Instrument

I first heard of the band Fugazi in 1993 from my much cooler college housemate Joanna, who had the best taste in everything. The band's music, sort of an alt-hardcore, was on frequent dorm rotation, or on the cassette player at the art studio where Joanna painted while I watched and did non-art homework. The documentary film "Instrument" reminded me of how cool a band Fugazi was - they are the real deal, anti-commercial, pro-human, anti-conservative, pro-rights. It is rare to see a band (or anyone, I guess) that both espouses these values and lives by them. That doesn't mean, as a band member points out in the doc, that they're all living together in an unheated shack living on rice. People loved them and flocked to their concerts and bought their music. There are a lot of fun things about "Instrument." If you like their music, there are enough scenes of them just playing that it's almost a concert film. It has a very '90s indie feel - a lot of grainy black and white, super 8 and 16mm footage. I may have loved their completely sincere interview with an 8th grader on a public access show the most. Filmmaker Jem Cohen seemed to be familiar enough with the band that it feels very real and close, never glossy or at a sharp remove. Even if you aren't familiar with the band, I think it would be engaging and you'd probably come away liking and respecting them even if the music isn't your jam. This isn't at all a hagiography - it's real and they are just cool.

To me, this look is how a lot of the cool rock band related movies looked. Anyway, I had one on VHS on Jane's Addiction that had a similar look. Memorably in that one, guitarist Dave Navarro takes his pet eel out of a tank, whacks it on a table and returns it to the tank. Fugazi would never!

Fugazi did a lot of protests and benefits.