It started with a text. My buddy Gary took his daughter to see Mustard Plug and The Toasters, which is a page out of our shared teenage years, and buried amongst a thousand other mutual nostalgia invoking details, he casually mentioned how Mustard Plug covered “Waiting Room” by Fugazi. 

That cover, which I kinda love if I’m being honest, got me thinking about something else I've been sitting with for a while now, and it’s something I'll probably get some friendly pushback for, but hear me out: you can't really get Fugazi without understanding go-go.

Now, I’m going to dwell on Mustard Plug a minute before we get to go-go, but there’s a point here. I feel like I also have to say this - I’m all about a sneaky cover. I think we can (and should) all agree, the pinnacle of punk covers is Me First and the Gimme Gimmes doing Billy Joel songs, with their Elton covers as a runner up. I will always put Punk Side Story (Schlong? sure!) up there too, which is the West Side Story soundtrack as punk songs, but only because show tunes are one step beyond Joel songs in difficulty and I love that they tried as hard as they had to, to make it work. 

Which leads me to “Waiting Room” which is a totally different type of cover. Yes, because of genre proximity, but also because it’s a very sneaky cover to switch up a style on. It's already a unique sound - and part of what makes Fugazi's catalogue so much more interesting to parse than, say, getting over a Minor Threat yearning in a (also satisfying, but much quicker hit via) 20-30 minutes (honorable mention of “Stepping Stone” I guess fits here too).

This is the kind of song that begs to be covered, because it's actually a reminder of what Fugazi was borrowing from in the first place. In the event you don’t know the original, it’s a good time to drop the link in. Do press play if you’re not already singing it.

So while Mustard Plug isn’t known for its musicianship, meaning they can’t do “Midnight Hour” in the sneaky genre adjacent way The Toasters pull it off, which does fit for sake of this conversation, they did perfectly select this song to work, within their capability set, in exactly their own way and I need to start by stating how much I commend them for it. 

It’s a good cover. I had to look for it online hence the link at the top, and - they’ve been on this one for a minute (since 2008?!). But while I was listening to it, it really did stir that go-go thought in my soul. It’s one of those things that’s up there with me getting bent out of shape with friends about how dub-influenced Gang of Four were/are, so I am going to say it again,

Appreciating Fugazi is only enhanced if you also appreciate go-go.  

It’s a footnote of a detail, I get it. Put an asterisk on this whole post, if you must. But it’s such a cool and interesting detail that I feel like I had to write this down in public and not just rant at it to friends (or, more likely, to my wife, and most realistically, to my dogs, late at night, with them giving me the “So, you’re emotional about this, but are there snacks involved here or what?”).

I get that people probably hear “Waiting Room” and picking up that it’s not a punk or a hardcore song at all, focus in on the drum and bass heavy vibe. They might even pick up on how the bass melody leans it towards dub, because the song is doing a standard Fugazi trick, that wasn’t so standardized on the first two records yet, but I’ll allow it, where different instruments almost play different roles in a song.

Why can’t a bass play the main melody? Why can’t a guitar be percussive? Why can’t drums be a different dynamic texture than the rest of the band? This is the genius of Fugazi. And, one of many.

But within all of that, there’s a piece of D.C. music that pays as much homage to the hardcore and punk scenes these guys came out of, and it doesn’t get enough play; the go-go scene.

In what can only be described as a weird twist of my 90s musical consumption patterns, it’s worth saying why I knew about go-go. As a sample-curious person, you couldn’t hear Public Enemy (“Fight the Power”), or L.L. Cool J (“Rock the Bells”) or Beastie Boys (“Hold It Now, Hit It”) without finding out Trouble Funk was half responsible for that crazy tom fill, or the non-programmed mid-tempo funky swing.

If you liked hip hop of that era, go-go was on your radar, whether you knew the name for it or not. Thanks to some comp CD used record store searching, I added some go-go acts to my listening repertoire and always planned to get to D.C. to see something live (and then never did).

When the Ian MacKaye stories would float around about Fugazi playing shows with Trouble Funk and others, mashing all the genres in a local show, I literally thought that had to be the coolest thing ever. I miss chaotic lineups at shows so much. This always left a mark on me.

Back to the Mustard Plug cover - they do lean into the bounce of “Waiting Room.” It’s cool. They made it 90s ska though, and I totally respect that bounce. But, now go back and listen to the particular bounce of “Waiting Room" and then let’s trace a really cool musical loop that Gary’s text prompted me to work out.

Here’s Louis Jordan and His Timpany Five circa 1948 with the song “Run Joe” - note that this one is small band swing (aka jump) with a heavy Caribbean (pre ska) influence:

This is on purpose. It has a lot to do with Mustard Plug. But stick with me on this journey.

Let’s go next to a go-go variation on “Run Joe” by D.C. legend Chuck Brown and his band, circa 1986, and now really note what’s going on in those bass and drums, underneath those guitars and vocals:

Fugazi was cooked in the D.C. scene, where go-go and hardcore were sharing flyers and rooms. They formed in 1986. They couldn’t escape it. And I’m deliberately picking on “Run Joe” for its bounce, its BPM (pretty close to “Waiting Room” which came out in 1988, eh?!), and how it serves as the bridge between jump, go-go, and ultimately, the funny abstraction that is Mustard Plug doing Fugazi around 2008.

Go-go was all about the continuous party loop. Those long vamps, or stretches when nothing is happening but if you’re on a dance floor you’re feeling pretty (prett-tay) good, those serve a live purpose. Note the call-and-response and crowd participation details too. How they make it easy to sing along. Nobody is a stranger in that room, you are in on the song and the performance even if it’s your first time, and you can’t help but want to be. Go-go is so goddamn infectious it’s ridiculous.

And, most of all, notice how the tension builds, releases, and builds again across sections of the song so the rhythm never gets stale. They use instrument introductions and reductions to keep adding and removing layers. And then, the “jo-ey, jo-ey, jo-ey, jo-ey” melodic groove switchup, it all swirls.

Now let’s say your kids from the hardcore and punk scene, who maybe can’t quite swing or sit back in the pocket as hard as some of the other guys in the scene, but you are taking notes on what keeps a room working. What do you borrow, what do you steal?

You start with a circular bass riff. You let the guitar play drums, and then switch to bass. You let the drums accent off of the guitar. You make sure the vocals feel like a singalong before you even know the words. As the song develops, you think orchestrally. You might not “jo-ey jo-ey” anything, but you definitely use “I don’t want the news - I cannot use it” to make sure you have an elongated call and response too.

You hear that heartbeat-type walking tempo too, right? That's called pocket. Fugazi's pocket is totally different from Chuck Brown's, but that's the whole point - how they each hold their groove in a totally different but strangely related way, and Fugazi learned how to hold theirs by watching someone else's.

I’m putting “Waiting Room” here again to make it easy for you:

I love this song. Always have. And I love knowing that somewhere, people are hearing Mustard Plug's version and wondering what the original was, and maybe they find Fugazi, and maybe one of them ends up in D.C. someday and actually makes it to a show. The lineage just keeps going.

And, for the handful of people who want to dig a little deeper and explore, I genuinely believe that understanding the go-go connection makes it even cooler. You really can get Fugazi more if you listen to go-go too.