`Original' bands vary
Long Fin Killie is composed of Colin Grieg, David Turner, Philip Cameron, and Luke Sutherland. (The liner notes are not complete enough to tell who performs which instrument.) The singer -- whichever one he is -- is consistent throughout the album. His whiny, strained falsetto is very incompetent at carrying the melody, which is especially unfortunate considering the melody line is heard in the voice alone. The other instruments -- assorted percussion, bass, lightly picked guitars and some rather uncommon string instruments (hammered dulcimer and bouzouki) -- are used to create complex rhythms. The voice floats above the background rhythm as if they had no relation. The rhythms them-selves are interesting, but so complex and repetitive that one quickly tires of hearing them.
The songs voice the concerns of a modern, intellectual, bisexual male. Most either directly or peripherally concern sex, and there are a couple of anti-bourgeois tirades. Though the lyrics were obviously chosen with great care, I don't find them enjoyable, and they don't provide poetic insight into life. They are all too serious to be fun to listen to.
Long Fin Killie is a true original, but the magnitude of their faults far outweighs the value of their originality.
You could hardly be blamed for being enticed by the offer of a freebie magazine. Especially after lugging armloads of books to the cash register of the campus bookstore and forking over a sizable chunk of your summer paycheck
What you got was Request , the latest in the proliferation of modern music magazines. I found the magazine to have little in original merit, but it did introduce me to a satisfyingly original new band, The Geraldine Fibbers.
Somehow, in the current era of "alternative" music, the influence of psychedelia has been almost forgotten. Bands too often feel they should make a self-conscious statement in their lyrics -- or they treat the lyrics as less important than the music.
The Fibbers, however, bask in the very strangeness of the human mind and the possibilities of life on Earth. In marijuana-soaked sunny days lead Fibber Carla Bozulich sings of losing herself in a lover named Marmalade. In "The Small Song" she tells of feeling separated from her "fellow man" and "Lost somewhere between the Earth and my home."
Even the album art is well-crafted psychedelia. The sleeping girl on the cover, reminiscent of an opium pipe, and the storybook-like liner pages could have been taken directly from a late '60s psychedelic album.
The songs are well written, and Bozulich's voice -- labeled "country-punk," but evocative of several folk singers as well -- adds a satisfying texture, whether she's being soft and lucid or simply screaming.
One might say this music falls under the umbrella of alternative but displays far broader influences than most bands of that genre. There are distinct blends of Scottish and Middle Eastern folk music, as well as strong influences of American country, and yes, classical. Jessy Greene plays very tasteful violin and viola on the album, adding a melodic dimension unknown in modern rock (except for the fleeting Camper Van Beethoven, to whom the Fibbers are obviously indebted.)
Bassist William Tutton does a marvelous job on the low end -- throughout the album he plays only double bass. He rarely sets down his bow. On songs such as "Get Thee Gone" he shows an upright is capable of a certain power that an electric bass cannot manage. Daniel Keenan provides tastefully clear electric guitar, and Kevin Fitzgerald plays drums and a bit of banjo.
The Fibbers do have faults. Their sense for melody, fully realized on the fantastic opening track, "Lillybelle," is not consistent throughout the album. They sometimes seem to become too involved inthe sounds they are making to realize that their songs are too long. The Geraldine Fibbers are a dramatic statement of the flexibility of the modern form of rock so inadequately dubbed "alternative" and despite their faults deliver a highly laudable debut album.
This item appeared in the Arts & Entertainment section of the September 15, 1995 issue.
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