Month / April 2005

by DrMabuse

The Fiery Furnaces

This is a public service announcement.

Avoid the Fiery Furnaces live.

In the studio, the Fiery Furnaces are perhaps one of the more interesting White Stripes-style experimenters working today. But as a live band, they are about as tedious as a snare-bass backbeat that goes on without variation for six hours. Their drummer is an imbecile who seems to be under the mistaken impression that his six crappy fills, repeated ad nauseum, and his relentless pounding make him today’s answer to Keith Moon. The man beat so hard on his setup that his drum stands were constantly shifted out of shape, leaving him to constantly readjust them between songs. I suspected that he was either a last-minute replacement or a friend of a friend who happened to like drumming.

Singer Eleanor Friedberger, whose spastic stage presence resembled a speed freak who needed to be told bluntly that music was not a solid career choice, seems to be under the false impression that belting out all of her lyrics in a rapid and indecipherable clip makes for innovation. And Matthew Friedberger believes that turning his keyboard up as loud as possible, where notes are strained beyond recognition through a muddled sound mix, is the stuff that concerts are made of. This band is not tight. They are tone deaf and not in a good and carefully honed way a la Sonic Youth. Ms. Friedberger continuously sang in different keys than the band was playing. It made me sad, and it made me embarassed for them.

These people are not fun at all, nor do they appear to be having fun. In which case, why even bother to tour?

What’s worse is that the Fiery Furnaces have adopted an odd strategy that involves playing every one of their songs, if you can call an excerpt ranging from thirty seconds to two minutes a song, in a continuous and uninterrupted flow. This renders “I Lost My Dog,” for example, as a two-minute segment cast within an interminable garage band groove or “Bird Brain” as something played in the same tempo: too fast, too abbreviated, and sadly devoid of its original character.

I’ve heard garage bands sound better than these folks. Years ago, I recall seeing some terrible stoner band in Sacramento (name deliberately withheld) who insisted on playing long nine-minute songs — all in the same tempo, all with a tedious and rudimentary cast. I never thought for a moment that the Fiery Furnaces would top them as one of the worst concertgoing experiences of all time. And the sad thing was that I was very familiar with the Fiery Furances’ music.

Other goofball studio-reliant bands I’ve seen live (say: Of Montreal) at least understand that reproducing or transposing production-heavy songs live involves ingenuity and careful rehearsal. It’s a pity that the Fiery Furnaces would rather throw away an opportunity to stumble upon unexpected moments of innovation. It’s truly a disappointment, given the wild ideas and influences they’re willing to throw into their albums.

Oh well. At least Dios Malos was good.

by DrMabuse

Unapologetic Slacker

I’ve become such an effective slacker in the past week that, after some conversations with friends and family, I’ve decided to sequester myself from the Internet for the next three days. I apologize if I haven’t answered your email. But then I haven’t had the opportunity to slack like this for sometime. And I’m enjoying it immensely.

Will get to the next Tanenhaus Brownie Watch sometime on Monday evening. In the meantime, visit the fine folks on the left.

Meanwhile, here’s a guide for effective slackdom:

  1. Lie in bed as much as possible. If you can find a slacker companion, spend at least one day of your Period of Slack not moving from your bed — ideally building pillow forts.
  2. Naps are okay at any time of the day.
  3. Disregard personal drinking rules. You can have a margarita at 11 AM if you want to.
  4. If it’s sunny outside, do try and get outside with a book.
  5. It’s okay if the apartment goes to hell. You can clean it at the end of the Period of Slack. If your Period of Slack lasts longer than a week, then be sure to pick up your shit at weekly intervals.
  6. Be sure to inform friends that you’re going through a Period of Slack. They may be shocked by how relaxed and easy-going you’ve become.
  7. If losing track of the days bothers you, be sure to keep a calendar in easy display. But don’t concentrate on what day it is until near the end of your Period of Slack. You’ll need to acclimatize yourself back to regular life again.
  8. Contrary to what anti-slacker neoconservatives tell you, a vacation can be very exhausting. Pace yourself.
  9. An active slacker is better than a passive slacker. Active slackdom may require a bit more effort, but do try and get yourself accustomed to getting out of the house and checking out interesting expositions.
  10. You may be shocked by how your neighborhood looks during a weekday afternoon. It may very well be more populated than you expect. Prepare yourself for something of a sensation as you see your immediate surroundings with newfound eyes.
by DrMabuse

Morning Pileup

  • Frederick Forsyth has decided to run against Tony Blair. Well, if this is what it takes to get him to stop writing, count me in as one of his most febrile supporters.
  • Chang-rae Lee’s next novel will center around the Korean War. The story will involve “a refugee girl raised in America after the war, a solider and an aid worker during the war.” Lee also confessed that he made a mistake titling his last novel Aloft, pointing out that too many people were hoping for a gripping tale about real estate developers fighting over a flat.
  • Somehow it escaped our eyes, but “Harry Matthews” gets an appropriately mysterious writeup in the Gray Lady. But an interesting side note is that nobody should trust John Strausbaugh with an “off the record” comment.
  • We all know about Kathryn Chetkovich’s infamous Granta essay about J-Franz. But what I didn’t know is that Franzen’s ex-wife stopped writing and reading after the breakup. The lesson here is that if you hope to keep up your writing career, DON’T DATE J-FRANZ! This has been a public service announcement for the Society to Preserve Creativity.
  • Alice Hoffman was “deeply affected by The Twilight Zone.”
  • Fumio Niwa has passed on. He was 100. Also RIP David Hughes.
  • There’s a campaign in place to restore Ohio’s image by the Ohio Secretary of State. Unfortunately, what the campaign doesn’t tell you is that most of the writers and artists (including Toni Morrison, Michael Dirda, and Roger Zelazy) ended up moving away from Ohio.
  • Oliver Stone + James Ellroy? Say it ain’t so. What next? Paul Verhoeven and Donald E. Westlake?
  • The Cumberland County Library in North Carolina has catered to its constitutency. They’re paying $18,000 of their hard-earned money to offer 700 audio books. By my math, that’s $25.71 a pop, or considerably more than a wholesale or library-rate hardcover.