News has been fairly quiet from the Ian MacKaye/Dischord/Fugazi camp ever since last summer’s exciting update from Guy Picciotto in which he revealed the legendary Washington D.C. punk band’s plan to release “almost every show [they] ever played” in a digital format via a forthcoming website. Now, 9 months later and 9 years since their indefinite hiatus began, MacKaye has offered a few updates in a rare interview with Approaching Oblivion.
MacKaye revealed that they’ve completed converting “a database of 1000’s of live recordings” on various DAT and cassette tapes to digital files, but are still mastering and indexing individual songs from the archive. “We’re hoping it will be up in the near future. The idea at the moment is to start it with 100 shows. Then put 20 more on every month or something.” As for a possible Fugazi reunion, MacKaye said he remains in close touch with all band members, but, despite lucrative offers to reform, an end to the almost decade-long hiatus isn’t yet in the works:
It is entirely possible that we will play again and it’s also possible that we won’t. We have the desire to play, but there’s a geographical issue. Joe currently lives in Rome and that makes it hard to practice. There’s also a time issue. Everyone is super busy. You’ve got to remember that when Fugazi was actually working we usually practiced 5 days a week from 4-6 hours a day.
[W]e’ve been offered an insane amount of money to play reunions, but it’s not going to be money that brings us back together, we would only play music together if we wanted to play music together and the time allowed it.
For more on Dischord Records’ “major transition at the moment” and other updates from MacKaye, go here.