Monday, February 2, 2009

Formula One - Start The Ball Rolling

(Fierce Panda, 1996)

Back now from San Francisco and its gentle homeless hippyisms, and OH do I have wonderful tales to tell, tales of pegged-jeans green-punk bike-riders, and neighborhood-luvin’ chain-store freezeouts, and inclusive party-time swapmeets filled with DIY craft-stuffs! Nyuk nyuk sneer! Good old other coast: you’re so plucky and cute and different from the frozen, unhappy east, what with your progressive weeklies and pedestrian-friendly roadways! But! This east is my east, beardy, and I’ll stick by it til death (which won’t be long now, griff willing!), so let me get to the totally-unrelated record review thingy at last and, like the greatest NY group once said, proudly SHOUT IT OUT LOUD that Formula One is A SHITTY BAND. Electronic Brit-blurp and thriftstore beats mixed with a poppy fuzz-blues – like a really sugary late-period Spiritualized or, horror, Darkside meets Stereolab – is no winning brainpoop, nor is any bio that includes the “ex-Cornershop” descriptor. Not that I’m suggesting I hate Formula One… no! Seriously: it’s hard to get it up quite enough to ever muster such strong feelings for a band so uniformly zzzz.

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