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I have seen the future of rock and roll and he is a self-described cross-dressing bisexual Jew from Chicago. I’m only just kidding. Rock and roll, though regularly proclaimed to be dead, survives because somebody comes along and recombines its various influences in new ways. Ezra Furman is one of those guys. His music mines 1950s doo wop and sax solos, throws in hefty dose of early 1960s melodic melodrama, oozes 1970s pre-punk, and ties it together with an earnest reedy vocal style. Imagine if Dylan had gone electric but remained political, or Jonathan Richman had stayed the course on reinventing the Velvet Underground – you start to get some sense about what Furman is doing and capable of.
One of the many things I find impressive about Furman is his rock and roll chops. This is not some sloppy DIY punker making a late conversion to hipster indie cool, or an earnest singer-songwriter giving his angst the band treatment. Right from his 2007 debut you can hear how solid his grasp of rock and roll forms is on tracks like “She’s All I’ve Got Left.” 2008’s Inside the Human Body features a very Dylanesque “The World is Alive” and Velvet Underground/early Jonathan Richman-ish “Take Off Your Sunglasses.”
Mysterious Power
By the time Mysterious Power rolls out in 2011 Furman has expanded the melodic range of what he is doing: “Fall in Love with My World” manages to be plaintive without being pathetic, “Hard Time in a Terrible Land” sounds like a punked-up Pete Seeger, while “Mysterious Power” turns a simple guitar part into Furman’s most catchy and solid single to date. Subsequent albums turn out more polished singles, like the double A-side “My Zero/Caroline Jones,” songs that manage to channel the early 1960s vibe by working in whistling and sax solos. And I’m only featuring the stuff I like. Furman has a load of material that would fall into a more straight up alienated punk groove (for people who like that sort of thing).
Take Off Your Sunglasses
This year’s Perpetual Motion People brings all these disparate influences together into a surprisingly coherent and solid package. Again, the range is impressive: from the folksy spiritual quality of “One Day I will Sin No More” to the weirdly melodic and unpredictable “Can I Sleep in Your Brain.” 1950s sax and doo-wop stylings return on “Pot Holes,” a hilarious political commentary on phony civic boosterism with lightening word play and a fade out ‘waa-ooh’ vocal that would make Del Shannon proud. “Ordinary Life” sounds like a great lost John Lennon song. And the video single for “Restless Year,” while not my favourite song on the record, does capture the frenetic, unpredictable energy that is Ezra Furman.
Restless Year
Furman is booked for a show in Toronto October 10th at the Silver Dollar – this promises to be an ‘I was there when …’ event, not to be missed!
Ezra Furman website
I discovered Good Old War via the single “Broken Record,” released in advance of their most recent album Broken Into Better Shape. I loved it! It had a zany, somewhat frantic arrangement and a host of great melodic hooks, punctuated by background vocals right out of a Schoolhouse Rocks segment. Additionally, as someone often accused of being a ‘broken record,’ it was fun to revisit a term that has become increasingly anachronistic with the eclipse of vinyl. But the song left me wondering if the band might be little more than a novelty act. A perusal of their back catalogue suggested not.
Come of Age is a bit more stark, addressing Britain’s economic and social malaise in “No Hope,” “Weirdo,” “All in Vain,” and “Lonely World.” The album draws creatively from 1950s sources, particularly on the vocals for songs like “Lonely World” and “Teenage Icon”. In 2013 they released an EP, Melody Calling, marking a departure into a more dreamy pop style on the title track. This year’s English Graffiti takes all these previous elements but combines them into a more solid, confident sound, ranging from dreamy pop (“Denial”), to solid singalong fun (“Handsome”), to up front guitar riffing (“20/20”).
I wanted to kick off this blog with a song that would capture the fun, joy, and exhilaration of poprock music. This recent song from Family of the Year does the job. In my alternate universe poprock world this song would be a giant hit, blaring out of AM radios across the continent. Family of the Year have made much pleasant pop music on previous releases, gaining some attention for their contribution to the Boyhood soundtrack (“Hero”) and with the lush Beach Boys-esque “Summer Girl” from their first release. But nothing that takes off quite like “Make You Mine”. The song kicks off with a simple piano riff, which is immediately echoed by the rhythm guitar, drawing you in with a classic poprock hook. The lyrics pay tribute to summer love, even if they are somewhat ambiguous about the singer’s intentions. For instance, when he says “All the boys and all the pretty girls, summer time I’m going to make you mine” is he suggesting he’s just not that fussy about which gender he ends up with? Such a sentiment would not be out of sync with today’s youth. The best of poprock makes you feel good and this song definitely delivers on that promise.Make You Mine
