super furry animals

i got into this band a little bit back in the audiogalaxy days when i found "wherever i lay my phone that's my home"

i had heard "papa was a rollin' stone" and the lyric "wherever he lays his hat, that's his home" and so investigated

it turns out this super furry animals tune is actually a parody of an earlier song of the latter name by marvin gaye

it was a live version, and i actually prefer it over the album version because the vocals aren't so fuxx0red all to hell!

since then i have kinda gave this band the cold shoulder; i wonder if anyone would care to restimulate my interest?

they were really well-reviewed for the first few albums plus they're welsh, and anything welsh is automatically good

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHFoecIvcZA

predates & arguably could've influenced radical connector-era mouse on mars, wondering if anyone here likes them?

i dig on the album Fuzzy Logic

everything they've done is good. they have as much in common with Weezer as they do The Flaming Lips or The Chemical Brothers.

Rings Around the World is my favorite of theirs. Their post-Rings Around the World work is not as good in my opinion, but I have listened to every of those albums many times as well.

Their lead singer has made several good solo albums, all probably worth checking out if you come to digest their main work.

Their lead singer did a 'group' project with ... Boom Bip I think from Anticon.. called Neon Neon. It's very good.

Their weird electronic stuff fits best in the context of their albums, which are more pop/'electronica' oriented.

Their singles and EPs may be of interest. For example:

check out Mwng

I've given them cold shoulders a lot of times when getting bored, usually I come back for the genius/perfect songs like

love this band so much!

just listening to this mix i made a while back of my favorite songs of theirs. i could make another few mixes, most likely. their sound is so unique and enjoyable. i love when they get far out and deep, which is more often than i remembered at first.

i was semi-obsessed with sfa from radiator to rings around the world, where i think they went a bit soft and settled into a pattern of beach boys retreads on subsequent albums. radiator and guerilla (and some of their singles and eps) were so creative, i'm still a bit stumped as to what happened.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpXXwN4NZA8

their new albums do usually contain one or two gems, as do gruff rhys' solo work, or collabs (such as neon neon).

gruff's brilliant with the english language (welsh is his first).

I'm actually really digging Love Kraft right now. It's a great record, especially in retrospect. It's simply some very enjoyable music with a lot of creativity and wild touches that you might not notice at first.

I loved Rings Around the World but it was at a time when I was a NIN-listening angry-at-the-world-for-no-reason teenager.... so they clashed... and I put SFA to the side

. maybe I should give them another listen

yesyes good call.

love SFA, I still get well nostalgic wen i hear rings around the world - reminds me of the summer that it came out.

some great really mellow stuff on there, like fragile happiness, miniature and run christian run!

but also love the uber-mental tech/breakcore sounding bit at the end of receptacle for the respectable. when i first heard that it was before I was into a lot of that style music really.

if you want to get a vinyl copy of RATW you have to pay a lot these days. I remember i looked a little while ago out of interest and the double 12" goes for around 60-70. (possibly more now)! would be nice to own though.

violently addicted to this band. no joke, it's severe.

  On 7/20/2011 at 4:31 PM, vamos scorcho said:

violently addicted to this band. no joke, it's severe.

Hoping to see Gruff Rhys at Truck this weekend

radiator

i was english born but french bred

  On 7/20/2011 at 8:50 PM, Benedict Cumberbatch said:

radiator

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

i was english born but french bred

yes! i too love this band, and gruff's lyrics always amaze me with their cleverness. so many examples of lyrics i love,

  Quote

we'll go to miami,

take old friends and family,

we'll stay out and party,

does will smith lie?

does he ever cave in and cry?

i saw them live in pittsburgh PA for the rings around the world tour and they blew me away. some friends and i hung around after the show and got to hang out with the band while they spun some records backstage!! got a tour poster signed by the band in a frame on my wall.

i agree with other people in this thread about the album progressions. i wouldnt be able to live without guerrilla, radiator, rings around the world, and phantom power. some of my favorites:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIgKIl9ULz4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_UuiyY3wn8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xam7wHwxcR4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsDJcbyw_4g

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_mwctoW7t8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05w0g0dV3U0

so many more!!!

Was a big fan of SFA a few years ago, but don't seem to listen as much these days. I thought they lost it with Phantom Power, but Dark Days / Light Years was a great album and much like their own selves. Gruff's solo albums have got better and better each time as well, Hotel Shampoo is really good. But I'd avoid the Tony Da Gatorra collab, which is fucking dreadful. Not checked out any of the others' solo stuff but if I remember right there is a bit.

I've no idea if/when they'll be playing live again but anyone interested in SFA has to see them, fucking great live band.

This single and video ftw:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtLh7VdhKmk

  On 7/13/2011 at 2:11 PM, mudguts said:

if you want to get a vinyl copy of RATW you have to pay a lot these days. I remember i looked a little while ago out of interest and the double 12" goes for around 60-70. (possibly more now)! would be nice to own though.

Gutted not picking that up when it came out. I remember dithering over it in HMV (of all places) but just stuck with the CD.

Forgot to mention that Mwng is a really underrated album of theirs, don't be put off by the fact that it's sung entirely in Welsh

One thing I love about super furry animals is their lyrics, they're often quite clever and meaningful, while also being silly which is a tough balance.

I also love the amount of "nonsense words" that they use, like "la la la"s and "do do do"s .  I got bored at work and decided to go through all of their albums (including b-sides) and counted these words for fun (main vocals only, I didn't count these in backing vocals)  

the most dense track is the Guerrilla b-side "colorblind" with 180 "la"s and 4 "sha"s.  I didn't even bother to count the "beep beep boop boop..." scat in the middle of that track either.  Mario Man and Gypsy Space Muffin are close behind, both with 180 "do"s, while Cardiff in the Sun and Valet Parking both have 176 of "la"s "sha"s and "ba"s.  all 30 "bum"s are from nO.K.

across albums they hold steady around 18 - 20 nonsense words per track except for a dip on Mwng and an unexplained dip on Radiator, with a surge on Love Kraft and Dark Days / Light Years:

they're a national institution, Demons is always F8, if you want some Cymraeg allusions these are worth a rummage:

https://www.discogs.com/artist/80397-Gorkys-Zygotic-Mynci?sort=year%2Casc&limit=500&page=1

https://www.discogs.com/artist/398133-Datblygu

https://www.discogs.com/artist/86936-Man

Dave Charles of Help Yourself was the in-house engineer @ Rockfield for decades

https://www.discogs.com/artist/584491-Help-Yourself

https://www.discogs.com/artist/261150-Dave-Charles

plus two Gruff-led documentaries:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1505405/

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2778266/

i went to a jason lytle (grandaddy) solo gig in pentyrch earlier this year and ended up sitting next to gruff rhys 

that's my input to this thread