This is my attempt at a regular feature that is more, well, regular.

Every month this year (assuming no catastrophic changes in my life), I’m going to dedicate myself to getting into a new band.  By ‘new band’, what I really mean is an old band who I’ve known of for awhile but have for one reason or another never checked out.  Maybe they were a genre I wasn’t into, maybe they were the favorite band of someone I didn’t like, maybe I was just lazy.  Whatever reason, I’m going to spend the month trying to get into them.

If at the end of the month, I find myself enjoying the music, I’ll buy an album.  And if not, I’ll save my money for something else.

My first band for the year 2012 is:

Fugazi

From the wiki page:

Fugazi is an Americanpost-hardcore band that formed in Washington, D.C. in 1987. The band’s continual members are guitarists and vocalists Ian MacKaye and Guy Picciotto, bassist Joe Lally and drummer Brendan Canty.

Fugazi are noted for their DIY ethical stance, manner of business practice and contempt towards the music industry.

Fugazi has performed numerous worldwide tours, produced six studio albums, a film and a comprehensive live series, gaining the band critical acclaim and success around the world.Fugazi has been on indefinite hiatus since 2003.

My personal history with Fugazi:

Very little.  I’ve known the band name longer than I’ve known anything about them.  I once briefly dated a girl who worshiped Ian MacKaye, and as a teenager I listened to punk music, but of the pop/Christian variety.  I never exposed myself to the hardcore punk/post-hardcore bands, specifically those from the D.C. scene that really came to prominence in the 80s. 

My punk credentials always felt pretty weak since my favorite band of the genre was MxPx.  Once I stopped listening to them and most of the other bands of that ilk, I tended to gravitate towards the more technically skilled bands (e.g. Radiohead) or the more melodic, emotional singer/songwriters (e.g. Ryan Adams and Rufus Wainwright).  I lost interest in ‘rock’ music in general.

But, punk/post-hardcore music as a style and an ethos still appeals to me, and so I find myself drawn to bands I overlooked as a teen.

I’ve had three Fugazi mp3s sitting on a USB drive, thanks to my brother, that I haven’t gotten around to yet.  I’m unearthing them now to begin my exploration of the band with the following songs: “Suggestion,” “Bad Mouth” and “Waiting Room.”  I’ll have to track down more songs via the internet, through whatever options are available to me.

If any Fugazi fans stumble across this page, I’d welcome suggestions on ‘essential’ tracks or albums.  Otherwise, I’ll spend January exploring their music in any way I can, and come the 31st, I’ll either have a new album in my library or I’ll decide I wasn’t really missing anything all these years.

Feel free to explore with me, or rediscover them if you’ve always been a fan.  And if you have suggestions for future bands I should feature, please mention them in the comments.