Super Furry Animals

[Clatty McCutcheon]

I'm in the (probably quite small) minority that can't stand Night Vision at any price.  Along with Crazy Naked Girls it's genuinely one of my least favourite SFA songs.

I initially though that Crazy Naked Girls was a bit of a mess, but after a while I warmed to the widdly guitars, extravagant drum fills and general silliness.

Listened back to the first half of Love Kraft and I may have been premature in writing it off - the two tracks you mentioned are pretty good (apart from Back on a Roll, they were the only tracks from Love Kraft other than the two I previously mentioned that I had a clear recollection of).

The Piccolo Snare is definitely up there with their best.

[the psyche intangible]

Crazy Naked Girls is one of my faves and exactly what I'm saying with the comedy just going to the edge. It's a fantastic opener and probably a kind of Zappa parody. For some indeed, slit the wrists.

[CaledonianGonzo]

Listened back to the first half of Love Kraft and I may have been premature in writing it off - the two tracks you mentioned are pretty good (apart from Back on a Roll, they were the only tracks from Love Kraft other than the two I previously mentioned that I had a clear recollection of).

Frequency is another high spot on Love Kraft - and, as also mentioned, Cloudberries [nb]As it's actually called, and not Hummingbird[/nb] and Cabin Fever are two of their very best.

[23 Daves]

They are masters of the "la la la" bit, as exemplified in that coda, or whatever you call it. "Let me fall into the depths of your infinity, I can sense your presence in the vicinity. La la la, la la la, sha la la la la"

Brilliantly, it also joins an elite band of songs with a totally unnecessary fade-out - you can hear the band finishing the song just about 0.5 seconds before it gets sucked into a tunnel.  I've always found that really effective and oddly moving, like drifting off to sleep on a sofa just as a party terminates around you. 

[Mark Steels Stockbroker]

Christ, I've just remembered that I bought Radiator on the same day as another album by a Welsh band - Word Gets Around by the Stereophonics.  In my defence, I was young and still susceptible to the blandishments of Steve Lamacq at the time, and I soon tired of the 'Phonics.  I think Word Gets Around entered the album chart higher that week as well.  Sorry about that.

For a brief period in 97 the Phonics were cool, NME pitched them as a gritty working class provincial band telling it straight, which was plausible until you realised they were a bunch of pub rock unironic bores extremely happy to play to Economics and Accountancy students and Office fans.

I bought Radiator on the same day as Vanishing Point by Primal Scream, the only album by that band that I rate.

[Custard]

Hadn't listened to all of Fuzzy Logic in a fair ol while, until today.

It really is a great debut. You forget just how good! Every single track is a belter. All killer, no filler, as no one says these days

Radiator was very nearly better than Logic, Guerrilla is fantastic, and Mwng is a contender for their best.

Thats not even taking into account the many, many great b-sides, and the EPs.

Great band

My personal favourite moment of yer Furries is the seque of Chupacabras into Torra Fy Ngwallt Yn Hir on Radiator. Utterly joyous, and still tremendously exciting

And, of course, "You and I, united by, itemised bills", off Gathering Moss. Which is kinda bleak and hugely funny at the same time. A withering lyric Mozza would kill for

[Tiny Poster]

Citizen's Band
Smokin'
Lazy Life (Of No Fixed Identity)
Calimero


Christ, even with three of four albums I'm not arsed about, there's a fuckload of amazing stuff I'd forgotten about

[Beagle 2]

This was always a favourote for a drunken singalong when I was a student:

The blim holes in my shell suit
Joined into an absolute
And fell apart one day

They stitched me up in Everton
Then they took me to a surgeon:
Lost on penalties

I married at the altar
The village idiot's daughter
Oh lucky me

We honeymooned in Cyprus
That's where she caught the virus
I flew home alone

So I bought myself a chip pan
And I sailed it to the Isle of Man
For a holiday

Struggling in a vortex
With my jacket made of Gore-tex
It fits wonderfully

Zap! Zap!
Wham! Wham!
Says the Mario man today
(He's played so hard he's got blisters on his fingers)

[the psyche intangible]

Baby ate my eight ball
Frothing at the mouth
Ascending to heaven
Mental note to self
Keep in safe place away from harm

[Serge]

Chupacabras

Soy super bien/ soy super super bien/ soy bien bien super bien/ bien bien SUPER SUPER

[non capisco]

Every time I look around me everything seems so stationary
It just sends me the impulse to become reactionary
Spell it out, rip it up, rearrange it, on the con-ta-ra-ry
If I scream it I mean it..I hope you will understand me...WOOOH!

Amazing middle eight. The WOOOH! makes it. This thread has led me to revisit these guys. So many bangers.

'Radiator' is as I remember it, an embarrassment of riches. 'Mountain People' is as glorious a closer as has graced any album. The plaintive ascending key changes at the end of the song with each new verse seeming to spell more encroaching disaster for the eponymous mountain people. Never has impending extinction sounded so defiantly triumphant. Then it ends with an electronic freakout and they not only make it work but make it sound like that's the only way such a sweeping, elegaic ballad could ever have ended.

[Brundle-Fly]

To return to Love Kraft one more time. Walk You Home is my favourite off it.
I'm a sucker for woozy John Barry type strings.
There doesn't seem to be much love for Gruff's solo albums here, I raved over Hotel Shampoo as much as any SFA album. Maybe, I've become a soppy old gotsan, in my old age?

[Wayman C. McCreery]

There doesn't seem to be much love for Gruff's solo albums here, I raved over Hotel Shampoo as much as any SFA album. Maybe, I've become a soppy old gotsan, in my old age?

I prefer Candylion to Hotel Shampoo, but Gruff's live shows - whether it's with a full band or just him, his guitar and some toys - are far more exciting than SFA's last few tours were.

[CaledonianGonzo]

I like his solo stuff and he's written some really great songs in recent years, but it misses the creative input of a full band - particularly Cian's techno-wizardry.

I'd apply that to the live experience - saw SFA on all of their tours and never saw them give a bad gig.  The Dark Days / Light Years tour wasn't their absolute pinnacle and I did sense they were perhaps a little road weary, but it was still a stormer of a show.

[Custard]

Favourite b-sides or EP tracks?

Calimero is a corker. Shame it was never on an album proper. Think it's on the Mwng bonus-edition, mind

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Af0DWZk6CYE

[phantom_power]

Carry The Can - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPda67-c3YM

[Tiny Poster]

Favourite b-sides or EP tracks?

Calimero is a corker. Shame it was never on an album proper. Think it's on the Mwng bonus-edition, mind

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Af0DWZk6CYE

DOES DIM DOES DIM


Mwng appears to be the only album missing from Spotify, the racists

[Custard]

Heh, I noticed Mwng missing last night too. Wonder if it has anything to do with it being released on their own label, Placid Casual?

Or Spotify HATES ALL THE WELSH

[Melodichaze]

Favourite b-sides or EP tracks?

Calimero is a corker. Shame it was never on an album proper. Think it's on the Mwng bonus-edition, mind

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Af0DWZk6CYE

Another vote for 'Carry the can' and my other faves (Nid) Hon Yw'r Gân Sy'n Mynd I Achub your Iaith, Cryndod Yn Dy Lais and the Arnofio section of Arnofio/Glô in the dark is also very lovely.
Calimero and Guacamole from the upbeat.

Can take or leave a lot of the solo project stuff, although Candylion is easily on par with a decent Furries LP.

[Custard]

Lovely choices there

I also love Wrap It Up. Even if it does sound a bit like The Land Of Make Believe by Buck's Fizz

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

[23 Daves]

I think my favourite is 'Hometown Unicorn' - that Syd Barrett/ELO hybrid that became almost a trademark is so perfectly realised there. And a wonderful guitar solo - corny, cool-sounding, nice and short. I agree that 'Northern Lites' is a bit cheeky with what it lifts from 'Eddie's Dreaming' - but it's better.

Horrible confession time - I have never liked that single.  It was the first SFA track I became aware of because I was sent a copy for review along with a batch of other Creation records.  Some context here which might explain the subsequent drubbing I gave it: The Press Release promised that SFA were adventurous, loved the KLF, that their works collided techno with classic pop. It was the last Creation single I put on that day, and it just sounded to my ears like a.n.other Creation band, all pedestrian retro-whimsy.  "Please Alan McGee, sign no more bands of this ilk" I pleaded in the final copy.

And even if the context screwed it up for me, I have to be honest and say it's still a track I skip on "Fuzzy Logic" from time to time. It just feels like a B-side by The Move to me (I might even have made that comparison first time around).  Not that that's necessarily terrible, but it's sure as hell not prime SFA to my ears. 

It wasn't until the next single "God! Show Me Magic" that my ears pricked up, really, and eventually I had to admit that I'd probably made a horrible mistake. 

[CaledonianGonzo]

TBH, all of Fuzzy Logic is a bit training wheels SFA to me.  It's a competent enough and occasionally pretty damn good Britpop album, but didn't really give much indication as to the glories to come.  The Man Don't single and Radiator is when they really took the gloves off.

[CaledonianGonzo]

Speaking of The Man Don't Give A Fuck, here's the 23-minute long Bill Hicks-festooned live version of it that came out as a Ltd Edition single sometime in the early noughties:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3324232/01%20The%20Man%20Don%27t%20Give%20A%20Fuck%20%5BFull%20L.m4a

[Mark Steels Stockbroker]

Horrible confession time - I have never liked that single.  It was the first SFA track I became aware of because I was sent a copy for review along with a batch of other Creation records.  Some context here which might explain the subsequent drubbing I gave it: The Press Release promised that SFA were adventurous, loved the KLF, that their works collided techno with classic pop. It was the last Creation single I put on that day, and it just sounded to my ears like a.n.other Creation band, all pedestrian retro-whimsy.  "Please Alan McGee, sign no more bands of this ilk" I pleaded in the final copy.

I certainly remember being surprised by FL the first time, as all I knew about the band was some stuff about them being a techno/rock cross, so I was half expecting it to be EMF singing in Welsh accents. Maybe I'd heard "Mario Man" beforehand, but it wasn't really what I thought it would be. A pleasant surprise.

[imitationleather]

^Ta. Saves me digging out my CD copy of it.

Absolutely love that performance of the track. I saw them doing it when I was a very young teenager allowed out by myself for one of the first times and my word it blew my mind.

[Mark Steels Stockbroker]

TBH, all of Fuzzy Logic is a bit training wheels SFA to me.  It's a competent enough and occasionally pretty damn good Britpop album, but didn't really give much indication as to the glories to come.  The Man Don't single and Radiator is when they really took the gloves off.

Whereas I think Radiator is the work-out session in preparation for Guerrilla.

[CaledonianGonzo]

Nah - Guerrilla's the half-arsed jams and sketches worked out into songs rag-bag that follows the game-changer.

[Mark Steels Stockbroker]

I think you'll find you're wrong.

[imitationleather]

I've never really got on with Guerilla. Rings Around the World is my favourite, but that was the first one I heard and where their sound was laid down for me. I'd seen the Guerilla and Radiator albums in HMV before then but thought the artwork was shit and ignored them. Be fair, I was about eleven years old. Now I am an old man I know that the debut, Radiator and Mwng are just incredible.

As mentioned, the Phantom Power DVD is an utter joke and my relationship with their output has been tetchy since then.

[CaledonianGonzo]

I think you'll find you're wrong.

I think you'll find I love it regardless (and am very grateful for the CD copy I have of it, which I finally acquired "some way or another" just over a year ago).