my #1 non-ironic favourite band…
…is still The Fiery Furnaces. and although i feel mildly juvenile being so, y’know, ‘open’,'earnest’ and ‘truthful’, the continuing lack of fiery fans in my life has driven me to go public (again). so, let’s watch a promo for their predictably unpredictable new album ‘Widow City’! so. much. fun. too much, some (haters) might say….
likewise, this (1!) three-part (2!) video (3!) interview is a pretty sweet virtual meet with a band too often dismissed as being oblique or pretentious by people who haven’t listened hard or long or often enough, dammit (or who have cinders encased in ice where there blood-pump shd be - difficult to tell without performing a tastectomy…)
finally, to make sure this isn’t a music-free post, here’s the video for 2006’s ‘Benton Harbor Blues’. it’s one of their more straightforward numbers, and they are very much an albums band, but all said and still…i remember clambering into a homeward taxi the morning after some party or other, cruising thru dawn streets as this song inexplicably poured from the radio like pink light. it made me feel there was hope for my species, briefly.
fellow furnaceers may wish to leave comments expressing their solidarity. i wd reeeea-a-ally, sincerely welcome that, especially if exclamation marks are pressed into service…
Posted on Sunday, September 16th, 2007by kicking_k
oh, i love these guys! and in that interview, it’s so great to see matt mentioning american radio–the constant feed of classic rock that all of us from over there claim as a birthright. i love them because of the way they embrace so much of everything around them and turn it weird. they’re playful and damn skilled. they’re friendly and eclectic like a wes anderson film without the obnoxious cloying bits, even when they sing about death and violence or just making fun of people. i love them because this makes them exciting in the same way that the muppet show was to me as a small child. seriously, if it still existed, they’d be the perfect guest stars.
there are too many facets of their awesomeness to list, so here is a story (similar to kicking_k’s tale above) of a fiery furnaces moment.
about a year ago, i was going through the final flame-out phase of my divorce, and had bought the fiery furnaces’ EP. I brought it over to my then-boyfriend’s house, and we put it on. the first song, ’single again’ was just everything, everything that summed up the shit of the last few months, all the stompable snarling witty rage you can imagine –and i swear, you can hear eleanor smile when she sings. this was fun!
my then-boyfriend’s windows faced out onto the high street, so we opened the blinds and went crazy dancing right up to them, like it was a peep show, comedy booty grinds and all. we got people on the double deckers going past to wave and the homeless guys at the bus stop opposite to raise their beer cans and salute.this went on until the record ended or we flopped to the floor, exhausted, i can’t remember, but it felt great.
what i can remember:my decree nisi came through that week, and i thank that record. i played it so often it was like sympathetic magic.seriously. the delerious horn/stuttery chorus of ‘cousin chris’ was in my head when i opened that solicitors’ envelope and read those words, it was like a cinema ad where you see music or text or something represented by tendrils of psychedelic cartoon swirls that reach out and stroke your hair. my god. the full-body joy.
sorry, this response is really long-winded and self-absorbed, but i’m just trying to show how this is a band that gets -in there- and makes things ok by writing songs that get in your brain and record a new loop over whatever negative thoughts you might have playing on repeat.and then there are all the layers and textures and weird chants to process or tap your toes to….!
i hope this doesn’t detract from the pro-furnaces cause. you diss them, you diss yourself. the other albums are also amazing. go friedbergers!
oh yeah:
Posted by emily bick on September 18th, 2007 at 12:20 am!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!to infinity.