Hot Dogs

"I'm taking the advice of Theodore Roosevelt: speak softly and carry a beagle"

Miss Sally Brown (sister of Charlie Brown), Peanuts, 1974

Who let the dogs out? Who? Who? Centrelinked that's who, as we paid tribute to canine companions in song. There are more songs about dogs than things that our dog will eat (he'll eat anything) so we only dipped our paw in the water bowl of pooch paeans, but they were all good boys rather than bad dogs. These were the numbers that set tails a-wagging...

- I Wanna Be Your Dog - The Stooges

- I Want a Dog - Pet Shop Boys

- Walking the Dog - the Rolling Stones

- Hey Bulldog - the Beatles

- Golden Retriever - Super Furry Animals

- Poodle Rockin' - Gorkys Zygotic Mynci

- Hound Dog - Betty Everett

- Dog Eat Dog - Adam and the Ants

- Do the Dog - the Specials

- Dogs are the Best People - the Fauves

- Black Eyed Dog - Nick Drake

- Dogwood Blossom - Fionn Regan

We hosted to our very first studio invasion as Max, an 11 year old Jack Russell terrier came into the studio with his owner Colin who happened to be listening nearby. Time devoted to Max meant we didn't get to play any Snoop Dogg or any of these splendid numbers:

- Can Your Pussy do the Dog - the Cramps

- Jenny and the Ess-Dog - Stephen Malkmus

- Dog's Got a Bone - the Beta Band

- Black Dog - Led Zeppelin

- Essex Dogs - Blur

- Dogs are Everywhere - Pulp

- Diamond Dogs - David Bowie

- Dog Without  Wings - Kathryn Williams

- Black Dog on My Shoulder - Manic Street Preachers

A special mention for the backing music this week which came courtesy of Cat Stevens (oh, the irony) and his ridiculously ahead of its time 1977 electronic number Was Dog a Doughnut?  Yes, it really is Cat Stevens. 

And finally big thanks to @oilyshoes for suggesting Pink Floyd's Seamus and to @hevidutihamma for suggestions of Florence and the Machine's Dog Days are Over and 2Pac's Wonder Why They Call U Bitch which clearly would have been too potty mouthed for Centrelinked but hey, the kids are the kids...

Centrelinked is on your wireless at 98.9 North West FM every Saturday morning here in Melbourne. Listen from wherever you are by visiting www.northwestfm.org or listen on Tune In (www.TuneIn.com).

Remember you can play along during the week on Tw*tter via @mintcustard or #centrelinked or add your comments after each show below. Tata. 

A Fully Trained Actor Reduced to the Status of a Bum

Oh actors, poor loves. They just don’t get enough attention do they? Centrelinked decided to do something about it in Oscar’s week by celebrating anyone who has been name checked in song. There’s more than you think – and that’s just James Dean songs. Names of actors in brackets if not in the title.

What Got Played
• 20th Century Fox Fanfare – London Symphony Orchestra
• Robert de Niro’s Waiting – Bananarama
• Clint Eastwood – Gorillaz
• Jo Jo's Jacket - Steve Malkmus and the Jicks (Yul Brynner)
• Lenny Valentino – the Auteurs (Rudolph Valentino - possibly)
• Scream - The Stuntcar Drivers (Neve Campbell)
• Rattlesnakes – Lloyd Cole and the Commotions (Eve Marie Saint)
• John Wayne is Big Leggy – Hayze Fantayze
• Look at me (I’m Sandra Dee) – Stockard Channing (Sandra Dee, Doris Day, Rock Hudson, Troy Donahue, Elvis)
• The Unknown Stuntman – Lee Majors (too many to mention)
• Purple Underwear (Michael Caine from Get Carter)
• Michael Caine – Madness
• Mohammed Ali and all his friends – the Lovely Eggs (Kirstie Ally)
• Raquel – Neon Neon (Raquel Welch)
• Bruce Lee – Underworld
• Lee Remick – the Go-Betweens
• Fanny Ardant et Moi – Vincent Delerme
• Initials BB – Serge Gainsbourg (Brigitte Bardot)
• Tom Courtney - Yo La Tengo
• Julie Christie - Stephen Duffy
• Grace Kelly Blues – Eels
• Like Dylan in the Movies - Belle and Sebastian (Bob Dylan)
• Marlon JD – Manic Street Preachers (Marlon Brando)
• (He’ll Never Be) An Ol’ Man River – TISM (River Phoenix)

Ran Out of Time (or usurped)
• Tom Baker – Human League (Tom Baker of Dr Who fame)
• Just like Fred Astaire – James
• Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge On Seattle – Nirvana
• Butterfly McQueen – The Boo Radleys
• I helped Patrick McGoohan Escape - the Times
• I Hate Nerys Hughes – Half Man Half Biscuit
• Kylie's got a Crush on Us – Teenage Fanclub (Kylie Minogue)
• Zombie Zoo – Tom Petty (Boris Karloff)
• Shoot Doris Day – Super Furry Animals
• Michael Douglas - Neon Neon
• The Right Profile – the Clash (Montgomery Clift – post accident)
• Sean Penn Blues – Lloyd Cole and the Commotions
• Clark Gable – The Postal Service
• Celluloid Heroes - The Kinks (Greta Garbo, Rudolph Valentino, Bela Lugosi, Bette Davis, Marilyn Monroe, George Sanders and Mickey Rooney)

Suggestions and Requests
• Bela Lugosi’s Dead – Bauhaus or Nouvelle Vague
• Lee Remick – Hefner
• You Jane – Stephen Cummings (Kris Kristopherson and Genevieve Bujold)
• Frank Sinatra – Cake
• Hackensack – Fountains of Wayne (Christopher Walken)
• Whatever Happened to Corey Haim? – The Thrills
• Winona - Matthew Sweet
• Candle in the Wind and Roy Rogers - Elton John
• Grace Kelly – Mika
• Marlene on the Wall – Suzanne Vega (Marlene Dietrich)
• Halle Berry (She's Fine) - Hurricane Chris
• Bill Murray – Gorillaz
• Crispin Glover - Starling
• Denzel Washington – Charmillionaire
• David Duchovny – Bree
• Kurt Russell – Ultrasound
• Rosanna – Toto (Rosanna Arquette)
• Cary Grant’s Wedding – The Fall
• Shelley Winters - Charles Jenkins and the Zhivagos
• 2 HB – Roxy Music (Humphrey Bogart)
• Keanuville - Rain Perry (Keanu Reeves)
• Madonna, Sean and Me – Sonic Youth (Sean Penn)
• I Want to Do it With Madonna – The Androids
• Bette Davis Eyes – Kim Carnes or Gwyneth Paltrow
• Kung Fu – Ash (Jackie Chan)
• Steve McQueen - Drive by Truckers
• Where Do You Go To MY Lovely - Peter Starstedt (Marlene Dietrich)

James Dean Tribute list
Many thanks to Peta for a glut of James Dean related songs including: James Dean by the Eagles, Movie Star by Harpo, Rock On by David Essex. Jimmy Dean also cops a mention in Billy Joel’s We Didn’t Start the Fire, Vogue by Madonna, Blue Jeans by Lana del Ray and is the subject of Suede’s Daddy’s Speeding from Dog Man Star… pretty fly for a dead guy.

This week, we’re celebrating International Women’s Day with all-lady bands.

All women mind, no token blokes (I’m looking at you Elastica…)

Centrelinked is on your wireless or streaming live on 98.9 North West FM (http://www.northwestfm.org/) Saturday mornings at 10.30 Melbourne time.

Crap Band Photography Part 4

Day 4 of the world's worst photography exhibition is a squint-and-you-see-it tribute to some of the icons of indie who have visited these shores in the past couple of years.

First up are Pavement, the Pitchfork generation's equivalent of Pavlov's bell - a band guaranteed to leave the checky shirted hoardes salivating. All I remember from this gig at the Palace in Melbourne was having a sore back and thinking I'd rather be lying down, a point reflected by the artistry employed in this picture.

Part of my really likes this picture but I think it's the part that remembers what I could see with my eyes rather than what the camera was able to capture. For the record this is Stereolab's Laeticia Sadier playing a tambourine in profile at the Billboard in Melbourne (flutter flutter).

An embarrasingly crap photo of one of those gigs: Underground Lovers magnificently reunited at the East Brunswick Club. Review here proves gig was better than picture suggests

The (ahem) Modfather, Paul Weller shows his appreciation with a whistle at the Enmore in Sydney. Note enormous hand in foreground that looks like one of those sponge ones you get at the cricket.

Sweden's Peter, Bjorn and John charm the pants of everybody at the Metro Theatre in Sydney. I promise it is them and not just some mates on a dark school stage.

And to wrap up for today, a rather uninspired picture of the world's most inspiring band - Super Furry Animals. For the record there were many magnificent photo opportunities throughout this gig, not least a space helmetted Gruff Rhys singing Slow Life into a vocoder. Sadly those pictures were so bad they didn't even make it past the bus ride home.

Please come back tomorrow for our final day of bad photography, in which we pay tribute to pop star theatricality and drool a little bit about Roisin Murphy.

Rhys's Pieces

In this hung-parliament world of uncertainty and doubt, it’s nice to know that there are some things you can rely on to get you through another day. For me it’s knowing that Gruff Rhys – the world’s favourite softly spoken, curly-locked Welsh gentleman genius – has a new single out. It is, naturally, fricken awesome and even better it can be yours for free. Simply head off to gruffrhys.com (cannily renamed recently as The Gruffington Post), leave an email address and soon your ears will be swimming in Gruff’s delightful Shark Ridden Waters.

The track is taken from his upcoming (and as yet unnamed) third solo album. It comes at the end of yet another crazy-busy year for Mr Rhys, a man who is starting to make Billy Childish look a bit idle. Lesser folks might still be resting on the rather spectacular laurels of Super Furry Animals’ 2009 epic masterpiece Dark Days/Light Years. Other folks however are not Gruff Rhys who has been involved in a plethora of projects in a year he also marked his 40^th birthday.

After collaborating with Gorillaz on their Plastic Beach album (including the as-yet unreleased Leviathan, described by Gruff as a ‘three o'clock in the morning, speeding down the autobahn evading West German police-type track.’) he teamed up with Tony Da Gatorra, ‘a Brazilian TV and VCR repairman and musical freedom fighter.’ Together they produced The Terror of Cosmic Loneliness, an experimental, mostly live album built around the sound of the gatorra, a homemade drum machine/guitar invented by its namesake. It’s about as far from Gruff’s harmonic style as it’s possible to get so won’t make everyone happy, but it does sound like they’re having a lot of fun. The duo did a few small gigs in the UK this year to promote the album, clips of which you can see on Gruff’s website here...

Gruff met Da Gatorra whilst in South America as part of his other big project for the year, the documentary movie Separado! Described by the blurb as ‘Star Trek meets Buena Vista Social Club in a psychedelic western musical’ the film follows Gruff on ‘a pan continental road trip in search of his long lost Patagonian uncle’.

In an apparently true series of events that sound like the plot of Back to the Future III, a controversial horse race in 1880 led to an unresolved death and a split amongst Gruff’s ancestors, some of whom joined the wave of Welsh expatriates to Patagonia. Gruff undertakes a tour of ‘theatres, nightclubs and desert teahouses of Wales, Brazil and the Argentine Andes as he discovers what became of his family, the Welsh Diaspora and its musical legacy.’ There's unlikely to be an Australian release anytime soon which is a shame as having and watched the trailer with a robot helmeted Guff singing into a vocoder to a crowd of bemused families and scenes of the gatorra in action it looks like it'd be right up my alley.

Whilst we all wait for the DVD, watch the trailer for yourself and find out more about possible cinema screenings in your area at separado.co.uk. For everything else Gruff, including your free copy of his new single, get yourself over to www.gruffrhys.com. Believe me, Shark Ridden Waters is everything you’re hoping it will be. For other reliable (and up to date) Gruff and Super Furry news, remember to check out SFA Goodness (http://sfagoodness.blogspot.com/) or www.superfurry.org. That should be enough to keep you going until the next SFA album which knowing them will probably arrive as a triple album before Christmas. Maybe. Hwyl!

Super! Furry Animals!

I've just spent the past three weeks touring around Victoria with my folks. It was my dad's first time in Australia after years of refusal, so I was quite keen to show him that it is a nice place after all and not just somewhere that steals your children.

I was aided in my quest by the native flora and fauna who decided to come out to play at the right time. Buds flowered, cockatoos squawked and - after ten years of trying - I finally saw a penguin in the wild (see below). The picture isn't great but when you've traipsed fruitlessly around the Australian coastline and done two trips to New Zealand without seeing so much as some fresh penguin poo next to some flipper shaped footprints then you can understand my joy.

However I did start to entertain the possibility that my dad is secretly Ace Ventura three days later whilst driving around Cape Otway where we turned a corner to be treated to the sight of not one but an entire treeful of wild koalas. They were even sitting in the handy low down photo-friendly branches. Now even I've seen a few stoned koalas in Dubbo Zoo but I have to admit there is something quite special about seeing an entire brood happily going about their business in their own backyard.

Anyway, a big thanks to the Australian animal population for putting on a great show for my parents; they very much appreciated it. They'll be back in two or three years so if you can let the kangaroos and platypus know for next time that would be great.

Super Furry Week Day 5: Music

What better way to mark the final day of Super Furry week than to talk about the thing that really matters: the songs.

Super Furry Animals share a shelf in my heart with Pulp as one of the few bands who deserve to be called pop stars. For me they are proper pop stars: intelligent, eclectic, informed, quotable and opinionated. They seem to enjoy the responsibility of putting on a show and reciprocate with films, yeti costumes, space helmets, quadraphonic sound systems, handwritten cue-cards, light shows, mid-set rave sessions, inflatable animals, decorated guitars and tanks. They think like fans and make sure that their releases offer something more for fan’s money than just another way to listen to the music. Most of all, like all the best groups, they are a gang; self reliant and seemingly untainted by success.

I can’t deny I’m a sucker for a noble cause. My record collection is littered with the outputs of artists whose music never quite reached (or in some cases sustained) the level I hoped it would because of everything else associated with the band. I am easily lured in with a great single or two in nice packaging and then sucker-punched by a good quote. Before I know it I’m barracking for chart success for complete strangers.

Take the Manic Street Preachers for example. Most of their pre-Holy Bible output is pretty average. It didn’t matter though because they were so thrilling to behold and theirs was a battle for the hearts and minds of the nation. Similarly I like to spend time eating sandwiches and thinking how marvellous life could have been if Kenickie had released more music that matched their look and genius in front of an interviewer. Liam and Noel gave good quote in their heyday but they were nothing compared to Marie, Emmy-Kate and Lauren. And they had nicer hairclips.

It’s affirming then that the Super Furries’ music reflects everything else that goes on around the band. They’ve also stayed remarkably consistent over their 15 or so years and Dark Days / Light Years contains songs that rank up there with their best. So, with that in mind and by way of presenting yet another list in the guise of a Beginner’s Guide… let me offer my own tuppence-worth on how to buy, borrow or download your way to Furry Heaven.

* * * * * * * *
First Base
Most ‘Best of’ compilations are pretty rum affairs, but the truth is that Super Furry Animals have always released great singles. 2004’s Songbook: The Singles Volume 1 is a not only a great introduction for the uninitiated but for everyone else it’s just a damn good listen. It contains all 21 of their singles since from 1996 – 2004 as well as Blerwytirhwng? from their first EP, the snappily titled Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch (In Space). Every track is wonderful, and well worth having. You should also pick up Show Your Hand from Hey Venus! which came out after Songbook.

Second Helpings
If you’ve listened to the singles and decided that you want more, the idea of checking out nine studio albums can be a daunting prospect. However, if you do want to tread the album route there are a couple of points that work in your favour.

Firstly, there are no genuine duds amongst the Furry albums proper (although I’d posit that Hey Venus! is the least satisfying – Show Your Hand or not). Secondly, the band still believe in the idea of an album proper, to be listened to from start to finish, so you’ll get your money’s worth investing in a long player. You’ll also get beautiful instrumentals like Phantom Power’s Father Father #1 and #2 or (A) Touch Sensitive from Rings Around the World which is like the Get Carter theme redone by the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.

If you don’t want to think about it too much, there is a general consensus that Radiator, Guerrilla and Rings Around the World are the ‘best’ albums. I’d add Love Kraft and Dark Days / Light Years to that list too, but lots of people were quite down on Love Kraft when it came out. I think this is might be because it’s not as eclectic or experimental as others, but if you want blissed-out loved-up harmony-strewn lurve tunes then there’s few better.

However, assuming you’ve got the singles and you can’t afford to buy all the albums here are some choice non-single cuts to consider:

Chupacabras (Radiator): 1 minute 26 seconds of intense homage to fabled South American goat killing vampire monster with immensely singable pigeon-Spanish chorus

Gathering Moss (Fuzzy Logic): Languid Spanish guitars underpin anthem to relationship inertia where we find ‘you and I, united by itemised bills.’

Ohio Heat (Love Kraft): CSNY style-harmonies, pedal steel and more talk of foxes. Gorgeous.

Wherever I Lay My Phone (That's My Home) (Guerilla) Fog horns, chopped up vocals, bicycle bells, rhythms built from ringtones, chipmunk voices and lyrics that boast about City and Guild certificates and mobile phone ownership – one of the key insane pop moments from their everything and the kitchen sink album.

Guacamole (B-side of If You Don’t Want Me to Destroy You) Superbly raucous insomnia-themed mashed avocado madness featuring Gruff’s rockabilly Elvis voice, sadly now retired.

Run Christian Run (Rings Around the World) A fine example of the Furries' ability to apply repetition to any genre to devastating effect. A beautiful melody with lyrics condemning Jimmy Swaggart-types builds to an immense soaring crescendo that could take the roof off a church.

Valet Parking (Phantom Power): disposable but lovely travelling song replete with ba-ba-bah lounge chorus, sound effects and the first instance of Gruff’s off-microphone talking (‘coming up to Berlin I have a minor accident…’)

Download (Radiator) – one of my favourite SFA tracks. Lyrics offering a meditation on life are delivered by two Furries – one in each speaker – against a gentle piano-riff which throbs its way to a teary end. Sublime.

Zoom! (Love Kraft) More slow-building dreaminess, this time with horns and heavenly choirs imploring ‘I can’t get enough of this, kiss me with apoca-lips.’

No Sympathy (Rings Around the World) gentle country guitars and some surprisingly nasty lyrics (‘you deserve to die’) meld into ba-ba-bahs before handing over to Cian for some snapshot drum and bass during which Bunf’s steel guitar and Gruff’s voice are fed to a rampaging robot who shits them out the other side and into a black hole. All the sweeter because it is followed by Juxtaposed With U on the album...

Calimero (B-side of Herman loves Pauline) Possibly a tribute to a Japanese anime chicken, this was a guitar thrashing sing-along live favourite for years.

Receptacle for the Respectable (Rings Around the World) Infamously featuring Paul McCartney on carrot chomping duties this is another song of two halves, this one 50% Coffee and TV chug and 50% ‘pantomime death metal’ according to Gruff.

Arnofio / Glo in the Dark (B-Side of Something for the Weekend) and another… sensing a pattern here? Although recorded much earlier than Receptacle, A/GITD was the song(s) that raised the bar on recording songs that change direction half way through. Half Welsh, lilting, pulsing, gentle and then without any warning the band switch to English (‘hey swimmers, watch for sharks, they’re gonna get you cos you glow in the dark’) and glam rock.

Frequency (Love Kraft): More harmonies that seem to lift you up to the clouds and leave you there. Lyrics seems to suggest incitement to riot. Gently.

Nightvision (Guerilla) The Batman theme re-imagined with a sub-sonic bass at three in the morning whilst under the influence of any number of possible hallucinogens with Gorky’s Peanut Dispenser as a guide.

The Piccolo Snare (Phantom Power) The true work of genius on Phantom Power is Slow Life but the Piccolo Snare is another standout track from an album that is best listened to as a whole. Reflecting the anti-Iraq War sentiments of the time it includes singing in the round, several sets of complex harmonies and a reflective slow funk outro with backwards guitars and chimes.

Mountain People (Radiator): possibly coincidence but this came out at a time when it seemed all bands were trying to come up with epic seven-plus minute I Am the Resurrection-type album (and live show) closers to leave listeners emotionally drained (see also The Private Psychedelic Reel, Champagne Supernova, Come On, Essex Dogs). The ace in the Furries’ hole was Cian who comes across here like a kid who has necked the band’s entire stash of pills and then been let loose on this slow building strum with a 303. The lyrics – ‘they don’t care about you and me, obviously…’ would be thematically revisited a number of times, whilst the idea that the band probably did live in mountain caves sometimes does occasionally still seem plausible.


Outside Interests
The band have always had fingers in other pies, some of their own making and others as guests. Perhaps unsurprisingly Gruff has proved the most recognisable member outside of the band but he has also been the most prolific and had the most success in terms of sales.

Gruff’s dulcet tones have graced a few other artists’ works. He was one of the first voices to appear on a Mogwai LP (2001’s Rock Action) taking the lead on Dial: Revenge and providing backing on 2 Rights Make 1 Wrong. He also featured to notably similar effect on FC Kahuna’s Fear of Guitars (from Machine Says Yes) and Do's and Don'ts on Boom Bip’s Blue Eyed in the Red Room. Boom Bip and Gruff famously got back together in 2008 for Stainless Style, released under the Neon Neon moniker. Click here for my opinion on Stainless Style, safe in the knowledge it hasn’t changed a jot.

As well as his two solo albums (2005’s Welsh language Yr Atal Genhedlaeth and 2007’s predominantly English Candylion), Gruff had a full pre-Furry career with the band Ffa Coffi Pawb (literally ‘everybody’s coffee beans’ but depending on how you say it becomes ‘fuck off everyone.’ A best of (Ffa Coffi Pawb Am Byth) was released in 2004 on the Furries’ Placid Casual label and is well worth checking out, especially Valium which sounds like early SFA.

Ffa Coffi Pawb also featured Daf on drums, which is where you’ll find him for his current extra curricular activities as a member of The Peth. The band notably features actor Rhys Ifans on vocals, but don’t let that put you off. Ifans’ links to Super Furry world include a stint as singer in their pre-fame days and the rambling stoned answer phone message featured on Long Gone from Fuzzy Logic.

The Peth (meaning the Thing) is mostly driven by Daf who wrote many of the songs for their debut album, the Golden Mile and it’s actually pretty great. The vocals and harmonies are not a million miles away from SFA, whilst the music is pitched like a cross between Radiator-era Super Furries and Oasis or (and I mean this as a compliment) the Rutles. You can hear what I mean via their My Space page which also has a couple of clips. (NB: don’t bother typing 'Peth' into Wikipedia. It redirects you to Astrid Peth, Kylie Minogue’s character in Dr Who, which coincidentally is filmed in Cardiff).

Not to be outdone, everyone’s favourite techno-monkey Cian has also released his own music as part of the lo-fi bleepy collective Acid Casuals, working alongside former Big Leaves member Kev Tame. They released their debut album Omni in 2006 and it’s contents would be familiar to anyone who has seen SFA live over the years and heard Cian’s mid-set techno genius. The music is as warm and bleepy as you’d expect, and has a similar aesthetic to the work of Australian lady electronic futurists, Artificial whilst recalling late eighties / early nineties acts like Tricky Disco and LFO. Acid Casuals are due to release more music in 2009 and you can get a taster at myspace.com/acidcasualsmusic.

Yes, Yes, Yes, but you’ve told me nothing I didn’t know already
Oh well, sorry. I tried. I was going to tell you about Zabrinski, a now defunct Welsh band who recorded throughout this decade and who offer an SFA influenced back catalogue which is still fantastic in its own right. 2005's Ill Gotten Game is a great place to start, with Hit the Rez clearly under the influence of Slow Life, but in a very good way. But you probably know that too. Sorry.

And in the end…
So there you go. Super Furry week is over. And it was longer than a regular week, which is nice too. If you still need more, you will find a far larger plethora of Super Furry data updated regularly and lovingly at fan site SuperFurry.org. BBC Wales has also dedicated many pages of the interweb to their favourite band here. You can also find out all things official through SuperFurry.com.

For those who can recall last week, I had hoped to be able to contribute in some small way to Dark Days / Light Years avoiding the fate of its predecessors and plummeting from the charts despite being one of the best albums of the year. The result? A resounding flatline... this week’s UK Album Chart shows no change at all from last week’s number 53 position. But hey, at least I had some fun and didn’t hurt anyone. Thanks to everyone who stayed for the week. Hope you had fun too.

Super Furry Animals am Byth!

The Art of Super Furry world: Monsterism and Beyond

Super Furry Week - Day 4

Part of the appeal of the Super Furry Animals is that listening to their music is like going through a doorway to a parallel world; like an audio equivalent of Time Bandits or Where the Wild Things Are. Their world is our world with our problems, but it’s also a place of hamsters and tennis players and demons and technology gone mad and Frisbees and dogs and modern transport systems and apocalypse and guacamole and people shooting boys with red hair because they think they are foxes. It’s fitting then that this familiar but intangible world has been given life and depth through the artwork of Pete Fowler and his Monsterism universe.

Pete Fowler is the Welsh artist responsible for all the band’s album and single covers from Radiator up to Phantom Power. His vision and art forms a link between all their releases which makes all Furry work - however diverse and experimental - seem connected to some bigger and deliberate picture. In the same way as The League of Gentlemen’s macabre misfits are linked by their residence in the streets of Royston Vasey, so the people of Super Furry world are joined by Monsterism.

His work for the Super Furries has two distinct styles; the bright pop-art style characters, monsters and vampires of the Radiator era and the 3D clay models first used for Guerrilla and revisited for Love Kraft. Songbook and Phantom Power saw a return to drawings, but these were shaded and darker takes on the clay model work, with wood carving themes thrown in to Phantom and singles for good measure. You can hear Gruff and Pete shedding some light on their working relationship in this article from last month’s Independent.

Monsterism has a vibrant life outside of the Super Furries universe. As well as art prints and collectable vinyl figurines, Fowler has produced a number of cartoon strips for Vice magazine in the UK. Most of them are available to download for free on the Monsterism website. These have now been developed into a flash animation which is reportedly set to be turned into a children’s television series. I say reportedly because I couldn’t get the links to work on the website to find out where this is up to.

In anticipation of the TV series Fowler has come full circle and has just released the second in a series of Monsterism compilations. A Psychedelic Guide to Monsterism Island is a collection of mostly instrumental and songs by lesser known artists that, in the words of Garry Mulholland ‘feels like an underground, lo-fi British version of an old Walt Disney soundtrack.’ Perhaps unsurprisingly it features Gruff Rhys on a tracked called Wild Robots Power Up, although he rivalled in the fame stakes by an appearance from Jerry Dammers of the Specials.

The album follows 2005’s well received The Sound of Monsterism Island Vol 1 which is a compilation in the vein of The Trip, featuring lots of unearthed treasures from the sixties. Copies are hard to come by, so you’ll have to look hard, but I’m sure there must be some out there still.

Pete Fowler is still very much involved with the Super Furries – the artwork for Dark Days / Light Years is a collaboration he did with Japanese artist Keiichi Tanaami who also did the cover art for Hey Venus! and its singles. The relationship between a band and their artwork is often underplayed, but for fans it can be part of the experience and create and maintain a sense of community. The bonus with Fowler and SFA is that in their community we are all welcome because everyone and no-one is too weird.

Super Furry Interview Part 2

Welcome to day 3 of Super Furry week on Mint Custard and I’m afraid we start off with some bad news. I’ve just looked up the UK album chart to see how Dark Days / Light Years is faring, and still can’t quite believe my eyes. The album has dropped 35 places to number 58 and now sits 3 places below (I kid you not) the Greatest Hits of Ultravox. I know the album has been out in digital formats for a few weeks, but Ultravox have been around for 30 years and the best thing they ever did was inspire Vic Reeves to do a brilliant cover of Vienna. And I bet that’s not even on the album.

Anyway, I’ll sit here King Canute style and hope that the tides of popular culture can turn around and at least recognise that our Super Furry friends at least deserve more recognition than the ill advisedly side-burned Midge Ure…

Second part of my interview with Gutto, Gruff and Cian

MC: The vocal sample on Hello Sunshine by Wendy and Bonnie really stands out cos I don’t think you’ve had other vocalists on your albums before. Is there anyone else that you’d like to get on there? Does everyone just turn you down?
Gruff: There’s a girl called Rachel from Cardiff and she sang on a few songs
Cian: The first female vocal on a Furry record
Gruff: Wendy Flowers sang with us on stage in San Francisco and she sang it as a duet. She’s in her 50s now. Amazing. Perfect pitch.
MC: Is the Bobby Brown story true? (that they asked him to sing on Juxtaposed with U, a single from 2001)
Gruff: Yeah. We asked your man from East 17, Brian Harvey, but he turned us down.
MC: And the Bobby Brown thing?
Gruff: We couldn’t get through to him even. He’s on a different planet.
MC: Has he still got that triangular hair?
Gruff: Last time I saw him he was all shaved off. He was in Israel with Whitney, getting baptised again.
MC: I can see Super Furries hanging around with Bobby and Whitney. Isn’t Whitney a big smoker?
Gutto: Yeah, a big bong-head.
Gruff: Bobby’s more of a bucket man. Whitney’s into the bong.
Gutto: That’s why they’re always fighting.
MC: You’d think it would calm them down
Gutto: Some people it goes the other way and they go mental.


MC: You’ve done a new DVD for Phantom Power after the one you did for Rings Around the World which was well received. What have you done differently this time?
Gutto: The main difference between Rings and Phantom Power is the fact that you can do a surround sound mix on the computer at home instead of going into a two grand film studio which is horribly overpriced. But it’s good that the Rings technology has gone into people’s houses and it’s always cool when that happens. It just makes it cheaper…
Cian: …and more accessible to people and not just a thing for multimillion selling bands.
MC: Some of the videos to Rings Around the World were very powerful. I remember seeing you play Run Christian Run at a festival in Dublin and the whole crowd were ignoring the band on stage and just listening to the music. Is that what you wanted to happen?
Cian: Well, the DVD we primarily started because we wanted to do surround sound. The visuals side came afterwards and on Rings some people were saying it can be distracting – watching more than listening, so on Phantom Power, because you can have multiple streams of visuals on the DVD, people have got something to look at but it doesn’t take away from the music. Hopefully people will listen more than they would have in the past.


MC: I read a quote from you Gruff from 2001 where you said “I think in Welsh and have to translate my thoughts into English.”
Gruff: You see I never said that. It really pisses me off. I dunno who the fuck says that. It really fucks me off.
MC: And you’re held accountable.
Gruff: Yeah, and everything I read on us, people [comment on it] but you know, I’m just as slow in Welsh as I am in English. I’m just fucking slow! But, you know, if I couldn’t speak English I wouldn’t have bothered recording six albums or so in English. It’s a sound-bite made by some journalist at some point that been perpetuated by people who like writing. I dunno why.
MC: Is it frustrating that people pick up on that all the time?
Gruff: A bit. I think people over romanticise a little. So it’s a bit strange.
MC: So when you’re writing songs how do you decide which ones are going to be Welsh and which ones are going to be English? Is it just that the lyrics sound better in Welsh?
Gruff: Occasionally a lyric is driven by a lyric. Like here, we’ve got some sugar sachets which is called “Coffee with Passion.”
Cian: Amore!
Gruff: So you’ll get some words into your head and it’ll turn into a melody so ‘coffee with passion’ is (sings) 'coffee with passion' and the next thing, it’s a song. Sometimes it’s based on a Welsh phrase and it sounds really good and you don’t wanna change it or translate it. Sometimes a lyric will lead to songs and sometimes a melody will come first and you can decide which language you want, but sometimes the language dictates the song. We don’t like to mess around with it too much.


MC: Would a radio station like this have been good for you guys when you starting up?
Gruff: Totally. In Cardiff you mean? There’s nothing like this is Cardiff.
Cian: They’re few and far between in the whole of the UK
MC: There’s not much community radio in the UK is there?
Gutto: No. You get pirate radio shows in the major cities, but not in Cardiff.
MC: Super Furry radio?
Gruff: Shit yeah! We were gonna broadcast on tour. We were gonna get a transmitter on the bus. But we forgot. We were meant to do that about three years ago but we forgot everything about it. Dunno what happened. Maybe it clashed with the police frequencies or something.


MC: Are you looking forward to playing Australia again?
Gruff: Yeah, definitely. It’s weird not being here for 4 ½ years. I don’t know if anyone has heard what we’ve done in the meantime.
MC: They have, definitely.
Gruff: It’s pretty incredible to come literally to the other side of the world and people know your songs.
MC: In the past you’ve had smoking volcanoes, you had a great visor Gruff, yeti costumes, quadraphonic sound, the infamous blue rave tank which you sold to Don Henley from the Eagles and also Acoustic Bingo. Is there anything that you’ve wanted to do that’s been too expensive to do?
Gruff: Aircraft carrier we’re still working on… Nightclub…
Gutto: Lasers. We asked for lasers but they said that you’ve got to have a plumber. I think it was just the crew lying.
MC: Surely you can get what you want now can’t you?
Gruff: We’ve bankrupted so many record labels. We bankrupted Creation, Fly Daddy, Ankst, S Records, Placid Casual. Sony we’re on the verge of bankrupting after the Rings around the World budget.
MC: Money well spent though…
Gruff: Fucking brilliant, aye!


MC: Cheers guys – we’ve been taking to Gruff…
Gruff: … that’s me…
MC: Gutto
Gutto: hello that’s me! Thanks!
MC: and Cian
Cian: Bonza
MC: … from Super Furry Animals. Thanks very much guys, cheers.

Super Furry Interview Part 1

Day 2 of Super Furry week on Mint Custard and as promised here is the first part of an interview I did in 2003 for the launch of Phantom Power.

The band were in Sydney for a gig and Guto, Gruff and Cian came to promote the album at a community radio station where I was a volunteer. I was excited about being given the job but also a bit scared because at this point I'd only ever interviewed Turin Brakes, which as you can probably appreciate wasn't quite on the same scale. There's also that big thing about never meet your heroes, but it turned out to be fine as they were genuinely nice guys. Considering the fact that they had probably already answered similar questions for days they were very chatty, though they were more animated about sport than having to talk about their album again...

We ended up in the beer garden of the pub around the corner, so picture if you will picnic tables, sunshine and scavenging birds leaping about the place, one of which which will play a part in our story.

Gruff: Australia’s sponsored to fuck isn’t it? The product placement… it’s insane.
MC: What things have you seen that make you feel like that?
Gruff: Kitchen knives. You know, they go to the adverts in the cookery section of a program and it’s “Woah, check out these knives by so-and-so company. Don’t they glide through the strawberry?”
MC: I remember my first rugby league game in Australia and each try was brought to you by Beazer Homes or something. I guess the rugby is on everybody’s minds right now, did you watch any of the rugby while you were travelling around?
Gruff: Just the final.
Cian: We’re not big rugby fans, contrary to popular myth about Welsh pride. It’s a butt sniffing game
MC: Wales did you proud though – even though you don’t care
Cian: Well, I care but I’m not a fan.
Gutto: We’re Welsh football fans. We’ve had more important things to think about (Wales have just narrowly lost in the playoffs for the European Championships). We’re a nation of three million playing against Russia and it’s 1-0 over two games
Gruff: I’m glad they’ve missed out cos we’d have all been seriously depressed (watching Wales lose in the tournament)
MC: What do you think the Welsh fans would have brought to the European Championships?
Gruff: A sense of the unbelievable.
Cian: I think if we’d actually made it the Welsh fans would have been thinking ‘this could be the only tournament we’re ever gonna go to’ and that would have made it special.
MC: Are you fans of Sparky (Mark Hughes, then-Wales manager and now with Manchester City)?
Cian: Yeah of course. The guys just an absolute solid, steady minded guy
Gutto: Cos when he took over they were on the verge of being the worst Welsh team in history. Something like 11 defeats in a row, but the backbone of the team is the same as it was then so he’s turned it around.
MC: I’d be happy to support them more but Craig Bellamy plays for Newcastle United and as a Sunderland fan it sticks in my craw…
Gruff: Aye, I understand. But he was out in the States having an operation on his knee unfortunately so he didn’t make the playoffs. But Sparky is also one of the only existentialist managers in football at the moment. He’s a big fan of Camus… which is unusual for a football manager.
MC: Wasn’t Camus a goalkeeper?
Gruff: Exactly. So he’s found an intellectual tradition in football
MC: So you think that’s they key to their recent success?
Gruff: And their loss… and the pain…

MC: I guess we should talk about your new album, Phantom Power
All: Oh yeah, aye…
MC: Super Furry Animals have always been a politicised band if not overtly political. How do you feel about people picking up so much on the politics on Phantom Power? Is it all George Bush’s fault?
Gruff: I dunno. It was recorded over a very strange time where we were confronted by images of war anyway you turned and a war that was being fought in our name as British citizens, which is highly embarrassing. We travel the world on British passports and we have a Prime Minister who’s making completely illogical decisions… it’s completely insane and he’s dragging millions of people down with him to some gutter level that’s dictated by oil companies and it’s just really depressing. It ended up affecting the whole mood of the album and the lyrics.
MC: It’s still quite an uplifting experience listening to Phantom Power though. Do you hear that when you listen back to it?
Gutto: Yeah, you know we sing sometimes about dark subjects but I don’t think we’re a dark band. It’s not depressing. It’s better to shout about it than go all quite and be miserable.
Gruff: It’s balanced out by songs about dogs and tennis players and road trips…
MC: We played Golden Retriever on our show the other day alongside Poodle Rocking by Gorky’s.
Gutto: Excellent – well you know there’s a big dog movement going on at the moment.
MC: Worldwide?
Gutto: It’s just a Welsh thing
Gruff: Snoop Dogg in America as well, he’s representing ‘Dog Rock’ in the States. And Nate Dogg. Erm, I could go on. Elvis? With Old Shep…
MC: Hound Dog?
Gruff: Fucking hell yeah – he was big on dogs wasn’t he?

MC: You worked with Mario Caldato, Beastie Boys producer. How did that come about and what did he bring to the album?
Gruff: He mixed the album. We started recording with Gorwel Owen who’s produced a lot of our albums, doing live tracks with him, but he wanted to spend some time off at home in his garden with his wife, but he was willing to give us two weeks. So we recorded some live stuff at Rockfield Studios (in Wales) where Black Sabbath and Queen and Hawkwind used to record as well as Stones Roses and people like that. Then we took all the tapes back to Cardiff and did a lot of work in our own time on a computer. We stuck all these organic sounding songs into a computer and then a guy called Tony Doucan came along to finish it off.
MC: Did Mario bring any hip hop influences do you think?
Gruff: Well, I’m well into his records by Money Mark, you know? He deals in song writing like we do but also electronics and he just brings an interesting texture to the songs and he doesn’t clean it up too much. He makes it powerful and it’s really interesting to see him work. He’s very friendly with effects, dub effects, and we didn’t really want him to add beats - just keep the texture and the warmth and not polish it too much.
MC: Cian, you’re the techno wiz of Super Furry Animals, was it interesting for you working with Mario?
Cian: Everyone in the band, when they’re in the studio, no-one has a set job as such… FUCKING HELL!
MC: Cian’s just been attacked by a giant lizard… oh it’s a bird…
Cian: ARRRRRGGGH! Sorry, erm, everyone in the band has erm… I’ve forgotten the question…
Gruff: We had everything in the computer and we avoided tape so it was interesting working with him in terms of … you know… we … erm… (Gruff loses the plot completely and it all tails off…)


More in Part 2 tomorrow: in which we hear about Bobby Brown, deciding whether to sing in Welsh or English, how to bankrupt a record company and Super Furry aircraft carriers

Super Furries Am Byth!

Helo pawb. Croeso i wythnos Super Furry Animals ymlaen Bathdy Cwstard (that’s meant to be ‘Hello everyone, and welcome to Super Furry Animals week on Mint Custard’ – but probably isn’t even close…)

Rejoice, for the Super Furry Animals have a new album out. After listening to the magnificent Dark Days / Light Years all weekend I had intended to write a review, and share my tuppence worth on why people should go buy.

But then I got to thinking there is an inevitability that yet another gem by one the world’s most creative, consistent and generally fantastic groups will again receive glowing reviews, make lots of fans excited and happy and then disappear from public view until December where it will appear at #8 in every list of Albums of the Year. At this point list-makers will once again bemoan that the Super Furries should be the biggest band on the world, people don’t deserve them and they don’t get the sales or attention they should.

If I may engage in football parlance, I have learnt through painful experience that teams that sit deep in defence don’t score many goals. I’ve therefore decided to go on the offensive, employing an attacking Furry formation with a view that scoring lots of goals early on will give the boys confidence as the campaign wears on, and lead them to greater glory. Or something like that…

Therefore I am celebrating the Australian launch of Dark Days / Light Years by dedicating this small corner of the interweb to all things SFA for the whole week. Please don't expect any partiality or logic (unless it is of the fuzziest nature). I ask Furry fans and non-Furry fans of the world to join us in celebrating the simple fact that the Super Furry Animals exist. And to forgive my terrible forays into the Welsh language…

Dark Days / Light Years: the scores on the doors

In the absence of my own review of Dark Days / Light Years (in summary: it’s all quite wonderful, apart from Crazy Naked Girls which is a bit too Spinal Tap doing Led Zeppelin for me and let’s people get away with dismissing SFA as stoner kids) the best summing up I’ve seen was in this Pitchfork review which gave a score of 8.3 out of 10 but said why quite nicely.

The normally effusive Guardian gave a couple of cursory reviews but still gave 4/5 in one and said it might just be their best record in a decade in the other. NME gave it 8 out of10 but did that ‘Best Album since Rings Around the World’ type review which just shows that people didn’t listen properly to Love Kraft.

BBC Music doesn’t give scores but said it was a ‘fantastic set that’s all brain-filler and no buzz-killer.’ A few reviews have picked out that this is a proper old-fashioned album, meant to be listened to from start to finish, with the Quietus noting that the songs are ‘sequenced with the deftness of a DJ set.

Tiny Mix Tapes is less convinced, thinking that some of the songs are excessively long, a view shared by Culture Deluxe. I honestly disagree; the longer tracks are more about building a mood or groove than just being long for the sake of it. Tiny Mix Tapes also repeats the bizarre (but reasonably common from reviews I've seen of older SFA albums) opinion that this would be an excellent album by anyone else but the Super Furries who should know/do better. Surely a great album is a great album. Would you listen to it any less because your expectations were higher?

Anyway, back to the Furry-friendly: Popmatters keep the average up with 8 out of 10, as does Coke Machine Glow with a 77%, sharing my review problem by admitting ‘at the risk of sounding redundant, this being Super Furry Animals, there just isn’t that much to dislike.’

So there you go; the people they say YES! If you’ve done a review and would like to post a link or just know of a good one then please drop me an email or leave a comment and we’ll spread the good word together.

Tune in tomorrow for Part 1 of an interview I did with Guto, Cian and Gruff in 2004 and other Furry goodness.

Super

Super Furry Animals are mint. They have always been mint; they will always be mint. Planets aligned and I was lucky enough to get to see them on a random Tuesday night in October when they played Newcastle-upon-Tyne's Carling Academy. What I couldn't get my head around was the size of the crowd - smaller than at any gig I've ever seen them. The whole of the top floor was closed. The following week the Pigeon Detectives played and sold the place out. No offence, Detectives (I'm sure you're lovely people, nice to your mums etc and please, enjoy your star whilst it shines) but it makes no sense to me. SFA were delightful, fantastic and played a blinder. The small crowd were highly enthusistic and everyone sang along to every song - especially Show Your Hand which had only just come out. Love them and cherish them or they might go away. And no one wants that.