their 1990 album repeater. Sometimes I think about getting into a time machine and going back. to, okay, 1990, back when I was 12 years old, and it's the dead of night, and 12-year-old me is asleep in bed, and I just sneak into my childhood bedroom, and I get rid of all my super 12-year-old shit, right? I steal all my old far-side daily calendars and my mad magazines and my Game Boy and my Peewees

Playhouse Colorform set. I had that. I saw that box again on Facebook yesterday, and it really took me back. and my dog-eared copies of Charlotte's Web and the mixed-up files of Mrs. Basil E. Frank Weiler and my vanilla ice and MC Hammer and CNC Music Factory and Def Leopard tapes. I return via Time Machine as an adult to assist in the cultural and spiritual development of my preteen self by manually setting aside my childish things and all I leave in my bedroom. is my dinky little boombox with just the one cassette tape in it.

And then I jump back in my time machine with all my old childish shit and I get the hell out of there. And so now my 12 year old self wakes up and just out of habit I turn on my dinky little boombox and boom. I become a better, cooler, smarter, more sophisticated and principled and empathetic but also intimidating version of myself. I become punk rock me. Do you ever think like this? I hope you don't, honestly. There's absolutely no point or benefit to thinking like this. Sitting around now as a haggard adult fantasizing

about the much cooler music you wish you'd have listened to as a fresh-faced teenager back then. That is not a punk rock me activity. Forget it. Forget I said any of that. I wouldn't really use a time machine to steal immature shit for my 12-year-old self. That's ridiculous.

Although right now, somebody's selling a Pee Wee's Playhouse Color Form set on eBay for $225. So yeah, I'm taking that shit. I don't have to like merchandising and commercialization and capitalism, but I'm going to make all that shit work for me. You know what? I may have heard about my... minor threat once before prior to the infamous grocery store baby lion or maybe it was a baby tiger

incident but i didn't know this kid was talking about minor threat the high school lunchroom there's a litany of songs albums bands that i overheard somebody talking about in my high school lunchroom and it sounded cool but i never investigated it just an entire sonic atlas of roads not taken I'm sitting there one day and I'm eating my Johnny Marzetti. Do you know Johnny Marzetti, the food, not the person? It's like a pasta with a ground beef or sausage-based, vaguely chili-adjacent sauce. It's pretty good. There's way worse, school lunches, dude.

One day I'm eating my Johnny Marzetti and this kid's going, there's a punk rock band called Millen Collin, and they've got a song called Move Your Car. It's hilarious. And I'm like, oh, that sounds pretty sweet. I never got around to Mill and Collin. I'm sorry. This song is pretty good, actually. Yeah, I still remember that kid talking about this song,

but I actually heard that song for the first time just now. Sorry, Mill and Collin. I've been busy. Actually, while I'm here, I'm pretty sure the Mill and Collin kid was also heavy into the Dead Milkman, a punk rock band with a decidedly extra juvenile pee-Herman mentality, if you don't mind my saying so. I never got heavy into the dead milkman, and I totally should have, obviously, but years later,

I would learn that my wife's first concert ever was the dead milkman. And that, my friends, is yet another reason why my wife is cooler than me. But so, yeah, one day in my high school lunchroom, this kid's just sitting there, loudly agonizing over whether or not he's still straight edge. He's talking to his friends who seemed a little indignant. He's like, I don't know, man. I thought, I mean, I think I'm still straight edge. And at the time, I didn't really know what straight edge meant.

And I wish I could go back now and turn to the kid and just be like, what did you do exactly that leads you to suspect that you are no longer straight edge? Obviously, I don't want the answer to that question, but I do still want to ask the question. You know, I knew as a teenager that you could be something called Straight Edge, and I knew that being Straight Edge made you probably cooler and definitely better than me. But I was light on the details. And it turns out that as a songwriter, there is a downside to introducing a concept with that much broad cultural appeal cloaked in that much adolescent confusion and ambiguity. Somebody somewhere in high school did try to clue me in as to what straight edge meant.

And whoever told me about it definitely told me that straight edge means you don't drink, you don't smoke, and you don't have sex. And the no sex part is not canon if you regard the 45 second long minor threat song straight edge as constituting the canon. Though the no sex part perhaps is canon if you include another minor threat song called Out of Step in the canon as well. But yeah, somebody clues me in on this particular interoperative. interpretation of straight edge and my response is, well, it turns out that I'm already the coolest dude in town.

Okay, Ian Mackay. Singer, songwriter, guitarist, label owner, zeitgeist, creator, born in Washington, D.C. in 1962. Do yourself a favor and don't do the math. His first band in high school was called the Slinkies. His second band's called the Teen Idols. Ian's playing bass there. and doing backup vocals occasionally. He's not the lead singer yet. When Ian Mackay is leading the charge, you know it. That song is called Get Up and Go, and it appears on the Teen Idol's

EP Minor Disturbance, released in 1980, the first and last Teen Idol's release that also has the distinction of being the very first release on Discord Records. That's D-I-S-C-H-O-R-D, the revered and enduring and ferociously independent record label, started by Ian McKay and his good friend Jeff Nelson to document the Washington DC independent punk rock scene with which Ian in particular quickly becomes synonymous. But yeah, the teen idols quickly break up. A key facet of DC punk bands is that they often have the lifespan of like yogurt. Check the expiration date, my friends. There's this cool documentary called Salad Days, a decade of punk in Washington, D.C., 1980 to 90, came out in 2014, directed by Scott Crawford, who'd grown up in the scene. And it's a relentless barrage of cool bands and cool

people and cool 45-second songs, each of which changed like 5,000 people's lives. So this guy, Jason Farrell, he played guitar in a late 80s D.C. hardcore band called Swizz. And Jason is raving about an early 80s DC punk band called The Faith, who put out one split album in 1982 with another DC punk band called Void. The Faith Void split, if you know, you know. And then the Faith put out one more record, subject to change in 1983. And then the band expired. And Jason is rhapsodizing about how much this Faith album Subjected Change meant to him.

And he says, it's such a perfect little moment and it's beautiful that it died. You said it, pal. Meanwhile, minor threat. led by our good friend Ian Mackay hangs in there from 1980 to 1983. Every year that a DC punk band stays together is a decade in normal rock and roll time, which in turn pretty much makes minor threat pretty much the most enduring hardcore band ever born. Take a victory lap, fellas. In the classic 2001 book, Our Band Could Be Your Life,

scenes from the American Indy Underground 1981 to 1991 written by Michael Azarad phenomenal book. Ian Mackay talks about how he watched the Woodstock documentary over and over and over when he was a little kid. Actual 1969

Jimmy Hendricks Woodstock not limp biscuit ass rock bottom for society Woodstock 99. And Ian carried that original Woodstock ideal with him, the dream that a rock band could foment a revolution. or at least inspire a community, millions of people strong,

who'd go out and smile on their brothers and everybody get together and try to love one another right now and eventually build a better world. Now, knowing what you know or think you know about punk rock is the antithesis of hippie-fueled classic rock, you might be tempted to think that perhaps Ian's being sarcastic here with this inspired by Woodstock business. But something to know about Ian Mackay immediately is that he's usually not being sarcastic at all. And when he is being sarcastic, you'll know that, too. Minor Threat started out as

Ian on vocals, his Discord partner, Jeff Nelson on drums, Lyle Preslar on guitar, and Brian Baker on bass. They initially broke up in December 1981 because Lyle wanted to go to college. But turns out Lyle didn't care much for college. So Minor Threat got back together in April 1982, but some people in the scene thought this was a cash grab reunion, which is funny. First, First of all, because hardcore bands historically don't make any cash at all. Why do you think they're so pissed off all the time? But Ian didn't think it was funny. And this song is called Caching In, and it goes out to the various haters of Washington, D.C.

Minor threat break up for real in 83. And meanwhile, D.C. hardcore overall is getting a little... This is glib, but bro-y. All the stage diving, slam dancing, mosh pit action. The mind reels trying to reaccess my 14-year-old mind, as I tried to imagine what the classic DC hardcore environment might be like and tried to describe it in words, slam dancing. I was a how do you do fellow kids type even back when I was an actual kid. But the heart, the soul of the DC hardcore scene rebrands in 1985 and a bunch of new bands form explicitly to play for each other or play for themselves. for their true friends, for the true scene.

And that word rebrands is also glib, but not true exactly, because the summer of 85 is known canonically as Revolution Summer. And in that Salad Days movie, Salad Days, by the way, is another minor threat song about the perils of nostalgia. In that movie, you get a few people quietly, good-naturedly scoffing at the term Revolution Summer, but you also get two separate grown men visibly tearing up as they, describe how inspiring, how life-changing revolution summer was to them personally. Jay Robbins of the great DC band Jawbox, he says, and I'm paraphrasing just a little, he says,

it's not very punk rock to say punk rock saved my life. But anyway, in 1985, Ian's got a brand new band called Embrace. This song's called Building and maybe your first inclination. It's not that you think he's being sarcastic, but maybe you assume he's in character, maybe. Ian McKay at this stage already doesn't much present to the world as the failure type or the I think I'm a failure type. But I don't know. It sure as hell seems like he means it. And right here and only right here I'm going to say out loud that some listeners referred to this more lyrically bereft and anguished and uncomfortably direct sort of music as emotional hardcore or emo. for short. And everyone in that Salad Days movie, and pretty much everyone everywhere else,

within the DC universe at least, cringes, seethes, recoils, and or scoffs way less good naturally at this term emo, in all related terms. And let us never speak of this again for now. And we've agreed to never speak of this again for now, just in time, because here comes this guy. Here we have Guy Pichotto, fellow DC resident and galvanizing frontman. for another major revolution summer band called Rites of Spring. Here we have Gee getting uncomfortably, lyrically direct on a song called End on End. From the first and last, yogurt, full-length Rites of Spring record, self-titled, released in 1985. End-on-end is seven and a half minutes long.

Or, if you prefer a less precise unit of measurement, end-on-end is roughly eight to ten minor threat songs long. I compare too many people to Gumbi. What? It's so weird to say that out loud, but it's true. I overuse Gumbi comparisons in my work. I know this about myself. A Gumbi, the green, bendy, smiling, plucky, claymation children's show character from the 50s. Big revival in the 80s. You got the horse pokey.

Pokey is orange, of course. I blame my Gumbie fixation on Pee-Wee Herman, actually. The same vibe. Retro Kitch for harmless permanent man-children. Guy Pichodo always struck me as punk rock Gumby in his bendiness, in his disquieting pliability, his emotionally racked bonelessness. He's flopping around on stage, contorting himself disquietingly. It's like he's trying to stuff himself into a suitcase.

If anyone ever asks you, my personal favorite writes of spring song is Drink Deep. We got Guy on guitar and vocals, Edward Janney on guitar, Mike Fellows on bass, and make a note of it, Brendan Canty on drums. I got to say, as emotional type revolution fermenting, let's build a better world type manifestos go, this one's pretty awesome. I believe in moments, transparent moments, moments in grace when you've got to stake your faith. that's lovely, truly. The urgency, the out-of-control ferocity in his voice as Ghee sings it, also lovely in its near ugliness. Rites of Spring lasted from 1983 to 1986.

It's such a perfect little moment, and it's beautiful that it died. We're on the hunt now for a band that can crank up both the beauty and the ugliness and the perfection, but stretch out the moment a little longer. across a full decade, ideally, across the 90s. All right, I need you to promise me you're going to go watch this. Fugazi formed in 1986 as a trio at first of Ian Mackay on vocals and guitar, Joe Lally on bass, and a dude named Colin Sears on drums who lasted a few months, but then he went back to his old band, Dag Nasty,

another rad DC band with Brian for minor threatening it. Don't let me get bogged down in this. So Ian and Joe get a new drummer, Brendan, Canty from Rites of Spring. And Brendan brings in his old bendy friend Guy Pichotto, who's just singing and wildly contorting for now, but eventually he'll play guitar as well.

And there you have Fugazi. Ian, Guy, Joe, and Brendan. Did you see that tweet going around recently that pissed everybody off? The dude was like, serious question. If the Grateful Dead is not the greatest band of all time from the United States, then who is? I try to avoid

viral tweet fiascos, so I didn't get involved. Most like I was too busy watching either jury duty or the new justified show. But somebody proposed Fugazi, right, as the all-time greatest American band, right? I'm going to be big mad if nobody said Fugazi. This song is called Waiting Room, and it's one of the greatest songs, rock and roll songs, punk rock songs, post-hardcore songs, don't say it, songs, pop songs, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,

whatever you want to call it songs ever made. Let's not belabor this. Holy shit. And it starts with that pause where the band totally drops out and all the dudes in the crowd whoop. And Brendan whaps the giant bell on his drum kit. I love the bell. The bell is crucial.

That pause. The space it creates. The space you, the listener, fill with your surprise and or confusion and or delight. Or the space that a rapturous crowd fills with whoops and cheques. and cheers and whatnot. That pause is the most impactful interval of silence in the history of American song. I've been doing this a little while now, and I am entitled to a little hyperbole for

your reference in the recorded version. Waiting Room is the first song on Fugazi's first EP, self-titled, released in 1988. Then came the EP Margin Walker in 1989, and then those two EPs were combined into the album, 13 songs released later in 89, all on Discord records, of course. In the recorded version of Waiting Room, the pause is longer. And given the absence of a whooping crowd, it's also much, much quieter. And if this song hits you right at the right age, then that pause and Waiting Room as a whole is world changing. It is personality defining. It is revolutionary. When I go back in the time machine, to steal all my 12-year-old shit and I leave just one Fugazi tape, actually the tape is 13 songs. I want waiting room to redefine me. I want to create

the alternate universe where Fugazi are immediately and permanently my band. I want to find out how that version of Robb turns out. And while we're just outright fantasizing, I want to be in this crowd. at the Wilson Center in Washington, D.C. in 1988 at a benefit for the National Coalition of the Homeless when Fugazi plays waiting room and the whole crowd goes apeshit. You can tell, just listening to this, that all four members of Fugazi are shirtless. Can't you? Their shirtlessness is audible. Their bendiness is audible. You can hear, you can feel how hot it must be. in that room. You can feel the elbows in your back and glancing off your head from all the elated dudes in the crowd yelling, I wait, wait, wait, wait. This footage is on good old YouTube. This footage is also in Jim Cohen's 1999 Fugazi documentary instrument. If I add a time machine, I might just go here, actually, to the Wilson Center in 1988.

Maybe the elbows in your back that you can feel just listening to this are my elbows. There's a lot of 80s in this episode of a show about 90 songs, I suppose, but I submit to you that waiting room. In its ferocity, in its self-righteous fury, in its dynamic grandeur, in its arena rock bombast, artfully woven into its play your best song first because the cops might shut down this show at any time. DIY punk urgency. Waiting room is the blueprint for how much of 90s rock will conduct itself sonically

and the impossible ideal against which most of 90s rock will measure itself ethically. This song also kicks ass. I hope you don't mind. I went ahead and tapped in these students from the School of Rock

in Cleveland, Ohio, doing Waiting Room Live at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which is also in Cleveland in 2018. This went viral in spring 2020 after everybody had more or less lost their goddamn minds for other reasons. Anybody who

said anything online about this clip other than this kicks ass had for sure lost his or her goddamn mind. The Fugazi released 13 songs is as aforementioned. Technically two EPs crammed together and thus technically not an album, but whatever dude.

You'd be hard pressed to find a better collection of 13 consecutive songs by anybody collected anywhere. Given my self-consciousness about the 80s of it all, I will limit my further remarks about the songs on 13 songs to the observation that I would also like to take a time machine back to that Philadelphia show in 1988 when Gee screamed the song, Gloom Man, while hanging upside down inside the basketball hoop. Let's see Gumby try this shit. I need you to watch that footage, too. That's also on YouTube or in the instrument movie.

I need you to watch that footage and observe how dirty, how grimy Gie's back is. He's shirtless again, of course. I need you to reflect on how exactly Ghee might have gotten that grimy, rolling around on the floor, most likely. Ooh, can I go take the time machine to whenever and wherever that show was where Ian and Gie were trying to get assholes in the crowd to quit moshing and whatnot? and they called out the perpetrators for eating ice cream. I saw you two guys earlier at the Good Humor truck, and you were eating your ice cream like little boys, and I thought, those guys aren't so tough.

They're eating ice cream. What a bunch of swell guys. This happened during a show in 1993 at Fort Reno, a venue in D.C. Sorry, it felt weird to me to just be like, wherever this happened. It's against my nature. Also, this is geese talking. Okay, sorry. This shit, you can't hide, you know.

You got your fucking shit. but you eat ice cream everybody knows it the whole fucking place knows it ice cream eating motherfucker that's what you are amazing let me take one more ride in the time machine at least this one's in the 90s also here we have fugazi in front of the white house on january 12th 1991 in an anti-homelessness rally turned golf war protest put on by the activist group positive force and if you're officially named the punk percussion protest and war on poverty, not in the Middle East. Fugazi are playing a song called Turnover. The first track on their first official album, Repeater, released in April 1990.

You got to watch this footage, too. January in Washington, D.C. You got to see for yourself and feel for yourself how cold it is. Guy is wearing a sweater now. Thank you very much. The band are visibly freezing. as they perform beneath a banner that reads, There will be two wars.

This scene looks miserable and also incredible, and also unprecedentedly cathartic, and also maybe the best case scenario for 90s rock embracing activism and a genuine sense of community, a sense of place. This broad idea now that the Internet has decimated the idea of a regional music scene, that everyone just lives on the Internet now. Fugas, and Discord records more broadly have always had a physical, a geographical devotion to them.

These guys are from somewhere and of somewhere, and they are decidedly about something. They are about a great many important and honorable things, causes, beliefs, principles. Merchandise is a song about what Fugazi are not about. What do you know about the Washington, D.C. rock band Fugazi if you only know like three things about Fugazi. You know they own their own label, discord. No major labels, no way, forget it. Ahmed Ertigan, this super legendary Atlantic records mogul. Apparently he told Ian that he wanted to give Ian the same deal Mick got. Mick being Mick Jagger. I'm not sure precisely what the same deal Mick got means in this context,

but no, no way. Forget it. You know Fugazi only play all ages. shows so anybody can go, and their baseline ticket price is $5. You know they won't do interviews with major magazines, Rolling Stone, for example, unless those magazines agree to not allow alcohol or cigarette advertising. Therefore, Fugazi aren't in those magazines. You know Fugazi as the band that says no, the band that objects and rejects, the band that refuses. The band that doesn't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. They don't want to sell anything bought or processed or buy anything sold or processed or process

or process anything sold, bought, or processed. You know Fugazi is the band that won't sell T-shirts. That last line The internet really wants me to believe that that line goes Than to have us sucking in his store I have always heard that line as to have us searching In his store Like searching for an identity through buying useless shit

Through capitalism Searching just seemed a little more elegant And Fugazi like Than sucking Either way is fine I'd walk around in high school and see punk rock types wearing t-shirts that said, this is not a Fugazi T-shirt. Remember those?

Some guy just started selling them and eventually Ian found out and made the guy donate a lot of the money. I have to say, I always assumed that those were, in fact, Fugazi T-shirts, and Fugazi was just a really sarcastic band. This was my sense of things in high school. That was my problem in high school. What of various, really innumerable problems. Fugazi announced that they couldn't be bought or sold or processed, right at the beginning of a decade where all I wanted to do was buy anything.

Any remotely cool rock band wanted to sell me. Fugazi were the coolest and maybe even best rock band of them all, but they weren't for sale, which means it took me quite a while to actually hear their message that I wasn't for sale either. Do you have any idea how cool I would have been if I'd have bought this record, Repeater, in 1990? I'd have been the coolest. I'd have been the fucking Fonz of the 90s.

That's what I said. I wish I'd heard Repeater the song in high school. Listen to the bass and drums here. Holy shit. Because if I'd bought that record, then definitely it'd have bought their next record. Steady Diet of Nothing in 1991. and I'd be the coolest kid you ever heard of playing air bass to reclamation. And if I'd have bought that record, certainly I'd have bought their next record in on the

killtaker for 1993. And then I'd be the coolest kid you ever heard of playing air guitar to the song instrument because the guitars in Fugazi never sounded better than they did on instrument. I'm not even going to tell you what the internet is trying to tell me those lyrics are. I officially do not trust the internet on the topic of Fugazi lyrics. One more. I have a concrete memory of standing in Best Buy and holding a copy of the next Fugazi album, Red Medicine from 1995.

You go to Best Buy to buy CDs because there are a few bucks cheaper there, right? Cheaper than Camelot at the mall or in an actual, legit, cool, independent record store. Because CDs at Best Buy are lost leaders, right? Best Buy is luring me in the door with discounted foo fighter CDs in the hopes that I will also buy a refrigerator. But Red Medicine was a couple bucks cheaper than everything else at Best Buy. Ten bucks, I think. I still didn't buy it. It was also three to five years before I heard a second minor threat song, by the way.

God damn it. But Red Medicine did find me when I needed it. When my grandpap died, my father's father. It was not totally sudden or unexpected. my grandpap dying, but nonetheless, for like two weeks after the funeral, the only song I could listen to was Do You Like Me Off Red Medicine? That's the only song I played for two weeks at unreasonable volume. That song, Do You Like Me is for sure not about mourning a grandparent. One could argue that even now, even after I finally got into this band, I got into Fugazi

after getting into their last album, The Argument in 2001, which is their best album, album, by the way, the argument, and I mean that very seriously, but I don't have any time to explain it. I'm sorry. Even now, I'm still missing the point of this band, right? I would have been cooler in high school if I'd liked them. Air guitar. I listened to the song, Reclamation, and my takeaway was airbase. What about the activism, the charity work, the robust political dimension, the principles? A couple of years back, Fugazi started selling bootlegs of all their concerts, the Fugazi Live series for five bucks a pop. And I bought one of those shows I wish I'd physically gone to. Fugazi at the Newport in Columbus, Ohio on May 31st, 1993. And that show starts out with a brief speech from a woman starting a 24-hour teen suicide hotline because Fugazi shows would generally start with a speech or two, an activist jumping up on stage, an entreaty or two, to visit one of the many informational tables set up in the back. That stuff.

That preamble, that proselytizing. That feels just important to the Fugazi ethos as the music itself. Right? The three and a half minute track called intro on this bootleg where they're just talking is just as important as this bootleg's version of merchandise, right? Maybe it really is sucking. Do I hear this band wrong? Am I using this band wrong?

Is it wrong that I'm super mad that they went on hiatus after the argument, their best album, and refused to reunite? I want them to tour stadiums with a basketball hoop right on stage so I can watch Gee hang in it upside down while he sings Gloom Man. It is rude of Fugazi to not accommodate me now, now that I'm desperate to make up for lost time after getting to the them so late. Because despite the ferocity, the volume, the screaming, the calamity, I do hear an underlying kindness and benevolence and winsomeness to them. A warmth and generosity and

acceptance. I did not grow up expecting kindness and acceptance to sound or look like Fugazi, but I learned. I learned because they taught me eventually. And what What they taught me was that true warmth and generosity and acceptance isn't something you can buy. We are so psyched to welcome Jeremy Bollme, frontman, for the phenomenal post-hardcore band, Tushé Amore, and host of the first ever podcast. Jeremy, it's great to talk to you. Thank you so much for being here. I think it goes about saying that you know this is an honor. I've been a big fan of the show for a long time.

I've punished you on my podcast, so it's so nice to be here to talk about. about a band that I love so much with you. Punished is not the word, Jeremy. I had a delightful time talking to you, and it's delightful to talk to you once again. Thank you for being here. Wonderful. I find Fugazi tremendously intimidating,

both as a musical force and as like an ethical, like a principled force. Like it just seems like an impossible ideal. And I wonder what it's like for you being in a band, being in your hardcore, a post-hardcore band. Like, is they, are they somebody you aspire to? Or they'd like just this impossible, you know, figure in the distance that everyone reveres, but no one can come close to, at least from an ethical standpoint. Yeah, I feel like daunting kind of perfectly sums it up.

Like, if post-hardcore was a house, I feel like Ian Gee and Brendan specifically, like, laid the bricks with like Rites of Spring embrace and Hunt, like all those bands. But in like 1988, it's like, you know, Fugazi. created the ceiling with that self-titled release and Margin Walker, you know, making up like the 13 songs collection. So like, you'd be hard pressed to find a band doing as many interesting things like musically that they were doing. Like to me, Fugazi's a bit of a unicorn. Like, they're uncompromising and wholly original and likely pretty lonely as I imagine a unicorn would be. Like you can't be that fiercely uncompromising without alienating your peers. a little bit, right?

Right. No, absolutely. I mean, it seems they were alienating by design almost, you know, just the rigor of what they would do and what they didn't do. It's just uncompromising, absolutely uncompromising. And there's no way that doesn't create a loneliness and a singularity, you know, which is clearly the way they wanted it. Totally.

I can't imagine what it was like to see them in that regard, too, where, you know, there had to have been an element of going to see them play where you as an audience number are wondering if you're you're even behaving correctly. Like, like, yeah, like, should I wear this band t-shirt at this show? You know? Very self-conscious. Yeah. Is it okay if I move a little bit?

I don't want to jostle anyone next to me. I don't want to end up, you know, an ice cream eating motherfucker. You know what I'm saying? Like, I totally get you. There's a lot of self-pleasing that happens. Their reputation. precedes them. Totally.

You know, you mentioned the early bands' rights of spring, egg hunt, etc. And so they had experience. There were previous bands, but still, like, you know, I listened to waiting room or give me the shot or repeater of the song or merchandise. And it's just this band just came fully formed. Like, how does a band come out of the shoot in the first year or two with songs just this complete, this self-realized, this fantastic, you know? I wish I knew because I think many of us would like to use whatever spice that is for our own for our own sake.

But yeah, no, I feel you. It's really unbelievable. Like, waiting room, I mean, the fact that waiting room and merchandise were on the first demo. And when you hear those demo versions of it, though they are different, like the skeleton is still there. The song is there. Yeah. Like the choruses, which are by punk standards, huge hooky choruses, but I think by any standard, they're huge hooky choruses. Like, it's just, it's remarkable songwriting.

And the fact that they had it just out the gate is really impressive. I mean, minor threat had hooks. You know, I think that that's aside from, you know, the politics and the things that they started, like, you know, that I think is a big part of what made them so impactful is that, like, you hear those songs once or twice. you know the choruses. Yeah, exactly. The lyrics were so straightforward, but they also, you know, with how straightforward they were, they were incredibly memorable. And I think that punk rock at its best has that element to it, you know?

So, yeah, I think it's just like they had all of that DNA and then they just, it was the right for people to start this thing. It's so funny you say self-policing because like to call them catchy, like I cringe a little bit. Like that seems disrespectful to say, but that's what it is. As you say, you know, you hear a song once and you know it. You know the lyrics, you know, the hook, you know, the melody and you know, the message, you know, and that's not, that's a typical. You know? Maybe more from an ethical standpoint than a musical one, but like are Fugazi impossible for any rock band to measure up to now?

Like no merch, $5 ticket prices, like very few interviews, just zero. compromise? Like, is it even possible for a rock band now to make a living like this? Okay, so I thought a lot about this, and the short answer feels like, no. You'd have to be

trust fund kids, or if you did this, like, if a band presented themselves this way, everyone would assume that they were trust fund kids or industry plants because gas prices, tolls, like, even the

cheapest motel rooms right now aren't so cheap anymore, you know? No. So like you can, yeah, you can always sleep on floors or in your van, etc. But like, you would be scraping by holy and like you would still not be able to afford rent. So, but there are some, you know, I was thinking about this and like there are some very few examples of bands that have been able to pull something like this off. Like there's a band called tragedy that are, have been around for a really long time. Right. So, and they're like a prime example of this where, um,

They'll play very rarely. And when they do, it's like a big event where all of a sudden the flyer hits online and people like, oh my God, they're playing, right? And the last time that they did this, all of a sudden, they had a new record at the merch table and the internet went fucking haywire because it's like, what? Like, you know, there's no album rollout. All of a sudden, people are just at the show and there's this record at the table. Yeah.

There was a minute there, you'll probably, I don't know if you ever heard this, but there was a minute there where there was like even a genre, like kind of a tongue-and-cheek name called The Mysterious Guy Hardcore. I am not up on this, but I'm very interested. Mysterious guy hardcore. Okay. It was mostly bands that released, like, they only did, like, a cassette or maybe, like, one small run of, like, a seven-ish, but they rarely played, like, there was never banned

photos of them. And all of the recordings truly sounded like they were recorded on, like, a Fisher-Price, my first recorder. This sounds great. This sounds absolutely fantastic, yes. But I guess what I'm getting at, though, is though, like, these bands were not bands that were trying to make a career. These were bands that were just trying to make a quick statement and move on. So, like, at the end of the day, to answer your question, I don't think anyone can make a living as a musician.

You know, it's like it almost feels impossible to make a living as a musician without having to talk into your phone on Instagram. You know what I'm saying? Right. Right. Yeah. Okay. So just talking about the song merchandise and the band's refusal to sell T-shirts or really anything beyond the records themselves. Fugazi, in essence, is giving up like a massive amount of money, right? Like a primary revenue stream for any band. Can you give me some insight into the material sacrifice that they're making as a band that won't sell merch? So, like, merch is one thing that any band can, like, rely to survive on, which is why,

especially in this post-COVID world, there's been such a loud outcry about the merch cut situation. Right. They're taking a percentage at the, the clubs. Yeah, that sounds awful, man. That sounds like bullshit. Yeah. Like, unless you're a band that's already been screwed by a 360 deal, which for people who are listening who are unfamiliar,

that's where the label gets their claws in like every aspect of what you're doing because they likely gave you a huge advance. It's very predatory where like, you know, these labels will say, oh, we'll give you, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the band's just signed because maybe they're young and not aware, and then they don't realize that that means that, everything that they're doing is coming back to the label. But most, you know, that's pretty rare these days.

And especially if you're in a punk and hardcore band, these labels aren't doing 360 deals. So basically, this is like the only way you can make any sort of, you know, financial impact while touring. So yeah, the merch cut situation has become really, really heinous, you know, not to get on a soapbox a little bit here. But like, you know, during the shutdown and everything like that, you know, we saw so many venues starting to close or like venues putting up any sort of like,

you know, fundraising to stay open. And look, no one wants to see a venue close. But I think for a lot of us artists, we looked at that and we said, uh-oh, this is going to come back to us because now the venues have the sympathy and the pity from your average showgoer because they don't want their venue to close. But the bands know, oh, this is going to actually affect us more. They're going to take more from us because now they feel like they have the authority to take a bigger cut from us. You know what I'm saying? Of course.

There was like an interesting thing where all of a sudden there's like now added things added to settlements where it's like, oh, now there's, you know, cleaning fees. I remember there was one venue that we played that had a $2,000 cleaning fee added to the, to when you're closing out at night. And then we specifically laughed because we're like, you know, there wasn't even hand soap in the bathroom. Like, how dare you? you know so anyway what i'm getting at is that uh you know so bands rely on merch so so much and

you know it's getting harder out there um fugazi was a rare case though i think though because they were self-releasing their own records and i was told today i reached out to a few people who are a bit older to ask about their experiences just because i was curious seeing them and you know i was told that they did sell records at their shows of course which is so you know um which likely they made a little bit of a higher margin off of because at least they weren't in debt to a label to pay those off potentially, you know, this is me just spitballing. I'm not trying to have any sort of authority here, but it sounds right. That's, yeah, it would be weird. Right. The whole point of owning it yourself is that you don't have to pay anybody else. Totally. And respectfully, they were lucky to be

a popular band and they like have that cold following to where like they could sell out a thousand cap room for five bucks ahead where even after expenses, worst case, they're walking out with like $2,500, $1,500. And like at that time, that's a good amount of money. Of course. So, you know, I can't speak, like I said, I can't speak to their finances in any sort of way. But like, they were also a label and a band at one point that we're selling millions of records. So when you have that kind of revenue stream coming in outside of touring, it does allow you to have some pretty strong stances and get away with it because your bottom line is still taking care of, you know?

Right. This is a weird question maybe. like do you understand the principle fully behind this like i guess i do but i just i can't imagine anyone even in the 90s even at the peak of like sell out culture like looking down on a band for selling t-shirts right like i to finance their five dollar a show tours like was anybody talking shit about you know a band for selling t-shirts like why do you think fugazi took this stance and like, what is this stance to you? And like, it kind of gets back to what I was saying in the beginning where it's like,

it's sort of, it's funny because it does sort of like alienate their peers. Like, could you imagine, uh, being a band like of equal or lesser value that was playing a show with Fugazi? Like, wouldn't you kind of feel like a cop if you had to set up the merch table at the show? Yeah, we got some T, too, I'm sorry. Like, I'm so sorry. We, like, yeah. Um, but like, I guess to answer your question, like, I get and respect the hard stance again,

the like consumer culture and capitalism, but it positions you kind of wide open for like the no ethical consumption under capitalism debate, you know? Right. And I have to imagine they were probably challenged with that at some point, likely in the Bay Area, likely at Gilman by someone who wrote from... Oh, it's always Gilman. Yeah, that's funny. Like somebody at Gilman or wrote from Maximum Rock and Roll, probably cornered them and

wanted to ask them about that. But like, you know, like I said, like, look, I love when a band has anything to stand for. You know, like, that's, it's, it's nice to see. And especially if they really stand behind it. But like, you have to wonder if in like 2001, they were like, man, did we really have to do that? Did we really have to be so hard about this? But, you know, they seem, you know, they still seem like pretty uncompromising people. So I'm sure they don't work at it too much.

They certainly do. in terms of punk and hardcore bands now younger bands millennials whatever like people who are way too young are not even born yet when fugazi were active like what's your sense of how younger generations think about fugazi now are they getting the respect they deserve in your view yes i think that they're one of the few bands that actually like kids do their homework on which is getting rarer and rare, I think, but... That's true. Yeah.

There... But at the same time, you know, I've heard over the years from younger people being like, yo, they sound like red hot chili peppers, but punk, I'm like... I don't know. That's... I'm going to go ahead and not comment on that. Let me think about that for a while. Yeah.

That's very funny. That's pretty funny. But I will say that, like, for example, there's a great band that's like on the younger side. They're called Scowl, and they covered waiting room at... Sounded Fury, which is kind of like the, you know, like the premier Southern California, like hardcore festival here in, you know, here in L.A. And they've covered waiting room and the audience went off. Sure. And like, though that's, you know, like an entry point song. And like, it was still

exciting to see the younger generation kids still react in that sort of way. I think in a larger sense their footprint is so massive because they really did inform generation after generation to embrace the DIY culture of self-releasing music and printing your own, you know, this or that or whatever else. You know, like, I think that they were so massive in the DIY aspect that that influence is just going to continue on from there. Yeah, because you guys, Tusha and Mory started in 2007, I think, and the argument, like, their last record was 2001.

So it was like five years solid that they were on hiatus, which appears to be permanent. Like, what do you, were they influential to you, to your bands personally at all? Like, where were they in the firmament, like, then? You know, it's funny. I feel like they are specifically a band that we wouldn't say, oh, let's write a song and it sounds like Fugazi. But when you're writing a part and it has some sort of like, I don't know, rhythmic thing going, it 1,000% of the time gets called the Fugazi part.

Yeah, the reggae. Any reggae echo, yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally. So I think that that probably spans most bands where it's like they might, it's like they're such an impossible band to replicate. But if you all of a sudden come up with a part that has a little bit of groove to it, it's hard not to be like, okay, yeah, that's the Fugazi part. It's either Fugazi or red hot chili peppers.

You go in whichever direction corresponds to your lifestyle. totally totally um fugazi's reputation you know for scolding crowds you know the ice cream eating motherfucker of it all like calling dudes out for moshing whatever like i'm guessing you can sympathize with them a little bit more than the average person like the responsibility that you must feel to crowds like and the irritation with crowds sometimes too like how do you get people to behave when you're playing like music designed to get people riled up right it's it's uh it's a really tough question because all it takes really is like one bad apple, right? So like, poking hardcore shows can be a bit of a delicate ecosystem. Sure. Like for your average

audience, everyone inherently knows the rules, right? Like it's sort of built in. Like, if someone falls, you pick them back up. If someone gets really hurt, you walk them out of harm's way. Occasionally, you get the bad apple that's at the show for the wrong reason. Someone who wants to just swing on people for the sake of swinging on people, as opposed to responding to the music in like a passionate way. Those people are often dealt with internally at the show without the band even noticing. Excellent euphemism there. That's great. Yes. But what is really tragic is often the bad apple could be a bouncer or someone who doesn't, someone who doesn't quite understand how a hardcore show works.

And if that goes sour, it can turn into audience and band versus security. And that sadly happens more often than you think. Thankfully, though, like, Tushé isn't a band that invokes a lot of spin kicks and hard moshing. Thankfully, we do, we inspire more of like stage diving and people climbing on each other to sing along. But you do your best to kind of like keep an eye out for people in the first few rows.

You know what I'm saying? and like you keep an eye out for people who might be like touching somebody inappropriately, like a crowd surfer or like someone who stage dives feet first where you're like, okay, let's maybe not do that because that's like the most streamlined way to permanently injure somebody. To drop kick somebody. Yeah. Yeah. I think, you know, something that is really annoying is like, we'll walk into a venue often and if we see that there's a barrier, we'll try to have a conversation. We'll be like, hey, what do you think the chances of getting rid of that barrier are? And, you know, often there's a compromise is like, oh, well, what if we just push it up against the stage?

And then they don't put a bouncer between the stage and the barrier, which is so much more dangerous because if someone falls in that gap with there's no one there to catch them. So like I said, it's like hardcore kind of knows how to run itself. Right. For the most part. But, you know, unfortunately, there are those situations where somebody acts a little sideways and then it, you know, it gets dealt with one way. another and you hope that police aren't involved at the end of the show. Dealt with internally. That's very funny. I'm thinking about the footage that I've seen at Fugazi shows, and I think you're right, that it's always like one or two people, right? They're

like, you, right there. Like that, you know, they're calling out individual members. It's not the crowd as a whole. As you say, 90 to 95 percent of the people know how to behave. But, you know, if you don't have everybody, then you're screwed. Totally. And, you know, I think that this day and age it is different certainly than then, you know, like there was a lot more of like a violent skinhead movement back in the band, in the era of Fugazi, whereas like those people got kind of, you know, kicked out of the scene pretty like way before my time, even, you know, like those people don't show up very often, thankfully. And like, yeah, it's just a different era, you know. People are also afraid to look embarrassed on, on Instagram. Like if something goes viral or someone acting, acting sideways.

so I think that that also might be a little bit of a deterrent. That's interesting to think about Fugazi shows and like the most infamous crowd versus Ian moments is like very early viral shaming phenomena. That's a really interesting. Wow, that's funny. That's very funny. Ian would have been great on Instagram. If it would have been out of nights, it's been hilarious. Do you think that Ian Mackay regrets writing the song's Straight Edge?

like what happens to you when you write a song as you say that's so catchy and it becomes like a movement that everyone assumes you're the spokesman for you know how do you deal with that right i enjoy this question specifically because i am a 40 year old straight edge person been straight it since i was 14 so here we're the target much it's 14 okay wow how dare like what am i doing a 14 whatever being ethical dude i don't what do you want it's you were you were you were you were you had it all figured out. Yeah, I wish I had a cooler story other than like it was a great tag. It was a great like symbol or thing to claim when at the end of the day it was really just like I didn't want to upset my parents who asked me not to do drugs and drink. So I was like,

there we go. This gives me a straightforward way to say it. But to answer your question, like I have to imagine it's a bit lopsided mix of like pride and regret. Like he doesn't strike me as a super prideful person. Um, so that's the lesser of them. But I have to imagine he feels at least kind of cool deep down that he started something that has had a majorly positive impact on people's lives. But the regret comes from, you know,

once something gets away from you and out of your control, which it very much did. And like the violence and the militant side and things like that that came out of it, which is beyond his control. I mean, I'm sure you've seen the footage. It's, it's like a, you know, you talk about like Ian memes almost,

but like there's that classic story of the kid coming up and, you know, asking him about how he's drinking iced tea and how his friend says if you, you know, caffeine is a drug and his response is, tell your friend I said, fuck you.

So it's like someone trying to make rules for him, even though he's the one that created this thing. Tell your friend. I said, fuck you. This is the best band of all time. The best. You told me the three,

Fugazi records your most into are 13 songs, Repeater and End Hits. And I really wanted to ask about end hits. It's from 98. Like, I love that record. I think it's one of the few, like, underloved records in the Fugazi catalog. Like, what draws you to that one in particular? Yeah. So, you know, thankfully by the time I discovered Fugazi, like, I already had, there was all

these records to sort of choose from, right? Like, they weren't coming out as I was into them. So that helps in a way. So that just happened to be a record that I gravitated to. Maybe it could have been the cover. I don't know. I don't really know what. It's good cover.

It's really good cover. Good cover, yeah. But I think when I really think about it now, as I'm familiar with all the records, I think it's the evolution of Gie's voice on that. Like, he really kind of harnesses like this amazing vibrato that almost feels like Sleader Kinney-ish. And it really works. Yeah, it really works particularly well on that album. Like the opening track, break alone.

I love that song. It's doing so many interesting things. Like that really ugly piano note in the intro that fights against the melody. Yeah, that's the song, man. That really is the song. And then like when it finally hits the like four lines of lyrics, it's presented in this like ultra poppy, hooky cadence that almost is like, that like defines the band in a way where it's like,

here's all this really challenging music. And then we're going to hit you with this really hooky part. And then go back to the challenging shit. Yeah. Totally. They challenge you while giving you something to latch on to. Like, the song, No Surprise, which is probably my favorite song on the record, like has such a hypnotic feel to it that I found myself, like,

listening to that song on repeat at times because it does just feel like you could start and stop it over and over, you know? Yeah. That's cool. The Slater Kenny thing is really cool because that's like, I love like the hot rock era Slater Kinney, you know, and I think that's right around the same time. And there's a lot of parallels there. But yeah, I'm really glad you're writing for that record.

I don't, I don't hear enough praise for end hits. And I'm glad you're helping. Correct. Oh, yes. This has nothing to do with Fugazi at all. And I am sorry about that. But Jeremy, you appeared in the 2022 film Weird, the Al Yankovic story. And I am obligated to ask you to tell me all about that.

This is really funny because there is actually an Ian Mackay parallel with this. See, I knew I was, okay, fantastic. I don't know what it is, but... All right, no, you'll enjoy this because actually, there's even a follow-up to it that just happened on this last European tour we just got home from. So I was lucky enough to interview the director of Weird on my podcast months before it even got announced that this thing was happening. And he, his name is Erica Pell.

He's wonderful. He had directed a bunch of TV stuff. Like, for example, like, he helped develop the Andy Milanochus show because that was his roommate in college, kind of a thing. So anyway, so he gets attached to this movie. I just, I read it. And I'm like, I see a news post. I'm like, good for Eric. That's fucking cool.

And he hits me up just a few days later. And he's like, I got a question for you. Or two questions. Is your head still shaved? And are you available on these days? And I was like, I don't know what this is in reference to, but I could be available. And he was like, guess what? Al, there's going to be a scene in this movie where Weird Al tries out for a punk band.

And Al asked me specifically if I know anyone who actually looks like they play in a punk band and you're the first person I thought of. You really do. So I was like, I am so honored. Let's do it. That's incredible. So, you know, I'll fast forward. We get to the set. So the two other members of this fake band are comedian Johnny Pemberton and also Jonah Ray, who already has.

have a relationship with Weird Al Yankovic. So we show up the set and Weird Al comes running up to them and he's like, Jonah, Johnny, so nice to see you. And then he turns to me and he goes, Jeremy, it's so nice to meet you. And my brain melts because I'm like, man, what is happening right now? What are you? What do you do? Yeah.

Also, by the way, we perform in that movie and we are actually playing the song and like leading up to it. I was like, what are we playing? like what are we, or lip-syncing something? And, you know, Eric says, we'll just make up something on the spot,

but I'm like way too much of a Boy Scout for that. So I'm like overly preparing, coming up with little dumb riffs and sending them. You're composing. Yes, absolutely. And so we show up and then like, so we meet Weird Al and Weird Al says, let me teach you the song.

And I immediately start panicking because I'm like, am I good enough? This man is a genius. Like, can I play what he's about to play? ends up fine. It was super, super crazy. It was a remarkable experience. Just the nicest guy. But, okay, so this is the part that involves Ian Mackay. I get told as I'm in the makeup chair, oh, did you get all your tattoos cleared? And I was like, what? And basically, you have to have the artist who's done all of your tattoos sign off that they can be on film. The actual tattoo artist.

Right. You told me about this. I forgot about this. Oh, my God. How many tattoos are we talking? in your case, Jerry. I have a lot. And again, I'm way too much of a Boy Scout. So I'm like, so I'm actually hitting up all of these different tattoo artists, which I don't need to do. Like, most people like, just say it was all one person. Like, no one's going to actually come for you.

But again, I'm a, I'm a big, I'm a big, uh, boy scout. So you'll notice I have the minor threat sheep, right? You do. So. Out of step. Yeah. So I hit somebody up who I know knows Ian. And I'm like, can, is there any way I can get,

touch. So I email Ian Mackay and I and I'm like he's got to be able to read this email because like I like I don't want him to scroll past it so I make the title minor threat tattoo in weird Al Yakevick movie. I'm like there's no way he's not going to open. No one is scrolling past that not even Ian Mackay. That is a guaranteed. So he opens it and he responds so politely and he basically ends with saying I got to say when I was a minor threat I never thought that anything like this would ever possibly happen. So you got our blessing and thank you so much for even, you know, being so kind and reaching out about this. And that was my only time ever having any sort of interaction with Ian McKay was because of this weird Al Yakevic movie. And then funny

enough, so we just played a festival of bad religion. And Brian Baker, guitar player, might a threat. He's at the festival. And I'm standing in line behind him in the catering area. I tap a shoulder and I say, hey, man, I'm a huge fan. Funny enough, let me tell you this. You know, I tell him, the kind of the story. And he goes, that's you? There was a whole group chat about this whole situation. So my day was made. I was like, these guys talked about me in some sort of circumstance. I think that I achieved maximum level straight edge at that moment. That is as straight edge as you can possibly get. You are certainly the coolest person who has ever appeared on this program or who I've ever talked to in any contest. Jeremy, this has been wonderful. Congratulations.

you for winning life. That's very exciting for you. Thank you so much for talking to. This has been phenomenal. Thank you so much, Rob. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks very much to our guest this week, Jeremy Boll. Thanks very much to our producers, Jonathan Kerma and Justin Sales. Thanks to Chloe Clark for additional production help. And thanks very much to you for listening. And now, without further ado, it is time to go listen to merchandise by Fugazi. We'll see you next week. Thank you.