Man, if there's any unsung heroes of underground punk rock it is The World/Inferno Friendship Society. I must have seen them two or three dozen times in the early aughts, and every time was almost like a religious experience. They have this rare thing where they pretty much have a cult who follows them around, but that cult doesn't ruin it for the people who want to just watch this incredible band live. They were the first band I ever saw that had all their albums available on the internet for free. I interviewed them for a radio show and they gave me a copy of their record "Just the Best Party" about a year before it came out and told me to spread it all over the place on the internet. My old band broke up and a show offer with them caused us to get back together for about three or four years. They incorporated a million members, glockenspiels, a horn section that wasn't playing ska, fire-breathing, tons of percussion and an element of drunkenness that was more friendly than sloppy. No matter how hard I would try to do things like this with my current band, I think we will always feel like a poorly executed World/Inferno Friendship Society to me.
After a while of hearing the same songs however, (not to mention going to the Halloween shows to find them never living up to the one show where Jack led a pumpkin effigy into the streets of Brooklyn, stood on top of two dumpsters, lit it on fire and started spitting fire at it at two in the morning when the cops finally showed up and chased us all away all while playing "Ich Bin Ein Weimar (sic)") I for some stupid reason lost touch with seeing this band every time they came into town. The Speak of Brave Men EP was the first thing I heard from these guys in about three years and nothing has changed really, except for the better. These songs were new (yay!) and for a change you could hear the guitar well on the songs (as it was recorded with glossy All American Rejects producer Tim O' Heir.) It is just three songs, but the quality of all these songs is fucking staggering. It is surprising that this band isn't as big as Gogol Bordello or the Dresden Dolls, it seems like they've been doing the cabaret punk thing forever and as well if not better than everybody else. These three songs would later end up on Red Eyed Soul which was their first full length in a really fucking long time. Then they released another full-length a year after that and went on tour with Against Me! It's good to have this band back in my life.
3 comments:
the 2007 release was an awesome album.
Wow, thanks! I knew next to nothing about this band.
At a show of theirs at The Chance in Poughkeepsie, I was asked to sit on the bass drum so it wouldn't fall over. I spent more or less the rest of the show staring at Jack's back.
It was probably the second best night of my life.
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