Savage Furs: Throne of Satyricon

Savage Furs Thrones of Young Ice

Savage Furs Satyricon

Former Vancouver resident Jack Duckworth (A Luna Red, Radio Berlin) continues to pursue his idiosyncratic musical vision, this time across the Atlantic in his adopted home of London. Consistently one of the most talented musicians I've had the pleasure of knowing, Jack in this latest post-punk exploration by collaborator Delaney Jae (Silicon Vultures, Crystal Wrists), as they cut a swath through all of the clueless revivalist landscape with a sound that's equal turns sinister and endearing.

Buried beneath the crushing slabs of post-industrial production and over-driven paranoia are some actual pop chops - vocal melodies and hooks that you might find in the Human League or on Simple Minds' Reel to Real Cacophony... While these are only demo tracks, I'm glad to say that Savage Furs are a continuation of Mr. Duckworth's stellar discography (well into its second decade now), and also an interesting departure point.

Also, I know there's a fair contingent of readers who'd be interested in this, but Mr. Duckworth has recently been sorting through old records and put up a new mix on his blog, titled Dye Your Hair Black and Absorb All Waves. This encompasses just about everything I was listening to back in those days, Antioch Arrow, Satisfact, 6 Finger Satellite, Brainiac, The VSS, GoGoGo Airheart, The Audience (das?), Ex-Dead Teenager, The Rapture, Trans Am, Glass Candy, and much more. If you don't want to take the time to walk down memory lane, it's worth it for the tags he's assigned to it alone ("Discussions about that die-cast Locust belt buckle, black "highwater" Wrangler trousers") Oh, and the Long Hind Legs song: damn, that's good. (LHL were a side-project of the Unwound guys).

Six Finger Satellite, Live in NY

Six Finger Satellite Live in NYC (Video)

Cockfight
Simian Fever
Parlour Games (MP3)
Where Humans Go
Pulling a Train
Rabies (Baby's Got The)
Massive Coke Seizure
Man Behind the Glasses
Board the Bus

46 shrill & thrilling minutes with Six Finger Satellite in 1995 at the Westbeth Theatre in New York, New York. They were touring in support of Severe Exposure, so most of the selections are primarily from that album (Montreal favourite Rabies (Baby's Got The) appears, for example), as well as Man Behind the Glasses, which only appeared on a 7". Singer J. Ryan plays a Moog keytar and dresses like he's fronting a nightmare prom band. John McLean has a white-belt on and is doing a lot of palm-muting, laying out the blueprint from which the Swing Kids' house was built. I stumbled across it while checking out the Pessimist Club blog, which, naturally, comes highly recommended.

How We Got To Bellavista...

Vue, way back when

Vue Child For You
Bellavista Temptation By Your Side
Tom Verlaine Souvenir From a Dream

Bellavista has a very storied pedigree, and if you're at all curious about the group, it's probably because of that pedigree - which is to say that this band, probably because of the capricious nature o' the music industry, isn't as high-profile as what it grew out of, but Bellavista is certainly worth your attention. I'll try to keep the back-story brief, and not like something you'd read in the pages of Skyscraper magazine if it was still around. (Actually, is it? I didn't check)

The story began with the San Fransisco post-hardcore group Portraits of Past (who tuned all the way down to C!), who were around in the mid 90s, and released a record on Goleta's Ebullition Records, (LP photography by Ottawa's Shawn Scallen!). I loved that record in high school. Although they gradually morphed into the much artier and interesting group, Das Audience, they've since re-formed to tour Japan, release a new album, etc. Like Six Finger Satellite's reunion, I'm finding it hard to get enthusiastic enough to bother listening to the music.

So, Das Audience eventually changed their name to Vue, a glammy garage group who put out an absolutely perfect EP on GSL called Death of A Girl, a couple of Sub Pop albums (the s/t album had a cover of Suicide's Girl on it), and a disappointing EP on RCA. An RCA debut, Down For Whatever, was recorded but never released, probably because sales were disappointing and maybe at that time, the expected rising tide that BRMC started didn't, in fact, lift all boats.

After a three year hiatus, Vue returned under the moniker Bellavista, which is both, in my mind, a return to form as well as a genuine progression. It's not as polished as Vue was for the majority of its existence, which is great, because there was something that the group lost between that amazing, astonishing EP and what Bellavista manage to get right here. It's different than what's come before - atmospheric and muscular guitar-work, surf-heavy drums, a hazy mood... I think that Rex (of all of the above bands) has one of the great voices in rock music today - there's something of Tom Verlaine in it, that's for sure, but he can also push it in a way that I've never heard Verlaine do.

Bellavista Myspace