Fiery Furnaces

[markie]

Well I like the fiery furnaces, but the new album is much more annoying than their first album, and the first album was still moderately annoying......
 
 I think there is little chance of it selling out.
 
 I think two songs from the new album sound like childrens songs.
 
 I think I will try and go.

[sonickteam2]

Originally posted by ggwâ?¢:
 Children's songs sung with an off-key voice over dissonant music.

pretty much,  i saw them in NYC at Siren Festival and i thought it was a joke....really.

[Bags]

I'm out.  Blech.  And I'm listening to the 'more poppy' first album, "Gallowsbird's Bark."  My inclination that this was not my cup of tea is probably on mark.

[Charlie Nakatestes, Japanese Golfer]

I guess we'll see you dancing up a storm at the Drive By Truckers.
 
 
 

Originally posted by Bags:
  I'm out.  Blech.  And I'm listening to the 'more poppy' first album, "Gallowsbird's Bark."  My inclination that this was not my cup of tea is probably on mark.

[Herr Professor Doktor Doom]

well, y'all have certainly put me off the idea of forcing my friends to see them by attaching a birthday gathering to the show!
 
 ps... visit Doomlink.

[Bags]

Doom, don't go by me...I'm of the more traditional indie ilk.  Actually, I'm more power pop and less indie, so I'm just a kook in terms of board preferences.  I have a hard time with quirky....  The Red Room is one of the best bars around, and there's lots of interest in the FF....  Give it a shot!  And happy birthday!

[starcrash]

Saw FF last night in Pittsburgh.  Very interesting performance.  FF slices and splices all of their songs into one long smorgasboard of sound.  Pretty cool.  The tempo of the songs are much faster than what is on their albums.  I'm sure some of you will not like it, but I enjoyed it.

[Bags]

And Jenkins pulls out one of the board's most controversial as a point of measure for the FFs...
 
 THE FIERY FURNACES "Blueberry Boat" Rough Trade INOUK "No Danger" Say Hey
 Friday, September 24, 2004; Page WE06
 
 Both the Fiery Furnaces and Inouk are New York bands that play blues-based rock. That's hardly a full description of their music, however. The two groups also incorporate folkie melodies into their work, and sometimes emphasize piano over guitar. There are differences between their styles, of course, but the bands are as compatible a double bill as any two post-hard-core or neo-punk-funk outfits.
 
 One of the year's most-discussed indie-rock acts, the Furnaces provide plenty of talking points: They're a self-indulgent, sometimes contentious brother-and-sister act whose music is simultaneously naive and ambitious.
 
 Songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Matt Friedberger has confessed his admiration for the Who's pre-"Tommy" song suites, and the duo's second album, "Blueberry Boat," includes several kindred experiments: Such longish tunes as "Quay Cur" and the title track loosely combine sea chanteys, bluesy thumping, abstract electronic passages and childlike lyrics, often sung by Eleanor Friedberger.
 
 Yet the Furnaces resemble the Who less than another Who-struck contemporary band, Guided by Voices. Both groups make fragmentary music that draws on '60s rock, but have a modern cut-and-paste sensibility. The distinction is that GBV's songlets are usually treated separately, while the Furnaces often string theirs together. Like a GBV album, "Blueberry Boat" is often catchy, sometimes inspired and occasionally silly -- and, whichever it is at any moment, it will be something else the next.
 
 While more compact than the Furnaces', Inouk's compositions also tend to forgo customary pop-song structure. The 11 numbers on the quintet's "No Danger" shift and meander, although some of them do feature classic-rock elements, notably three-part harmonies. Guitarist Damon McMahon, guitarist-keyboardist Alexander McMahon and bassist Jesse Johnson all sing during the climaxes of such tunes as "Elected" and "Island," pushing the mood skyward. Still, the album's overall vibe is intriguingly misty. Even the mostly driving "Nudie Suit" ends as madrigal.
 
 -- Mark Jenkins

[Herr Professor Doktor Doom]

"intriguingly misty."  I like that!   I'm still thinking of going tonight.
 
 I know you're not supposed to say this in RepubliKKKan America, but their music makes me want to light up a spleef.

[Charlie Nakatestes, Japanese Golfer]

Yes, you can usually enjoy crappy music if you're high enough. Classic example: any reggae.
 
 
 

Originally posted by Doctor Doom:
  "intriguingly misty."  I like that!   I'm still thinking of going tonight.
 
 I know you're not supposed to say this in RepubliKKKan America, but their music makes me want to light up a spleef.

[Herr Professor Doktor Doom]

Originally posted by Rhett Miller:
  Yes, you can usually enjoy crappy music if you're high enough. Classic example: any reggae.
 

your characterization of all reggae as crappy is symptomatic of your extreme lack of depth in taste.

[malkmess]

wow. i really haven't heard much of their albums, just what i hear on our college's radio station, but the fiery furnaces were absolutely fantastic live. i couldn't take my eyes off the drummer half the time, he was amazing. they played for about an hour or so straight, no breaks, each song flowed together and it was great.
 
 in case anyone was wondering. i went into it not really knowing what to expect, and i left a huge fan.

[freddyadu]

someone mentioned the tempo was speeded up as sort of a montage, and i was already expecting that.
 
 did anyone else think the show was louder than usual?
 
 i liked the show, although it was tough trying to pick out the song.  i wish the guy sang a bit more, he has a great voice.

[dotdot]

Originally posted by Rhett Miller:
  Yes, you can usually enjoy crappy music if you're high enough. Classic example: any reggae.

Another ignorant post from Rhett!  He's probably only heard Bob Marley and current dancehall.  Reggae is NOT pot-smoking music.  I'm so sick of that.  Ever heard "Heart Of The Congos" by The Congos?  Didn't think so.

[Bags]

The Fiery Furnaces, Blazing Away at the Black Cat
  Washington Post
 Monday, September 27, 2004; Page C08
 
 The Fiery Furnaces played without a break Friday night at the Black Cat, collaging its repertoire into a continuous suite and, in the process, stretching the boundaries of song as we know it. The New York quartet's latest album, "Blueberry Boat," includes several eight-minute songs, and its performance expanded those experiments into a single 45-minute piece. Only the encore, which ran about four minutes, resembled a conventional song.
 
 Mention the word "suite" in a rock context and most people will think of bombastic '70s British bands such as Yes and Emerson, Lake and Palmer. But there's little of those groups' Bach- or Mussorgsky-quoting in the Furnaces' sound, which is assembled from bluesy vamps, folkie melodies and classic-rock riffs.
 
 Matt Friedberger, who switched between guitar and keyboards, clearly ran the show, sometimes issuing audible instructions to singer Eleanor Friedberger, his sister. Yet the band's improvisations were not instrumentally oriented. Instead, the Friedbergers recombined (and sometimes repeated) vocal-driven passages from free-associative tunes such as "Don't Dance Her Down" and "My Dog Was Lost but Now He's Found." The individual parts were simple, but the whole was driving, complex and dynamically unpredictable.
 
 Inouk, which opened the evening, also blends rock and folk elements, though it does so in songs that are more conventional in length (if not structure).
 
 As is often the case with bands that include three guitarists, Inouk sometimes flirted with chaos. Still, songs such as "Elected" came together nicely, and the lyrical guitar passages were engaging.
 
 -- Mark Jenkins