Fugazi Launching Live Series Website

On December 1, Dischord will launch the Fugazi Live Series. What started as a route to "preserve spontaneous moments" of the Washington, DC, post-hardcore outfit led to an enormous archive of over 800 live shows the band's sound engineers recorded between 1987 and 2003.

Following the DIY ethical stance the band cherished - keeping ticket prices low throughout their 15 year career - each show will be available to preview for free and to download for a pay-what-you-want fee ($5 is the suggested price). There will also be an "all access" option available to allow users to download every show.

Each show will also have a page featuring information about the concert along with available photographs, flyers, and more. With an initial launch of 130 shows, the remaining will be released every month.

In the site's statement, Dischord calls the series a "semi-permanent work-in progress," welcoming visitors to contribute photographs, recordings, and corrections.

While professionally mastered, the series captures everything that happened onstage, and according to singer Guy Picciotto, talking to The New York Times, for preservation's sake the band did not edit out anything. "We liked this idea of, 'Let's just let it be everything. There doesn't have to be the idea that this is the great, golden document. It's all there, and it's not cleaned up. You get what you get."

The project has few equals in terms of breadth, a norm for jam bands like the Grateful Dead and Phish but unprecedented for the hardcore scene.

The group has been on indefinite hiatus since 2003. The group has insisted there are no current plans for the band to work together. However, earlier this month, when asked about the possibility of a reunion, bassist Joe Lally told the AV Club, "The Argument was a great record that we should try and top. It'll take some time to come together and everything. To do that, we'd have to, the way the four of us are, we would take quite some time, I think, re-associating ourselves musically, and then just letting it come about naturally, because it would have to be a natural thing. So we'll just see."

The group's last album was 2001's The Argument.