Fugazi is an American rock band that formed in Washington, D. C. in 1986. The band consists of guitarists and vocalists Ian MacKaye and Guy Picciotto, bassist Joe Lally, drummer Brendan Canty. Fugazi are noted for their style-transcending music, DIY ethical stance, manner of business practice, contempt for the music industry. Fugazi have performed numerous worldwide tours and produced six studio albums, a film and a comprehensive live series, gaining the band critical acclaim and success around the world. Fugazi has been on an indefinite hiatus since 2003. After the hardcore punk group Minor Threat dissolved, Ian MacKaye was active with a few short-lived groups, most notably Embrace. MacKaye decided he wanted a project, "like The Stooges with reggae", but was wary about forming another band after Embrace's break up. MacKaye recalled, "My interests were not to be in a band, but to be with people who wanted to play music with me."MacKaye recruited ex-Dag Nasty drummer Colin Sears and bass guitarist Joe Lally, the trio began practicing together in September 1986.

After a few months of rehearsals, Sears was replaced by Brendan Canty. One day Canty's Rites of Spring bandmate Guy Picciotto dropped by during a practice session to see how his friend was getting along, but Picciotto was disappointed. After some uncertainty from Canty about what he wanted to do with his future, the trio regrouped and booked their first show at the Wilson Center in early September 1987; the group still needed a name, so MacKaye chose the word "fugazi" from Mark Baker's Nam, a compilation of stories of Vietnam War veterans, it there being a slang acronym for "Fucked Up, Got Ambushed, Zipped In ". The band began inviting Picciotto to practices. Inspired by use of a foil in hip hop, Picciotto sang backup vocals. After his band Happy Go Licky broke up, he became more involved with Fugazi. MacKaye asked Picciotto to become a full member, which he accepted. Fugazi embarked on its first tour in January 1988. In June 1988 the band recorded its debut EP Fugazi with producer Ted Niceley and producer/engineer Don Zientara, shortly afterwards embarked on an arduous tour of Europe.

At the tour's conclusion in December, the band recorded songs for its intended debut album. However, the band was spent from touring and decided that the resulting sessions were unsatisfactory; the track list was released as Margin Walker the following year. Both EPs were combined into the 13 Songs release in late 1989. Upon the band's return from Europe, unsatisfied with singing, began playing guitar too. With Picciotto playing guitar full-time, Fugazi made the transition into jamming and writing new material as a band as opposed to performing songs composed by MacKaye. In addition to working on new material, songs they had been performing live were refined, such as "Merchandise" and "Turnover", for inclusion on their first official full-length studio album. Released on April 19, 1990, through Dischord Records, Repeater did not reach the Billboard 200 charts or become a commercial success. However, the band spent most of 1990 and 1991 touring behind Repeater, performing a total of 250 concerts between March 1990 and June 1991 selling out 1,000-plus capacity venues throughout the world.

By summer 1991, the album sold more than 300,000 copies, a large number for a label that relied on minimal promotion. While major labels began to court Fugazi, the band decided to stay with Dischord and refused the offers of those labels. Repeater went on to sell more than 1 million copies in the U. S. alone, more than 2 million worldwide. The album was critically well received and featured an alternative rock sound that pre-dated significant releases such as Nirvana's Nevermind and Pearl Jam's Ten, which would unexpectedly go on to break the genre into the mainstream. For Fugazi's second studio-album Steady Diet of Nothing, released in July 1991, the band once again asked Ted Niceley to produce. Niceley had become a chef and had to reluctantly turn down the job, so the band members decided to produce the record themselves. After the success of Repeater and its subsequent world tour, Steady Diet was anticipated, six months prior to its release Dischord had pre-orders in excess of 160,000 for the album.

Fugazi recorded its third album In on the Kill Taker in the fall of 1992 with Steve Albini in Chicago. With the breakthrough of alternative rock in the early 1990s, In on the Kill Taker. By the In on the Kill Taker tour, the group began to sell-out large auditoriums and arenas, as well as receive more lucrative major label offers. During the band's sold-out 3-night stint at New York City's Roseland Ballroom in September 1993, music mogul and Atlantic Records president Ahmet Ertegün met with the band backstage in an attempt to sign them. Ertegün offered the band "anything you want", their own subsidiary label and more than $10 million just to sign with Atlantic. Fugazi declined the offer; the organizers of Lollapalooza attempted to recruit the band for a headlining slot on its 1993 tour, which the band considered but turned down. Fugazi began writing the material for Red Medicine in late 1994, after touring in support of In on

Bloemfontein District Commando was a light infantry regiment of the South African Army. It formed part of the South African Army Infantry Formation as well as the South African Territorial Reserve; this unit's predecessor had its origin around 1848 when Andries Pretorius called up a commando of about a 1000 men from the region of Bloemfontein, Caledon River and Winburg to defend the area against British ambitions and Basotho cattle theft. The commando was reactivated formally around 1948. By 1956 however the unit was divided into two separate commandos one for the city, Bloemfontein City Commando and one for the rural areas; as a rural commando this unit was now tasked with area force protection and cordones as well as stock theft control assistance to the police. The unit resorted under the command of Group 35; this unit, along with all other Commando units was disbanded after a decision by South African President Thabo Mbeki to disband all Commando Units. The Commando system was phased out between 2003 and 2008 "because of the role it played in the apartheid era", according to the Minister of Safety and Security Charles Nqakula.

South African Commando System

Vic Reeves' House Arrest was a weekly radio comedy series written by and starring Vic Reeves. It was produced by Open Mike Productions and broadcast on BBC Radio 2 It co-starred Reeves' wife, Nancy Sorrell, his comedy partner, Bob Mortimer and The Mighty Boosh star, Noel Fielding, it was first broadcast in 2007 in the 1 pm slot on Saturday afternoons. The show's premise was that Reeves had been put under house arrest for "a crime he didn't commit", each show beginning with Reeves informing listeners of a different ludicrous crime; each episode consisted of the various events that take place in and around his house on a particular day. Regular occurrences included Reeves waking up the street and inadvertently firing objects into the local vicar's vestry in the process, reading bizarre small ads in the newspaper, watching a television programme, reading his book Nothing but the Sleuth, struggling to stop his records from jumping, visiting the animal menagerie in his shed. Reeves was visited by a variety of characters such as Carl, a talkative housecall-making hairdresser, a local vagrant just out of jail and looking for odd jobs, his parole officer.

In addition to these new characters, the show featured some characters from previous Vic and Bob series' including "Kinky" John Fowler and Davey Stott. The programme featured Reeves practising his "club singer"-style vocals in the bath, with the intention of getting on The X Factor. Vic ReevesHimself The vicar The fat lad next door Father in TV show My Dad, the Moron Detective Inspector John "Deacon" Fowler Man in TV show Brief Encounters of the Third Kind Land of Sport TV show reporter, plus interviewees David Beckham, Frank Monroe and Kevin WelshBob MortimerCarl the hairdresser Davey Stott, presenting Davey Stott's Cooking Pot TV showNancy SorrellPC Mavis Mother in TV show My Dad, the Moron Woman in TV show Brief Encounters of the Third Kind Kelly Holmes in Land of Sport TV showNoel FieldingDerek Randolph St. Clair D'beauvois of St James', a vagrant looking for odd jobsPeter SerafinowiczTerry Wogan BBC page for the series