Still [probably] got straight edge

I don't even think about speed / That's something I just don't need / I've got the straight edge -- Minor Threat

24 years later, it remains unclear whether Ian MacKaye himself, founder of probably the most boring youth movement ever, advocated stabbing drunks with their own beer bottles. The music he made then was certainly antagonistic towards substance abusers, but not without a mitigating undercurrent of pacifism.

Regardless MacKaye's convictions, acolytes of his lifestyle, which promoted health and avoided [sex, drug, tobacco, alcohol] dependence, ended up making life a whole lot less healthy for anyone on the heel end of a pair of hand-me-down Doc Martens. It remains unclear, further, if straight edge's enduring legacy will be built upon the idealism of its founder or the entropic hoodlumdom that followed.

Though its legacy will probably never die [unless killed, hacked off at the neck, mercifully . . . God willing] Minor Threat was only around long enough to release one full length album. I have the entire discography in my car, on one CD. Like 40 songs in 12 minutes. So, by the time the straight edge tendency toward ass-kicking gained national attention, the nineties were half over and MacKaye was eight years into a new, less angry, more determined period of music creation/social action.

Rock scholars, Sit-in organizers and thirty-something fanboys dub this turbulent age of driving chords, churning bass and political awareness the Fugazi epoch [1987 to forever]. Michael Azzerad, in his book Our Band Could Be Your Life, credits Fugazi, along with Mission of Burma, Sonic Youth, et al., with fostering the DIY spirit, pioneering the alternative sound, and, essentially, creating the scene that allowed younger acts like Nirvana their meteoric rise.

And those things came and went. MTV invented grunge, bands sold out [bought in], people got rich and complacent, or rich and unhappy, or just unhappy, complacent. Some lost their creative edge, their focus, and made still more money on ever less inspired projects. Others put steel cylinders in their mouths and, with a toe and some ingenuity, swallowed a pound of double ought buckshot.

Through all the hype and carnage remained Fugazi and Ian MacKaye, faithful to the indie label he started because he hated record labels. Long after their peers had stopped, Fugazi put out album after album and remained relevant not just lyrically, or as activists, but sonically as well.

Then people started having babies.

It's now three years and six months since Fugazi last released new material. Baby-making has probably given way to baby-rearing. Their drummer, I imagine, now jokes, "I've got this really great side project in the works. It's called a family." Then high-fives. Mercifully, whatever fornicating he's been into, MacKaye has found his way back into the studio.

Minus Fugazi. Plus some girl.

An equation for intrigue, to be sure.

He and she [Amy Farina] are The Evens, and their sound isn't so different from latter-day Fugazi's stripped down post-hardcore. They're just stripped the rest of the way down, a little less experimental, a little more acoustic. MacKaye might have taken some voice lessons, but he still has a narrow vocal range. Until Farina comes in, The Evens is essentially Fugazi Unplugged, but once she does, things start to happen. Such as one's toes tapping, one's finger wagging in the air. One doing the Lindy-hop.

Or so I hear.

The interplay of Amy Farina's throaty, expressive voice and MacKaye's unmistakable yowl makes for good music. She has range, and her talents allow something a MacKaye project has never had. Melody.

He's long since perfected the one-chord-song, strummed every three or four seconds, over a drum beat, flirting with the listener--like Hemingway--suggesting what it might sound like if he wasn't so busy deconstructing everything. Tearing it all down.

Now, from the pieces, he and Farina build catchy pop melodies on lyrics that still yield the rewards of a Fugazi album, but which are more immediately accessible. All with their voices. Frankly, the one song that doesn't feature Farina prominently on vocals, Sara Lee, is too damned boring to listen to.

And that's not all! Her voice isn't even the best part. Girl drummers are so hot right now, and, like Janet Weiss [Quasi, Sleater-Kinney] and Ezra Holbrook [say Meg White and I'll punch you in the mouth], Farina plays with virtuosity.

Perhaps most strange--maybe it's that girl again--MacKaye's lyrics have broadened and softened, turned to themes of love and loss. What's that, puppet regimes? No, love. The importance of protective tariffs for emerging nations? Pay attention, I said--Police brutality? Ineffectual bureaucrats? Well, of course. But also: love. Weird. I know.

Frankly, after four years without Fugazi, I'd take a Roc-a-fella tribute to Minor Threat if I could get it. The Evens, though, are almost too much, a fully enfleshed premise that builds on motifs imported from previous projects to explore new avenues of musicianship and lyricism. All the while being, you know, easy on the ears.