A Conversation With Brendan Canty (October 2001)
A little Googling had me come across this old interview with Fugazi’s Brendan Canty that I thought was lost forever until someone else had archived it. Since it’s my interview, I’m taking it back. This interview first appeared at the long-defunct website Project X and was conducted and posted days before the release of Fugazi’s final album The Argument. A few parts of this ended up missing anyway, but upon looking at this, most of it seems to have survived. With Fugazi recently opening their live show archive for download at the Dischord website, this seems like a good time to repost this.
Upon learning that Fugazi were about to release a new album, The Argument and a related EP, Furniture, this fall as well as reissue Instrument on DVD (yay!) with bonus footage, I contacted Dischord Records by e-mail. That was mid-August. By late September, Guy Piccotto, one of the band’s two guitarist/frontmen, initially replied that an interview might not be possible with everything that was going on both in the band and in D.C. in general. Being a more understanding journalist, I told Guy in my reply, “No problem — let me know when anyone’s free.” Last Monday, Guy said Brendan was available and passed on his e-mail address.
Fugazi. The name was found by vocalist/guitarist Ian MacKaye (co-founder of Dischord Records and lead singer of the influential early 80′s punk quartet Minor Threat) in a book about Vietnam, a slang term which is actually an acronym for “F’ed up, got ambushed, zipped in.” Their music shed’s punk past in favor of meshing such disparate influences as reggae, funk, go-go and hard rock. MacKaye and the band’s other vocalist/guitarist, Guy Piccotto [pronounced "ghee"], are probably the two most distinctive vocalists in rock today — MacKaye’s Joe Cocker-influenced “melodic shouting” style (honed during the three years that Minor Threat existed and refined with various side projects between 1984 and Fugazi’s formation in 1987), and Piccotto’s one-of-a-kind, full of raw emotion vocalisations. Ian and Guy’s guitar styles — thick powerchording and searing lead lines eminating from either or both guitarists at the same time — stand out in a sea of tenth-generation Ramones/Dickies/Buzzcocks/Descendants copycats and detuned unwashed KornSmackParkVayne slackers to this day, while bassist Joe Lally and drummer Brendan Canty anchor the whole thing.
When the group formed in 1987, MacKaye had taken some time off from performing after the relative failure of his post-Minor Threat group Embrace, while Piccotto and Canty had been in an abortative punk band called Insurrection (the only existing copy of their demo, produced by MacKaye, sits in MacKaye’s archives) and another brilliant but short lived Dischord group, Rites Of Spring, that recorded one album and one 7″ EP in the mid-eighties before dispanding. That lineup reformed under a different name, Happy Go Licky, and played live for a similar amount of time (a CD of live recordings was released posthumously). When Happy Go Licky was starting to dissolve, MacKaye invited Canty and Joe Lally, fresh off of having roadied for yet another Dischord group, for some preliminary rehearsals. By the group’s second live show, Piccotto, who had been hanging out at Fugazi rehearsals anyway, became first backing vocalist/roadie, then a full member of the band. For their first tours as a band (since he wouldn’t pick his own guitar back up until the group began writing their third record Repeater — the first full album after two 12″ EP’s), Piccotto would throw himself all over the stage, jumping or hanging off of anything he could at any given second, be it Ian’s amplifier, Brendan’s drums, or even — as documented on a video tape of an early Philadelphia show shot in a school gymnasium — upside down from the rim of a basketball hoop.
A band policy established by the group on one of those early tours still stands to this day: They only charge ten dollars for CD’s, still press records and charge eight dollars for those (a policy which has stood for everything that has ever been released by Dischord), and only play all-age venues that will charge $5 at the door (except in LA where promoters there won’t go lower than six). There’s never a set list, and only a few songs out of their entire repritoire that they don’t ever do live. Onstage, MacKaye and Piccotto will be just as active physically as they are musically. They’ll stop the show if there’s a disturbance caused by an audience member, drag the offender onstage and encourage him to apologize over the mic. (If that doesn’t work, they’ll hand him his five bucks back and show him the door.) In their hometown of Washington, D.C., they’ll only play benefit shows. They won’t do interviews with any magazine they themselves wouldn’t read. It’s a description of them that’s prefaced pretty much every article that’s ever been written about them, but like the band itself — and probably because of it — it’s endured.
For the past few years, Fugazi have had the luxury of taking it easy. After promoting their seventh release End Hits, the group reduced their touring schedule in order to complete work on the documentary Instrument, a very well made two-hour retrospective of the group’s first ten years together, as seen on video footage ranging from early super 8 and camcorder live footage — including that clip of Guy singing “Glue Man” upside down from that basketball hoop — to rare TV interviews, footage of the band recording their 1995 album Red Medicine, and more recent 16mm footage of the band in performance shot especially for the film. While the group finished the final film and compiled rare demos and instrumental tracks for Instrument’s soundtrack, Brendan and his wife had their first child. He now has two kids, while Joe Lally’s wife just had her first child this past summer.
This was an interview I wanted to get right after I finished off the Mike Watt interview this past August. Upon learning that Fugazi were about to release a new album, The Argument and a related EP, Furniture, this fall as well as reissue Instrument on DVD (yay!) with bonus footage, I contacted Dischord Records by e-mail. That was mid-August. By late September, Guy initially replied that an interview might not be possible with everything that was going on both in the band and in D.C. in general. Being a more understanding journalist, I told Guy in my reply, “No problem — let me know when anyone’s free.” Last Monday, Guy said Brendan was available and passed on his e-mail address. I e-mailed Brendan and two days later at the initally appointed time, I called him.
“You know what?” Brendan said, “My youngest son son is having a hard time going to sleep. Is it possible that you could call me back in about a half an hour?” It was possible, so I said no problem, thought of a few extra questions to ask in the meantime, and rang Brendan. What follows is one of the most enjoyable things I’ve ever done to date. There were literally a lot of laughs in the close to an hour we spent on the phone, as the transcription will reveal over the next couple of days… [Note: The transcription had originally been spread out at Project X by its editor over the course of a week.]
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BEST ALBUMS OF 2011: #1: FOO FIGHTERS “Wasting Light”
Wasting Light
(Roswell/RCA)
Available on CD, LP, iTunes, AmazonMP3, eMusic, and Spotify
While I’ve been inconsistent in my buying of Dave Grohl’s efforts since his first Foo Fighters album dropped in 1995, to be honest, listening to this album made me regret it immensely to the point where I turned around and filled in the considerable holes in my collection. And Pat Smear’s back in the band while Bob Mould and Krist Novaselic join in on the fun? Yes, please.
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BEST ALBUMS OF 2011: #4: SCANDAL “Baby Action”
Baby Action
(Epic/Sony Japan)
Available on CD, CD/DVD, and iTunes
The Osaka Four are still unstoppable. This album is just more proof of why that is so. And the whole SCANDAL album catalog is on US iTunes now? No more excuses, folks – pay your $9.99 apiece and see what I’ve been raving about for the past four years!
BEST ALBUMS OF 2011: #5: THE BLACK BELLES (self-titled)
(self-titled)
(Third Man)
Available on CD, DVD, and iTunes
For whatever reason, there’s a serious air of mystery – intended or not – surrounding what is apparently the current flagship act on Jack White’s Third Man label. So be it. But the attention he’s giving their collective career is justified and the album is a solid debut release. The only complaint? At 29 minutes and six seconds, you’re left wanting more.
BEST ALBUMS OF 2011: #10: MEAT PUPPETS “Lollipop”
Lollipop
(Megaforce/Red Ink)
Available on CD, LP, iTunes and AmazonMP3
It took them a couple of albums and a change of drummers, but the Kirkwood Brothers really got their footing back with this album, which while occasionally nodding towards past achievements (some of this material, as I stated in my review earlier this year, could have fit nicely on past MP’s long-players), is fresh from beginning to end and is pretty much a timeless album already. At this rate, I can only imagine how the next MP’s album will sound like.
REVIEW: MEAT PUPPETS “Lollipop”
MEAT PUPPETS
Lollipop
(Megaforce/Red Ink)
Available on CD, LP, iTunes and AmazonMP3
Rating: 
I welcomed the return of the Meat Puppets ever since Curt Kirkwood polled fans as to whether they wanted to see a reunion of the original lineup through his MySpace page. The first result of that question’s aftermath, 2007’s Rise To Your Knees, was the indie-rock equivalent of Star Trek: The Motion Picture: It was great to see/hear from some old friends again, even if the end results didn’t fully live up to the anticipation built up from years worth of passing time even before a return to action became reality.
With that seemingly odd comparison having been made, it’s not a stretch to suggest that the follow-up, 2009’s Sewn Together (which made TGML’s Top 10 Album list that year) is the Meat Puppets’s Wrath of Khan. Fully recharged after the test run that was Rise To Your Knees, Curt and Cris Kirkwood and then-drummer Ted Marcus had delivered in Sewn Together a long-playing effort that was (and is) fully worthy of standing up with the best albums (II, Up On The Sun, Mirage, Huevos, Too High To Die) of their classic back catalog.
Now, two years later, comes Lollipop; While they’ve had a major personnel change – Shandom Sahm, son of the late Sir Douglas Quintet/Texas Tornados leader Doug Sahm and also a former Meat Puppet back in the short-lived Golden Lies period, replaces Marcus behind the trap set – they not only haven’t lost a step, they’ve progressed nicely without losing an ounce of what makes the Meat Puppets who they quintessentially are, be it Curt Kirkwood’s lead lines or his and Cris’s brotherly harmonies. Much of the material could have fit nicely on Up On The Sun or Mirage, but there are also a few welcome twists and turns, like the reggae/ska rhythms that propel the verses “Shave It”, or the almost Coldplay-esque piano chords that open “Orange” only to get near-obliterated by “My Sharona” drums and some nasty fuzz bass from Cris Kirkwood. All of it works.
So, if we’re going to fool around with Meat Puppets/Star Trek comparisons, does that make Lollipop their Search for Spock? Well, put it this way: Search was a must-see flick back in the day. Lollipop is a must-hear album. Enough said.
(Hot tip: Advance order customers who ordered Lollipop from the band’s website – your humble reviewer included – initially received a high-quality digital download of the album with the songs in their original, pre-manufacture sequence [but accidentally labeled with the final sequence’s song titles] – an error long since corrected and rectified by the band’s management. To emulate the original sequence, program your CD player or iPod playlist in the following order: 2, 3, 11, 10, 9, 5, 6, 7, 8, 4, 1, 12.)
Stream: Meat Puppets “Damn Thing”
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Bass-Pounding-Lyric-Hollering-Kind-Hearted-Soft-Spoken-Man
Last night I saw Mike Watt for the third time in four solo tours of his (a bit of waffling on my part led to my not making arrangements to see him when he did his “Prac’n the Third Opera Tour 2009”). It has never been not worth the wait and the two-hour drive from Hazleton to Philadelphia to get to wherever he was booked to play. There were a few differences, though:
For one, Watt was back to playing in a standard guitar/bass/drums outfit, The Missingmen (with guitarist Tom Watson and drummer Raul Morales) – the first two times I had seen Watt play, he was working with his organ trip The Secondmen. Two, Watt was playing a different venue, the North Star Bar (the prior location for Watt’s Philly shows until then, the Khyber, has apparently stopped hosting live music – a shame). Third, the release Watt was touring behind, hyphenated-man, was the first solo album he’d released since he parted amicably with Columbia Records in 2005 (as well as being the first album to be released on his newly minted clenchedwrench label). And last but not least, I got married last June – which meant I brought my newlywed wife Tara, who taste in music is quite radically different than mine, this time around.
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ALBUM REVIEW: NEW YORK DOLLS “Dancing Backwards In High Heels”
NEW YORK DOLLS
Dancing Backwards in High Heels
(429/Savoy Label Group)
Available on CD, iTunes, and AmazonMP3
Rating: 
After listening to the advance single from this album, “Fool For Your Baby”, I had a severe amount of trepidation as the release date for the New York Dolls’ third studio album approached. “Fool For You Baby” and its Phil Spector-gone-lo-fi production really underwhelmed me, and in my track review I openly stated that I hoped that this song was the exception rather than the rule as far as the full album was concerned.
Two of the major tenants of the Dolls’ operating manual – the strong songwriting and the mining of 50’s and 60’s rock and pop influences – are still abound on Dancing Backwards in High Heels. That’s the good news. David Johansen is in the best voice he’s ever been in his entire career. That’s more good news. For the first time on a studio album since Too Much Too Soon the group throws in a Dollsified cover of an oldie, this time taking on “I Sold My Heart to the Junk Man” (an early Patti LaBelle hit), while DavidJo and Syl Sylvain reclaim “Funky But Chic” from David’s first solo album and insert it into the Dolls canon that it belonged into in the first place.
Knocking down the star rating on this album is the production. The electric guitars on the album take a pretty much permanent back seat to the rest of the instruments, including the same cheesy organ sound that dominates “Fool For Your Baby”, and the drum sound is quite wimpy, almost cardboard-box like. These are two developments that simply run counter to the usual Dolls esthetic. Blame for this should be placed squarely on new producer and bassist Jason Hill, rather on the absence of Steve Conte and Sami Yaffa who had been filling the voids left behind by Johnny Thunders and Arthur Killer Kane quite nicely.
While Dancing Backwards is a decent effort from the band, it’s not definitive Dolls and is basically a fans-only album, if that. It definitely wouldn’t be the album I would recommend to be a first New York Dolls purchase. Unfortunately, this album is what David, Syl, and company will be touring behind this summer when they open (what?) for Motley Crue and Poison (what the fuck?), which means this well-intentioned misstep will probably be the first – and last – purchase for Dolls newcomers unless someone in their immediate vicinity steers them to their earlier albums first.
TRACK REVIEW: SEETHER “Country Song”
I’m quite the fan of these guys, and my sole disappointment at the only time I’ve seen them live to date (at WMMR’s MMRBQ in 2007) stemmed from their only getting a half-hour or so to play (despite their already stellar back catalog track record at the time) while has-beens Collective Soul were getting twice that time to play. When I first heard of the song’s title (the first advance single from Holding On To Strings Better Left To Fray, out May 17th), I had fears of these guys pulling a Bon Jovi – or worse yet an Aaron Lewis (and playing to the teabagger contingent in the process as the ex-Staind singer is) until I listened to the song itself, the music of which is actually composed and arranged in a vein similar to their hit “Fake It”. Definitely something that makes me look forward to the new album. Steam below, pick out your favorite lyric at the band’s own site, then pay your 99 cents at iTunes.
Stream: Seether “Country Song”
REVIEW: MIKE WATT “hyphenated-man”
MIKE WATT
“hyphenated-man”
(Clenchedwrench)
Available on CD, LP with download code, iTunes, and AmazonMP3.com
Rating:
From his second solo album Contemplating the Engine Room onward, Watt’s solo album output to date has been centered around concept albums that he affectionately calls “punk operas”. …Engine Room’s 1997 release saw Watt mix parallel storylines about the Minutemen, his father (a career Navy man), and the novel/movie The Sand Pebbles with musical influences as varied as Creedence and Coltrane. The long-in-the-planning followup, 2004’s The Secondmen’s Middle Stand, had Watt going in a different direction musically without straying from his punk roots, performing in an aggressive organ trio to deliver a story that combined the chronology of a near-fatal illness with that of Dante’s Divine Comedy. It took me a little while to get fully into Engine Room upon its release, admittedly, but with Middle Stand this listener was able to plunge in from day one.
Hyphenated-man – which has already been out in Japan since October of last year – is also a concept album/”punk opera”, only without a fixed storyline. Instead, the album is a suite of thirty short songs, each inspired by a character in a Hieronymus Bosch painting. None of the songs are longer than two minutes – most average a minute and a half, actually – and the lyrics are somewhat abstract, slipping in bits of Japanese language here and there. What may be surprising to some listeners is that the whole thing comes off rather accessible. The idea of short songs harks back to the Minutemen, of course – Watt’s self-re-immersion into his first major band’s back catalog was spurred by his participation in the documentary We Jam Econo – but, even though Watt composed all thirty songs on one of his late Minutemen bandmate and best friend D. Boon’s Fender Telecasters, none of the songs are retro recreations of almost thirty years ago. This particular effort was helped during the basic track recording of the album by Watt not recording his vocals and bass parts until much later on – guitarist Tom Watson and drummer Raul Morales recorded their parts, mostly in tandem with few guitar overdubs, without knowing what Watt’s parts even sounded like, by design. (Coincidentally, a few of the guitar parts on the songs – “Belly-Stabbed-Man” is one example in particular – actually come off in the same style as those on the first two fIREHOSE albums.)
One of the most pleasant surprises on Hyphenated-man is Watt’s vocal work, which seems to be at its most comfortable and is definitely at its most varied here: singing sweetly on some tracks, hollering like someone less than half his age on others, reciting in a whisper here, doing multi-tracked harmonies there – whatever each song and each lyric calls for. As it should be.
Is Hyphenated-man the best thing Watt has done in his solo career yet? That’s hard to say, but only because Watt has not really done the same thing twice in the past decade and a half since fIREHOSE split, and he’s not about to start repeating himself, ever. And now that he’s got his own label deal going down, the wait between Watt projects will not be as ridiculous as it was since 1997. Hyphenated-man, is, however, a highly-recommended listen – and the tip of the iceberg as far as Watt’s future musical output is concerned.
Preview: “Hollowed-Out Man”
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