SHUFFLE #3

Greetings Brits and fans abroad (note the flag counter). We hope you all had a great Pancake Day, easily the most ridiculous yet charming cultural celebration ever imagined. In America we have Pancake Day as well - it's called "breakfast". You may also note that we'll be starting our tour in your soil very shortly:

MARCH
Sunday 01 Liverpool, UK Korova
Monday 02 Cardiff, UK Clwb lfor Bach
Tuesday 03 Nottingham, UK Rescue Rooms
Wednesday 04 London, UK Electric Ballroom
Thursday 05 Brighton, UK Concorde
Friday 06 Birmingham, UK Academy


SHUFFLE #3
Burial "Archangel"
Another song that traveled with me through points in time and location. I can first remember listening to this record on a fall break between a dismal tour in the states and a mostly rewarding and uplifting tour through the UK and Europe. I would have to drive into the city almost every day during break to run errands and take care of FU bureaucracy..when I wasn't listening to the CBC I forcing myself to listen to newer music on my ipod.
I've always shied away from dubstep and UK garage music because I don't really like break-beats - to me the most appealing thing about dance music to me allegorically as well as sonically is that there is always a beat there that doesn't deviate or split - a solid beat helps you to envision the dance music zeitgiest, that of the happy mass of people all falling in love on the dance floor. Breakbeats shatter that illusion and uncover a different symbolic reality, which I think is perfectly represented on this Burial("Untrue") album, which atleast for me brings back exactly those type of memories. One reviewer described it as "oneiric dance music", which I think is true of all dance music (see above), except that usually the intended visions are more euphoric than bleak.
We spend the first two weeks of our late fall tour in the UK, something we'd done before and swore never to do again. The weather is worse than usual (last winter I spent 90 minutes at a Crystal Palace game sitting on a metal seat during a snowfall) and everything seems downtrodden and cold. We landed in the rain and moved slowly through the country in the rain climbing our gear up flights of stairs through the rain. We drove in a bus that had bunks but no heating, so we would try to spend some time together as a unit until succumbing to the relative warmth buried (get it) inside 3 layers of duvet covers in the bunks. I started listening to "Untrue" every day in mostly these dismal wet steely scenarios. When we played in Birmingham and had to carry our gear up 2 flights of stairs covered with that apocalyptic metal grating...we felt like we were trapped in a comic book, but our friends from SSS helped us do the work...backstage trying to drown out the din playing killing metalic aliens in Contra 4 on Nintendo DS...wandering around a sterile and harshly lit Sainsbury's in Sheffield at night in the rain next to the university. Often we would fight and I would set up amps up with a hood over my head and this song playing loud into noise reducing headphones. The point is this record describes in sound the way a lot of people concieve (and the way I remember) Britain, but also the British experience. It has a mechanic but bittersweet sound underlaid with those broken beats that support estranged and angelic vocals. It's easy to see the classically British class conflict - the steel and soot of industrialism built by the poor to carry the rich, the bus ride from work in Knightsbridge to a council estate in Brixton (where this record was made). Seeing something or someone beautiful in the dark and in the rain. Having to have something called "Pancake Day" in order to eat pancakes. The light touch of the mourning vocals that seem to want to detach from the heavy momentum of the bass synth, or break up on their own, with the beat as they stutter and fail to complete a line.
I try not to listen to the record so much because now it just reminds me about bad times, which is the contrary to the effect I think the record should have. It's hard to be objective about music let alone your own associations to it, but it's clear the the album is about mobility, not stagnation. The beat is broken, but it keeps moving forward.

SWAG

Hey two new things exist:

The Nike "No Epiphany" Waffle. As you can see, the colours kind of match the No Epiphany cover art


But also not so much.
So far limited to size 13, we'll have more info here soon about where you can order this/these shoe(s).



The "Singles Collection" CD on HG:Fact Records, released to coincide with our Japanese tour that turned into our one japanese show (March 10, Astro Hall).
To date, this is the most comprehensive FU singles collection in existence, because the Epics in Minutes CD on Deranged leaves out a lot of Bsides, and because other than that, there are no other FU singles comps, unless you count that cassette tape that was released in Montreal a few years ago. The tracklisting for this disk is as follows (the * indicates this is the first time that track has been released on CD):
Police
Municipal Prick (*)
Baiting
The Public
No Pasaran (*)
Circling the Drain
Dance of Death
Zezozose (*)
Litany
What Could Have Been
Colour Removal
Reset the Ride
Generation (*)
Ban Violins (*)
Magic Kingdom (*)
Dangerous Fumes (*)
Teenage Problems (*)
Triumph of Life
Neat Parts

What a blockbuster. And as you can see from the photo, (in addition to seeing how many emails David gets and what music Judd Taylor listens to) you can see that it comes with an Obi strip even. To commemorate the release, the tracklisting is going to be our setlist in Tokyo (not).
You can get one of these from the HG Fact site right HERE, but if you are from North America or anywhere NOT in Japan (like all the stuff in middle), you can just wait until the fall when we are going to release ANOTHER singles comp, this one in the vein of Epics in Minutes (entitled "Long Boring Songs that go Nowhere, and you Can't Understand the Lyrics, In Hours) in that it will collect part of our 7" and 12" discography since Epics came out. It will be on Matador and will be cool.
To sum up: We are playing a benefit show for Marlboro Cigarettes.

TOUR

Hey, all we do is tour anymore. In a few years when we stop playing so many shows we'll start writing more interesting things on this blog, and then publish it as a book. Until then, if you want to hear something interesting, just come up to one of us at a show and ask for David.

April 6 - Detroit @ The Magic Stick
April 8 - Minneapolis @ The Triple Rock
April 9 - Winnepeg @ The Royal Albert Arms WITH UK SUBS
April 10 - Regina @ The Distrikt
April 11 - Calgary @ Royal Canadian Legion
April 12 - Edmonton @ The Pawn Shop
April 14 - Vancouver @ The Biltmore
April 15 - Seattle @ Neumos
April 19 - Coachella Festival
April 20-29 US cross country discovery drive (applicants welcome)

WOAH

Hey, we were recently featured on Barcelonas top metal magazine office drama internet show, Estamos de Cierre. I don't remember it being this strange while it was happening, but it turned out as maybe the weirdest thing we've ever done. Ben looks natural because he was a child actor, and Josh looks pissed because he was, and thats why we made him wear a clown nose. It starts like 4 minutes into this video:

SHUFFLE #2

Here is one from the Gov, a Valentines Day edition:

Jordy - Dur Dur D'etre Bebe

Katherine Oglivie - my first unhealthy, borderline madman obsession.
I was 12. I wore bright purple jeans stitched for only the coolest
'b-boys' by the Exhaust company bought with my allowance at the Eaton
Centre in Toronto. I liked "Freak Me" by Silk, Boyz II Men, and that
weird french techno song "Dur Dur D'etre Bebe" by Jordie. At home,
secretly, far away from my older cig-butt smoking B-Boy gang I owned a
Fender Duo Sonic and listened to Nirvana.
Katherine however knew nothing about me. She was amazing. She wore
only body suits and jeans, and call me crazy but to this day I think
it's an unbeatable look. Her blonde hair was cut in a bob, and I would
sit in the back of the class listening to 'Iesha' by ABC wondering how
many body suits she really owned and how many colors she had them in.
She was my 'Iesha'. I would envision us together at her house, both in
body suits, eating Mcdonalds. My ultimate fantasy [Other than one day
hooking up with the south american exchange girls that frequented the
spare room in my moms house (this also never happened)].

One day on the school playground, my chance to confess my love for her
came by way of a peach. Although I had asked her out many times I felt
that I had to go the extra mile to really make her see what Ben was
really about. I followed her around all lunch hour, watching her eat
this huge peach. Eventually everyone caught on that I was creeping
her, and she threw her peach pit in the garbage and told me to 'fuck
off'. My response was to fish the peach out of the garbage, and in
front of everybody lick off the garbage residue, and eat the rest
including the pit (which never came out).
"I don't care, it touched her mouth".

So Katherine, wherever you are. I'm pretty sure I still have a part of
you inside me (the pit), and even though you are a lesbian, every
valentines day I sit at the edge of my bed in an American Apparel body
suit eating Chicken Mcnuggets thinking of the old days.

VAL

Hi Chicago. This show is now at The Av Arie, which is like 2000 Fulton.

NO JONAH

WARNING: THIS POST MAY (DOES) CONTAIN THE FOLLOWING
-TRUE CELEBRITY QUOTES ABOUT FUCKED UP
-EXCLUSIVE TRACK DOWNLOAD
-WEIRD LYRICS
-NEWS ABOUT FUCKED UP SHOES
-A MORALLY UNCOMFORTABLE PHOTO
-A FEW LIES
and
-WAS WRITTEN BY MIKE, WHO DOES NOT SUCK



Hi, we are releasing the No Epiphany 7" single on March 10 on Matador, which is like a month right from today (or yesterday for those of you that are reading this tommorow morning [actuallly technically THIS morning unless you got this post late and its sometime in the more distant future]). Anyhow, it's the 3rd single off the ChemCom album, the first being Crooked Head, which you can get anywhere, the 2nd being Royal Swan, which you can get nowhere.

As you can see from the picture right up there, this single arrives frought with mystery and hilarity. Why did the NME name it "Single of the Week" 4 months before it was even released? What on it made Katy Perry call us "good musicians?", and why did Tom Jones admit that it was "not something (he) would play"? Is it true that one lucky buyer will become the proud owner of exclusive one-of-a-kind No Epiphany NIKE SHOES? All true, yet what confusion.

Originally this 7" was planned as kind of a double aside - the actual aside containing the album version of the song, and the more symbolic aside (ie the bside) containing a demo version of the track. When we recorded the song we did a few versions of it. Jonah wrote this song, and he really likes punk, so No Epiphany was originally conceived as a faster piece. I kind of like punk, so I decide it would sound cooler if it was slower, and had some ridiculous guitar tracks all over it...if you are on this website you've heard the press - No Epiphany has 1546 guitar tracks in total, mostly all written on the spot. I digress - the bside for this 7" was originally going to be the faster version of the song that was eventually completed - the faster music and lyrics written by Jonah Himself. Also he played all the instruments. We got No Age to do a remix of the original album version, and now thats on the 7" instead, but I feel bad for Falco, because his version got bumped (twice now), so here is a little tribute to his vision.

His Lyrics:
- the sun of heaven, its message sent
- gaze in the blaze of incendiary judgement
- present a life or a static catastrophe
- no epiphany

- regard the victor - his splendour, foiled
- unveil the laggard in all his spoils
- worst of its vision makes all liquid boil
- no epiphany

- perchance to glance a glimpse thereof
- a salty tear tended by a mother's love
- reveals the sun-kissed shade of ennui
- no epiphany

- I see the cover but never the book
- you can change but i'll only ever look
- no amount of time can be took
- no epiphany

- nothing new and nothing old
- facet the diamond or burn the coal
- the gleaming essence of miscellany
- no epiphany

- do what you will to incense, to make irate
- shatter life's foundations with a pathetic shake
- a callous smirk at the shifting plates
- no epiphany

His Music:
(click)

His Likeness:

His Facebook Profile

SHUFFLE #1

Some of us pretend that we kind of hate music but actually we are kind of into it. For me it's the song, not the album, which is one of the reasons we did 7" singles for so long. I only got an ipod bigger than a shuffle about 2 months ago because I only really care about listening to songs at a time and get sick of them in about 10 listens and then get rid of them. Some songs stay important and can trigger us to remember things. In this new thing on our blog called SHUFFLE we're gonna talk about what songs we like and what they make us think of or remember. And you are gonna read it because we are famous rockstars and you come here to read about what we think and experience through us vicariously what you are not experiencing.

SHUFFLE #1
Tears for Fears "Pale Shelter"
A band that I think most people have come up against several times in life. I bought my first batch of LPs when I was 5 (not kidding) and one of the bunch was the 2nd Tears for Fears LP, along with a Bananarama 12", some Corey Hart LPs and stuff like that - I was 5. I forgot about them until I saw that movie Donnie Darko, which I'm sure is the case for everyone, whereupon I kind of got into the cover version of "Mad World" done by that American guy, but then started hating it just in time to have to hear it on that video game commercial it was in where the army guy comes up against that giant robotic bug. Mad World indeed. So fast forward to this Christmas. I was in the UK until like December 22, and was getting a bit sick while I was there. I took 3 sleeping pills on the plane home to try and avoid being awake because I hate flying, but all I could think of was how bad I felt and listen to the guy next to me talk about his life in Finland as a professional hockey player. Apparently I did pass out long enough not to notice that he'd spilled a drink on me. I got off the plane and had completely wiped out my immune system, because I ended up being hallucinogenic sick for the next 3 or 4 days and regular sick for weeks afterwards. Anyhow during the time I was really sick I made two trips outside the house - once to go see Deadmau5 and the other to return a pair of jeans I'd gotten for christmas. It was boxing day so everywhere was rammed but I decided to go to Sherway Gardens because thats the mall of my youth and because it's massive and I wanted to see how insane boxing day shopping would be. I drove around the parking lot for almost 45 minutes playing cat and mouse with parking spots and finally got one at the very outer rim of the lot. The first map of the mall told me there was no Levi's store in the mall anyhow, so I turned right around and drove home. The alternative station played "Pale Shelter" and I had to sit in the car in the driveway to hear the DJ say who it was by because I hadn't listened to the song in maybe 15 years but now I listen to it every few days.

YEAR OF THE RAT

UPDATE:
Pitchfork is now streaming Year of the Rat. You can listen to it HERE.

UPDATE

Hey Year of the Rat is up for pre-order HERE. Year of the Dog is gonna be repressed as well on BLOCKS.

We have a release date for No Epiphany, the 3rd single from COCL. Its March 10. I"ll have a pre-order link for that asap as well.

CHICAGO

HEY THE SHOW AT HIGH CONCEPTS IN CHICAGO HAS BEEN MOVED TO

The Av-Aerie (2000 W. Fulton)
7pm $10 ALL AGES
FUCKED UP
CHRONIC SEIZURE

The SHRED YR FACE tour 7" is now available for pre-order at Rough Trade right HERE. We (ie Jonah and Damian) cover a CHAIN GANG song on it.

In a few days we'll have pre-order links for Year of the Rat.

YNWA

Welcome back nando, we love you. Fuck you scouserugger.