Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #66038 in DVD
• Released on: 2001-11-13
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Colour, Dolby, DVD-Video, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 75 minutes

Customer Reviews

'You need an Instrument'
I was i little worried when I bought this a few years ago as I had been a dedicated Fugazi fan for sometime (and Minor Threat and Rites of Spring)i thought i would be doomed to be dissapointed, my main worry was that with such a lengthly and intimate documenatary would reveal that the band would be self-important aggrogant fools, but was quite the contray.

Those of you who are not familiar with Fugazi I would advise against buying this DVD and starting with one of their array of excellent albums (13 Songs, Repeater,The Arguement in particular).

There are no tales of Led Zeppelin style groupies and excess, here is a band made up of 4 highly skilled, hard working, passionate, and fiercely independent musicians who are followed implicitly for ten years by friend and filmmaker Jem Cohen. 'Instrument'doesn't employ the typical live footage/interview format, we have interviews with fans at ticket lines (not all are complementary to the band) montages soundtracked by previously unrealesed material by the band which is available on 'Instrument Soundtrack' we see intimate footage of the band practicing at Ian's grandparents house, we have the band staying in cramped, damp motel rooms,the footage of the 'Red Medicine' recording sessions is particularly interesting. What is most striking about the film is the humbling feeling the audience has when we see the lengths the band go to support the various causes they support, we see them playing benefit shows outside the White House in protest against the 1991 Gulf war, we see them supporting the Washington Free clinic and even them playing a show at a correctional facility, they go about their business in a completly unpretetious manner (they even do an interview for student's media studies project!!!)puts self-important rockstars such as Bono or Geldof to shame.

We have some visually delicious vingettes expertly shot and edited by Cohen, but the real winner is the band and their music, some electric live perfomances, interviews that are never dull, both light hearted and fiercly opinionated (yes the band have a sense of humour!). Those like me who have been moved massively by Fugazi's music and ethics this is a film you can not afford to miss.

DVD extras include 3 live perfomances ('Waiting Room', 'Turnover' and 'Long Division')and two short films by Jem Cohen.

Definitly not a Sieve fisted find
If you haven't heard FUGAZI, you will kick yourself for not having heard them sooner. This band is so talented, it ought to be a crime !!
The DVD gives alot of live (and bootleg)footage, sporadically interspersed with rare interviews of the band and its fanbase. For people like myself it opened up a small window of insight into the mystery that is FUGAZI.
The DVD is more a visual, rather than verbal documentary of FUGAZI, spanning the bands inception from '87 to about'98. True FUGAZI fans will not be disappointed.

An Instrument To Take A Measurement
Obviously one of the most amazing and diverse bands of all time. A band who fused hardcore, punk, jazz and dub to create something unbendingly beautiful and at the same time brutal. The DVD concentrates on the band up until the recording of Red Medicine. There's footage of Fugazi from their inception right through snuff tv and onto playing before thousands of people in venues throughout the world (check out Ian's tourlist). Beautifully shot by Jem Cohen the DVD comes with the short film "Glueman". In a word essential.

Dave