Monday, May 01, 2006

More Fiery Furnaces, Radiohead, and Espers

In case you hadn't figured it out from this, this, or this, I really like the Fiery Furnaces. Nobody else in the world sounds like them, and they're great at what they do. And on top of that, they're prolific as hell. And they just keep on coming, because now Matthew Friedberger, the guy who writes all of the songs, is releasing a solo album in August. And it's a double album! Jesus, man!

So I may be alone among my friends and acquaintances in my excitement and anticipation, but I can't wait for it to come out. I should be done digesting Bitter Tea just in time for the solo album. And check out some of these song titles: "The Pennsylvania Rock Oil Co. Resignation Letter," "Holy Ghost Language School," "I Started Drinking Alcohol at the Age of Eleven," "Big Bill Crib & His Ladies of the Desert." Sounds typically insane.

On top of all that, the Fiery Furnaces are playing at the TLA on June 27. From the videos I've seen of them live, they sound pretty much nothing at all like the records, so it should be interesting, especially if they try to play anything from Rehearsing My Choir. I think I might ask Eleanor Friedberger to marry me.

Other, unrelated music news of today: Radiohead are playing two shows at the Tower Theater. As cool as it would be to see them in there, I've already seen them twice, both times I was way closer than I'll be at the Tower, the tickets are $41 before Ticketmaster's rape fees, and both shows will probably sell out faster than it took me to write this sentence. Plus the view that I held for awhile that Radiohead were gods among men seems to have subsided a couple years ago (now I only think they're very, very good). I think I'll probably have to sit this one out.

AND FINALLY:

My other recent obsession of the past year or so has been with Espers and their leader, Greg Weeks, and this is a big week for them. Wednesday night, Greg and several other Espers members will be playing at the Green Line Cafe with Larkin Grimm and Fern Knight (who are both female psych-folk artists who are pretty good). It's certainly not an Espers show. As Greg told me in an email:

"We're gonna construct a super-group drone-fest called Gypsophilia. It'll be me, Otto, Brooke, Helena, Margie, and a bunch of other folks just shootin for a vibe."

Sounds good to me! You all should go.

On Tuesday, Meg Baird is playing a show with Michael Hurley (MICHAEL FREAKING HURLEY, people!), and on Saturday is the Espers record release party for Espers II, which I have naturally downloaded a month ago, and I'm formulating my item on that in my head as we speak. Saturday is the day I'm looking forward to the most, because I got shut out of the last Espers show in Philly (although I've seen them twice already anyway, so I shouldn't complain). Check it all out here.

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