Fugazi (h2so4 1)
Repeater
[Dischord]

I used to think that "Caught Stealing" by Jane's a Dickhead was the most politically subversive rock and roll song ever, political subversion not being a specialty of rock and roll, which usually goes straight up the trouser leg without worrying about the hands and feet, if you know what I mean. Certainly not the best song that honor still goes to "Snoopy and the Red Baron" by the Four Chamber Pots or whatever they were but the most politically subversive, because it's catchy, easy to remember without being sloganeering or preachy, and it completely challenges the most basic assumption of modern society: private property. But when Ian, halfway through the song "Merchandise" on this disc, starts chanting "You are not what you own", I had to revise my opinion. That simple statement, combined with the climactic power of the music, which is fun, like Jane, but at the same time grabs you by your shirt front in a way that those drug-soddened buffoons couldn't if you spilled a whole keg on their oh-so-"classic" girlfriend, that statement, I say, not only challenges your attitudes toward other people's private property, but also toward your own, in other words the whole tamale, sliced open for all to see and understand with one deft slash of a guitar pick, while managing to be elegant to boot. Fugazi elegant? Yeah fuck you, buddy, punk rock had and still has the gleaming silver key to the only elegance that ever mattered, and you might as well enjoy it before it goes off in your face, rather than after.

—Gridley Minima

Last updated 14-Apr-2007