[narlus]

today's finale for the Matador spotlight shines our feeble 3 footcandle beam squarely at SF (via Iowa)'s unparalleled Thinking Fellers Union Local 282...i kicked off this SotD nonsense w/ "Narlus Spectre" from these folks, and it's come full circle. well, at least semi-circle. the fellers (and one gal) are a completely non-referenceable band...some people throw a beefheart comparison, but the Captain was way more blues-influenced, and didn't share their love of noise; he prefered ultra choreographed but sounding like improvisational compositions. the fellers brought strands of dada lyrics, bombastic melodies, intricate guitar lines, and just a really fun atmosphere to their output...having 3 songwriters (sometimes 4) definitely lends an offkilter, non-standard aspect to their sound; the word 'off-kilter' could be the defining term of their music.

i dunno, i give up w/ the descriptive prose. dig in w/ both tympani and see what you think.

Hummingbird in a Cube of Ice

Million Dollars

Cup of Dreams

they were one of those bands who got yr pulse excited when you read a listing showing that they were gonna be playing soon. sadly, they are done. RIP, fellers.

ugliest bass known to mankind:

 

[Del]

I dig it. You can definitely tell they're on Matador. I don't really hear the Beefheart and without the comparison in the original post I wouldn't even bring it up. I know it's a weak comparison, given the locality of the bands, but they sound just like Pavement to me, minus the Malkmus. It's probably not something I'd buy but I will throw these three songs into my collection and when one of them comes on I will probably say, "What's this?" and then look and be pleasantly suprised. Thanks for the songs

And oh yeah - when you said, "ugliest bass known to mankind," I think you may have meant "ugliest bassist..." He looks like Edgar Winters with short hair.

 

[narlus]

haha, mark was wearing lipstick and became an albino guitar hero. yeah, the band won't win any beauty contests, but damn was that flying V bass an ugly monstrosity...still, i looked forward to it's 1-2 song cameo every gig they played.

i started to think about what other bands would be considered similar to the TFU, so i looked @ allmusic and pandora. allmusic suggested these (my comments in ()):

* Trumans Water (spazz rock in it's own right)
* Pavement (don't really hear it)
* Mercury Rev (er, no)
* The Flaming Lips (not even close)
* Libraness (polvo off-shoot?)
* Ash Bowie (polvo main guy; why not just list Polvo? i can see that a bit)

at this point, Pandora doesn't have a clue...1st song they chose was from Don F'in Dokken. next was a pop gem (Star Sign) from Teenage Fanclub...er, nice song, but not even close to the Fellers. next was "leave it alone" by Moist...never heard of this band. this sucks. another swing and miss. haha, Pandora gave up by the 4th song and played a Fellers song ("Socket"). i guess Pandora was stumped.