Friday's episode of Portlandia on IFC had no shortage of indie-rock cameos: Modest Mouse's Isaac Brock attempted to donate some bad records to an elite preschool (Talk Talk, Temple of the Dog); Annie Clark, aka St. Vincent, did a runway walk in a proposed new cyperpunk uniform for the Portland Police Department.

The comedic duo of Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen also hit one of my favorite hipster-for-life archetypes: the itinerant ex-D.C. punk. (Sadly, the clip's not online.) "Do you know Ian, who runs the label?" says Armisen's character to Brownstein's. "He's got that other band now, but for a while he had those other two huge bands?"

Brownstein: "Yeah, so do you know the other Ian, he was in Nation of Ulysses..."

"Yes, do you know Dante?"

"Yes."

"He had the restaurant for a while."

"And you know Zach?"

"Yes."

"Moved to New York?"

"Which Zack are you talking about?"

"Barocas."

"Oh, I was talking about Zak Sally."

"I know Zak very well."

"I know Zak too, we were very close."

And so on. (No Mary, though.)

Nicely played. But the joke's a tad familiar, no?

On Your Airwaves: Tune into Kojo Nnamdi's show today to hear Ian Mackaye discuss the Great Fugazi Online Archive. And if you're in front of a television this morning, check out Hairspray cast members on Fox.

Goin' Big: The organizers of D.C.'s Chinese New Year parade have big dreams, reports Monica Hesse.

Life in the Bookhouse: WaPo's Dan Zak hangs out in the Arlington Bookhouse, run by an 80-year-old and a 91-year-old, and closing in the next year or two.

Local Label Roundup!: In case you missed it, Fader magazine's December/January issue features a brief piece on D.C./Maryland-based electronic music label Future Times, along with a few other quality independent electronic labels you should get into. And yesterday, Windian Records gave us a glimpse into its release schedule for 2012.

The article has since flown about social media, causing many a sad emoticon and, apparently, excessive vomiting. The jab is all the more painful because there is some truth to it–D.C. is damn expensive, and we don't have as many entrepreneurial opportunities or as much cultural cred as, say, New York. That's not exactly shocking news, since New York is the biggest city in the country, with more than 10 times the residents D.C. has. But it's still frustrating to hear so much haterade tossed at your town when all kinds of artists and musicians are busting ass to make some really cool stuff around here. Speaking as a proud local resident, musician, and arts journalist, I think Yglesias—while he's not totally off base—sold our fair city short.

First, there are bizarre references to the murder rate, which is both irrelevant and inconsistent; are cities with a lower murder rate "cooler?" If so, how does he square that with his argument that D.C. was most culturally important in the '80s, when the murder rate was significantly higher than today? And besides, does anyone think places he mentioned like Cincinnati or Kansas City are significantly cooler than D.C.?

But what really hit home for me was this line: “...if you're a semi-employed artist or guitar player it's much more expensive than Philadelphia or Baltimore and still smaller and less interesting than New York City, which has less than one-third our murder rate.” Again, I’m not sure how the murder rate is germane, but the cost-benefit ratio to the creative class is a pretty big deal. Speaking as a “semi-employed guitarist,” I have to admit he’s partially correct. If you’re in a rock band and simply need a hub from which to tour, both Baltimore and Philadelphia are generally more affordable than the District. They have cheaper rent, more artist studios, and more practice spaces.

But if you’re looking for a city with a decent grant system, a slew of great venues, a consistent dedication to making the arts accessible, and a strong sense of community, I would argue D.C. easily tops those two.

We have a gloriously free art culture here. Look at events from the Smithsonian hosting music & art shows with folks like John Davis and Kennedy Center's Millennium Stage, to summer concerts series like Fort Reno, Fort Dupont, and the National Gallery’s Jazz in the Garden. There are the regular pay-what-you-can nights at theaters like Woolly Mammoth, the cheap or free boundary-pushing exhibits at Artisphere, and access to world-class art museums that don’t cost a dime. Those "large sums of money" that Yglesias says are handy for going out to dinner in D.C.? In New York, you'd be dropping them to visit the MOMA, instead.

D.C.'s cultural strength comes precisely because the city isn't in the business of manufacturing coolness. Unlike New York or L.A., we aren't drowning in ladder climbers and mercenaries. It's generally assumed you have to work another job as a musician/artist/actor in D.C., and there’s a certain spirit of collaboration that’s not fraught with opportunism. You can go to Fort Reno and fraternize with hardcore veterans like Ian MacKaye (and sometimes Henry Rollins) and expect a relaxed, supportive atmosphere. While there are musicians for hire in D.C., it’s equally common for people in the music scene to simply collaborate for art’s sake. There may not be the same networking opportunities in D.C., but as a result, there’s not the kind of cut-throat competition and careerism.

The DIY, punk rock spirit in D.C. still supports bands without managers, fosters affordable shows, and encourages community activism. Is there a New York equivalent to Positive Force? Since 1984, the activist collective has and continues to host benefit shows for local charities, featuring big-name acts like Ted Leo and Titus Andronicus alongside myriad locals. Are there many prominent all-ages venues in New York? 9:30 Club is consistently ranked among the best clubs in the nation and doesn’t require patrons to be of drinking age (nor do the Black Cat or the Rock and Roll Hotel).

So sure, if you’re a penniless artist or musician looking for endless dirt-cheap housing options in non-gentrified areas, Philadelphia or Baltimore is probably a better bet. If you’re willing to hunt for an affordable spot (there are still a few left), though, D.C. has a slew of cultural benefits, a grassroots music community, very little pretense, and a long history of creative success.

Of course, we also have more than our fair share of wonks writing contrarian pieces for the Internet. But hey, no city's perfect.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

For my feature this week on Fugazi's new online archive of live shows, I discussed some of the subtle changes you can hear in live version of the song "Repeater." Since then, I spoke to some of the people involved with the song about its inception and development. According to MacKaye, it all started with drugs. During the late '80s in D.C., “Crack came in, and then guns—there was a serious bloodletting, a big spike in gun homicides,” says MacKaye. “It was such a repetition. In the papers, they started to take a count. People would become numbers....it was a repeating situation.” The frustration spawned the searing song that would become a hallmark of the band’s live show. Lyrically, MacKaye takes on the persona of a dealer. Chad Clark, who worked on the 2005 remaster of the album of the same name, notes, “People love this line, ‘You say I need a job. I’ve got my own business. You know what I do? None of your fucking business.’ It’s actually an authentic reading of that character—that’s exactly what he would say. The capturing of that voice is such a profound accomplishment.”

LISTEN: "Repeater," Frederick, MD, Weinberg Center, 2/16/90

The song goes on to address the detached response of someone reading the papers. “With every death, there are people who had lives,” says MacKaye. “There are people around them being forever changed, and the tendency we have as a culture to stand back and blur our eyes, I saw that being exercised in a really intense way in our city.”

While the song is no doubt a heavy post-punk anthem, Clark notes that the musical elements were actually influenced by the hip-hop coming out at the time. “The musical style of the song was inspired by Public Enemy and the Bomb Squad,” he says. ”All those squalling bursts of guitar are kind of impressionistic versions of samples.“

LISTEN: "Repeater," Copenhagen, DK, Umdomhuset, 7/4/92

Guitarist Guy Picciotto confirms the band was seriously interested in what Chuck D. and his crew were doing. “‘Rebel Without a Pause’ would be specifically one song that we all looked to,” says Picciotto. “The main ascending, whistle-y sample on that one was so nuts. It’s hard to remember now how hardcore that song sounded when it came out, but it really was shocking and so bad ass.”

Imitating those climbing bursts of noise, Picciotto developed an unusual technique. “It’s a sound that came out of playing a Rickenbacker, which has a really long gap between the back of the bridge and the thing that holds the strings at the base of the guitar,” he explains. “If you play back there instead of over the pick ups like a normal human being and find the right notes on the fretboard, some weird dissonant harmonics shoot out.” Of course, it’s not all dissonance. “There’s this really simple clean arpeggio that’s so simple at the heart of the chorus. It’s so light, it’s like a Smiths song,” says Clark.

That contrasting chaos and melodic simplicity reinforce the lyrical themes of gun violence and detachment butting against real human loss of life. It’s a duality that makes for a powerhouse of a tune. “I was trying to write the D.C. anthem,” says MacKaye.

LISTEN: "Repeater," Mechanicsburg, PA, Decibels, 8/19/93

It’s hard to pinpoint the very first live performance of the song. The earliest recording of the song in the archive appears in February of 1990, but the song likely debuted before that. Searching his memory, MacKaye recalls, "Greed magazine—Kurt Sayenga used to edit it and he did graphics on some of the early records we did—he hosted a ‘Greed Night.’ I have a recollection of us playing the entire Repeater album instrumentally. While I kept rather copious notes of the tour dates, I just didn’t write some stuff down. I don’t know when it was, and it was unannounced so there are no fliers."

From that night the track went on to become a major crowd favorite, a definite show highlight for many audience members. Clark says, “All Fugazi songs to some extent sound like alarms—they have a charge, which is why they’re famous and why we love them—but here, it’s got this instant reset button effect on the show. I just remember it as such a blast of cold water and frantic energy.”

LISTEN: "Repeater," Dayton, OH, Dayton Fest/Brookwood Island, 8/21/93

Every night wasn’t as intense, because so much depended on the moment. The makeup of the crowd, the feel of the room, the personal situations of the band members all contributed to the particular execution of the song each night. "Sometimes it would flatten out and feel like we weren’t playing it correctly,” says MacKaye. “And then it would snap back.” Picciotto’s guitar sound was heavily dependent on the physical interactions between his guitar and his amp, so the space could seriously affect the song. “Sometimes it would depend on the room–it depends on feedback, and rooms have different acoustic properties. Some have soundproofing, so when we played that song, you'd get a skeletal feeling, like you can’t find the heart of the song,” says MacKaye.

There are moments throughout the archive, where the song indeed feels like it pulls back, like the guitars aren’t quite as screeching and Brendan Canty doesn’t hit his crash cymbals with as much ferocity, but often in those moments, the strength of the actual songwriting shows through. Joe Lally’s bassline stays remarkably consistent from show to show, and the locked-tight, Bomb Squad-enamored rhythm section comes to the forefront.

LISTEN: "Repeater," Adelaide, AU, Adelaide University, 11/12/96

As the band progressed over its 15 years, the meaning and vibe of the song would mutate. “Obviously as we got farther away from those particular years, that specific [crack epidemic] situation wasn’t on my mind as much,” says MacKaye. “But I actually think it’s a condition that’s a permanent condition for society. If you look at our military situation, there’s a constant count of American dead.” When situations changed for the band, the song would transform bit-by-bit. "If I’m playing that song to someone in Washington, D.C., in 1990, it’s probably different than in Brazil in 1994," says MacKaye. In this 1999 performance in Milan, the guitars scream less and chug more while Canty focuses on more tom work than usual.

LISTEN: "Repeater," Milan, IT, Leon Cavallo, 10/2/99

At the end of their live career, Fugazi were still at the top of their game. With a deep and complex catalog at their disposal, they still managed to bring nuance and dynamics to their older work. This 2002 performance of “Repeater” in Leeds, U.K., showcases the kind of subtle strangeness that the band made their name on without losing the urgency of the song's core.

LISTEN: "Repeater," Leeds, UK, Metropolitan University, 10/31/02

"For me to really lean into my music, I have to feel it, I have to believe it," says MacKaye. "It’s just my nature to think about my world, the city I’m living in, and write about it."

Photo by Bert Queiroz

In 2009, a 45-minute MP3 of audio from Fugazi concerts cropped up on punk and indie-rock blogs. But it wasn’t a musical recording: Instead, James Burns, the fan behind the file, had cobbled together choice clips of outrageous stage banter. The collage not only affirmed the band’s reputation for hardline punk diatribes (“Would the gentleman in the middle, would you please stop being so unpleasant to the other people around you?” admonishes singer-guitarist Ian MacKaye). It re-affirmed it to a ludicrous, almost comical extent, again (“I’m 40 years old and yet I still have to treat 27-year-olds like little fucking children”) and again (“What else can I do for you, you little MTV-generation piece of shit?”) and again (“No, we are not playing Lollapalooza”). The recording captures a slightly weirder Fugazi, too: In one snippet, co-frontman Guy Picciotto asks the crowd if it read a recent Scientific American article about the mating habits of bonobo apes.

The MP3 went viral. “People sent it around and I remember listening and being like, ‘This is bullshit,’” says Picciotto. “This is nowhere even close to as fucked up as the stuff we have.”

Tomorrow, Dischord Records is unveiling the Fugazi Live Series, a website where fans can download 130 of the D.C. post-hardcore band’s shows for a suggested price of $5 each. The site will eventually contain more than 800 concerts taped by the band, and perhaps more recorded by audience members. Unlike most commercial live albums, these recordings vary widely in audio quality, and have a gratifyingly warts-and-all wholeness to them. “If people want to get into it, they could make a much much better [compilation of banter],” Picciotto says.

There’s plenty of Fugazi’s punk-rock asceticism on offer here. But more surprising are the archives’ aesthetic treasures. Fugazi is frequently remembered for its business ethics, its lifestyle, and its fury, but the website offers a wealth of subtle, surprisingly detailed instances of musicianship—the kind that might lead particularly diehard fans to compare, say, how “Argument” sounded in Milan on Oct. 2, 1999 to how it sounded in Leeds, England, on Oct. 31, 2002. (Different!)

Fugazi, it seems, is finally having its jam-band moment.

LISTEN: Fugazi plays "Argument" in Leeds, UK, 2002.

–

Tons of bands sell live concert recordings. Pearl Jam did just that throughout the 2000s. But jam bands are the true kings of the concert-recording market—thanks in large part to their fans, who have been swapping unauthorized (but implicitly approved) bootlegs since Grateful Dead pioneered the genre and ethos in the ’60s. “Certainly, the Dead and the jam bands and the bands that do that, the idea that the community is as important as the band is something that we definitely feel sympathetic to,” says Picciotto.

You can find plenty of fan-made show recordings at sites like Wolfgang’s Vault and Archive.org, and in more obscure online communities. Jam bands like Phish and Widespread Panic have set up their own live-show shops, with varying degrees of thoroughness. (Picciotto also sees a more local connection: P.A. tapes, the live recordings made and sold by go-go bands. “That’s actually music that we do like and music that we were much more involved in, in terms of being fans and in terms of finding tapes,” he says.)

What sets the Fugazi Live Series apart from most online recording archives—aside from its lack of guitar solos—is how utile and uncluttered it is. Although it’s centered around a list of every show Fugazi played, the site has an uncomplicated design and is searchable by song, date, and location. It also includes show photographs, set lists, ratings of audio quality, and even estimates of crowd size.

The archive’s origins go all the way back to 1987, the year Fugazi started. “In the beginning...we didn’t have any records and hadn’t done any recording yet, so it was just a way to hear songs presented in their full form,” says MacKaye. “When Joe [Picuri, the band’s original soundman] would set up a P.A. to mix a show, he set up a tape deck and just made it a habit.”

Photo by Bert Queiroz

In addition to making a cassette recording from the soundboard, Picuri would also set up two room mics. “Because it happened every night, it was never something we ever reflected on,” says Picciotto. “The tapes, we would just bring them home, annotate them a little bit, and put them in the closet.” The recordings piled up inside Dischord House, the label’s home in Arlington. At one point, the band considered making copies for fans who mailed in blank cassette tapes, but decided it would be too much work. After Fugazi went on hiatus in 2003, Dischord began selling CD recordings of about 30 of the concerts. “We thought, maybe if the Internet ever becomes something, we’ll try to get everything up there,” says Picciotto.

LISTEN: Fugazi plays "Waiting Room" at their first show, in 1987.

The pricing is in line with Fugazi’s ethics: The band typically charged $5 per show, and is asking for the same here. Most other artist-hosted archives sell shows for $10 to $15 a pop. Fugazi is also allowing fans to pay more or less for each recording—anywhere from $1 to $100—provided they explain why. If you go cheap, you’ll have to tell MacKaye why you think the show is only worth a buck—a clever psychological tweaking of the pay-what-you-want model popularized by Radiohead in 2007 with the album In Rainbows.

For more serious fans, there’s also a $500 All Access pass, which delivers every show currently on the site plus anything that gets uploaded in the future. “I don’t think we would’ve had the balls to offer it for $500, except that with the CD series there was a steady drumbeat of people that wanted all of them,” says Alec Bourgeois, Dischord’s publicist and Web designer.

Dischord has to recoup the tens of thousands of dollars it spent on the archive, but charging for shows is also philosophical: Fugazi put in the work, so it ought to be compensated. “There were all these arguments about digital music years ago, but Dischord didn’t get killed by that,” says Bourgeois. “People wanted to steal Metallica records, but they wanted to buy Fugazi records. Everyone felt respected by Fugazi. No one’s ever heard Fugazi complaining about not making enough money.”

–

Unedited live shows aren’t glamorous. There are no production tricks to hide behind, but for the band, that’s a plus. “Wrecking the mystery was kind of the point for us,” says Picciotto. He says the band made several high-end live recordings at one point, but wasn’t happy with them.

What’s appealing about the Fugazi Live Series is not extended improv sections or complete reinventions of recorded material; Fugazi is not a jam band. Conversely, the band doesn’t stick to tight album re-creations or repeat the same sets night after night; Fugazi isn’t a pop group, either. It’s the organic, subtly mutating moments in each song that make the archive worthwhile.

You could spend a fair amount of money chasing down the life of your favorite Fugazi tune. Take the live mainstay “Repeater”: It always clocks in around three minutes, but the band uses a whole variety of techniques to achieve the squealing burst of dissonance and feedback that kicks off the crowd favorite. At a 1990 Frederick, Md. show, MacKaye gives a short spiel about gun violence and says the name of the track. Then, the guitars begin a thin, scraping ascent up the fretboard and remain in ultra-high range for the verse. At a 1993 festival in Dayton, Ohio, an improvised, low-register drone builds until MacKaye screams the song’s titular refrain, which is followed by a heavy, particularly frightening onslaught of aggression. At one of Fugazi’s last European shows—Leeds in 2002—MacKaye’s howl leads into a noticeably more dynamic, more controlled barrage of shrill guitar squalls and dives.

LISTEN: Fugazi plays "Repeater" in Dayton, OH, 1993.

The site’s appeal is as much about the performances as each particular experience. The band’s very first show, which is available for download, was a Positive Force benefit pegged to a local compilation CD. That’s a part of the Fugazi iconography, too: The band’s dedication to benefit shows, its preaching of nonviolence to occasionally violent crowds, and the unusual social conflicts that sometimes arose at its concerts are all a part of the story. The recordings each give a sense of that vibe—a crowd of prisoners in Virginia is very different from a crowd of skinheads in Pennsylvania, which is very different from a hometown crowd at Fort Reno.

What you really notice listening to these recordings are the strange, small spaces Fugazi built into the structure of its songs. From night to night, what the band chooses to do inside them has a lot to do with how the members are feeling, and how the crowd is acting, and what brought everyone together. And Fugazi’s brief improvisational changes are always of a piece with the mood of the show.

Of course, there are plenty of exciting extra-musical moments, as anyone who downloaded that 45-minute MP3 knows. Listen to any show in the archive and there’s a solid chance you’ll hear MacKaye lecture a rowdy showgoer on how to treat his neighbor. It goes deeper, though: drunk guest vocals from a large Danish man, the band politely declining to cover Bob Marley at a youth correctional center, angry rants about George W. Bush’s foreign policy.

Plenty of bands have clever stage banter, but few have such direct interactions with their fans. There’s a sermon-like quality to MacKaye’s words: He preaches anti-authoritarianism with the fire of a big-tent revivalist, and if his audience isn’t heckling him, they’re cheering in awe. MacKaye’s ethical-punk homilies sound both absurd and necessary.

But the Fugazi Live Series is also notable for what it doesn’t capture. During the archives’ uploading process, the band’s unofficial fifth member and the mastering engineer for the series, Jerry Busher, brought one tape to MacKaye’s attention.

“We did a show in Mechanicsburg, Pa., at a place called Decibel’s, and I remember this, security was beating up the crowd,” MacKaye says. He jumped off the stage, and soon found himself outside the venue facing a wall while a policeman yelled at him. “For $5, and this is one of the weird side aspects of low ticket prices, everyone is welcome. They’re not gonna spend $25 to beat up someone, but for $5 [they will]. At that time, that was something that was in place. Security responded somewhat in kind. They were really jacked up. When we booked shows, there was some emphasis put in—we expected all venues to recognize human rights; they were not to attack our guests. Conversely, we had to remind our guests not to attack security. Occasionally, you run into a situation where it’s just young men fucking with each other. You cannot have security officers beating up fans, you just can’t. So, I confronted them about it, but you don’t hear any of that. All you hear is me leave the stage.”

LISTEN: Fugazi addresses the venue and crowd in Mechanicsburg, PA, 1993.

In news that should make Phish jealous, The New York Times reported yesterday the long-brewing Fugazi live archive will finally on launch on Dec. 1. The site boasts a complete list of all 1,100-plus shows the band played, along with audio for 130 of them. That number should steadily climb as Dischord Records continues to upload the 800-plus board tapes the band compiled over the years. Each show is available for a suggested $5, but in the true spirit of the Internet, the site also offers a pay-what-you-want system, with a minimum cost of $1. For the serious fanatic, there's a $500 all-access membership that will get you a download of every future addition to the site.

Dischord employees are still scanning and uploading a seemingly endless supply of posters and photos to post alongside each show, providing an impressively exhaustive document of the band's career. The site is soliciting material from fans as well, in hopes of eventually closing all the gaps in content. The band provides ratings of audio quality of the shows, and an integrated commenting system should help fans guide each other toward the best recordings and offer them a chance to document their own recollections.

It's possible all of this has to do with MacKaye's need for more closet space—he's a well-known archivist of things related to his bands and his label. Nevertheless, the site is sure to stand as one of the largest digital repositories of a single band's music. I'll have more thoughts on this in a feature in Thursday's paper.

The Evens' "2 Songs" 7-inch is out today on Dischord.

I reported last week that the Occupy D.C. encampment seems to have become something of a DIY space. It turns out it's a pretty good DIY space. Local acts Priests, Lenorable, and The Cornel West Theory some other groups gathered for a generator-powered show in McPherson Square, and attracted a pretty solid crowd (that included two notable local punk rockers named Ian). During the concert, Occupiers began mobilizing to assist protesters gathering inside the shuttered Franklin School, which until 2008 housed a homeless shelter. But as far as I could tell, folks who'd come out for the music (predictably) stuck around to enjoy more music.

Above is some video I shot during Priests' set of anarcho-kiddie punk. (For some reason, those kids in the video spent the entire set hovering about a foot from the music. Totally punk rock.)

Hey, and Lenorable recorded a song inspired by the Occupy movement this week. Seeing as Ian MacKaye was watching from the sidelines, however, they didn't cover Fugazi's "Merchandise" as planned.

Update, 2:30 p.m. There's now a group called Occupy Musicians, which says it's facilitating performances at Occupy sites around the country. A list of signees includes D.C. names Ian MacKaye, Guy Picciotto, Blue Sausage Infant, Lenorable, and Jeff Surak.

The Uprightest Citizen of All: Ian MacKaye was in New York Saturday at the opening of UCBeast—the new East Village outpost of comedy troupe Upright Citizens Brigade—where he offered monologues based on suggestions from the crowd; the comedians then improvised sketches based on whatever MacKaye said. Stories included: the time that skinheads overtook the stage when he was playing at the Chicago club Medusa's; and the time MacKaye was asked to procure "dancers" for Fear's riotous 1981 appearance on Saturday Night Live. [Village Voice, New York Times]

A Blockbuster of Errors: Ron Charles pens a sweet essay on the scholastic anxiety over Anonymous, the Roland Emmerich film that posits that William Shakespeare's plays were in fact penned by Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford, because no one has offered proof that this isn't true. Charles even visits the Folger Shakespeare Library's director Michael Whitmore. "'As a Shakespeare scholar,' he tells me, 'I do not lie awake at night worried about who really wrote these plays.' No, of course not. Not with Bigfoot on the loose and the world about to end Nov. 11."

Today on Arts Desk: Photo reviews! Halloween songs!

Y'know, it's been a pleasantly active year for Dischord: a Joe Lally co-release, a new Edie Sedgwick album, unreleased Faith and Void material, the forthcoming Office of Future Plans, the usual battery of reissues, and now this, a single from what's become the label's flagship act. Plus, rumor has it the Fugazi live archive isn't too far off from the roll-out stage. I guess right now is a pretty good time to be a punk.

Here are The Evens at Fort Reno this summer: