Caught up in a song, No.3: The Fiery Furnaces

Matt Friedberger discusses his childhood record-buying habits

By Beth Capper
Published: June 26th, 2006 | 7:14pm

A friend once described to me a perfectly choreographed Fiery Furnaces show where Matt and Eleanor Friedberger wove and intertwined their songs like a spider’s web — breaking off midway into a song and moving to the next one, only to return to the precise point they broke off later on. The epic journeys contained within their lyrical narratives became shorn-off fragments, yielding a collection of warring discourses grappling in a maelstrom of sonic guitar lines and jarring keyboards.

Though I’ve never had the pleasure of seeing a Fiery Furnaces live show firsthand, I do have a very distinct memory related to a particular song of theirs. On my way to London’s Heathrow Airport to board a flight bound for Chicago — the city where Matt and Eleanor Friedberger originate from — I discovered a compilation a friend of mine had slipped into my backpack to help ease the tedium of a two-hour bus ride in dark hours of a bitter winter morning. The opening song was “Worry Worry” from the Fiery Furnaces’ 2003 debut, Gallowsbird’s Bark. As the darkness gradually surrendered to the first light of day, my eyes began to sag from the artificial warmth of the bus’ blow heaters. Lulled into slumber and stimulated by the Furnaces drug-addled echoes and psychedelic guitar riffs, my brain embarked on adventures of its own through the plateaus of my subconscious.

The Friedbergers don’t seem to be running out of steam when it comes to musical innovation. Since Gallowsbird’s Bark, the Furnaces have released four more albums: Blueberry Boat and EP both in 2004; 2005’s Rehearsing My Choir (made with the collaborative effort of the brother-sister duo’s 83-year-old grandmother); and in 2006, Bitter Tea. In early August, perhaps in an endeavor to creatively surpass his sister, Matt Friedberger releases a double-disc solo album through new label 859 Recordings. The first side, titled Winter Women is a collection of lo-fi indie pop songs suffused with samples, while the second disc, Holy Ghost Language School, showcases Friedberger’s avant-garde leanings.

Here, Friedberger converses on his prepubescent adoration of the Clash.

MATT FRIEDBERGER ON THE CLASH’S COMBAT ROCK
When I knew I wanted to buy a record, I had to decide which record to buy. When I was 13, new records cost between $5.99 and $7.99, and clean, used records went from $2.50 to $4.50. I had to decide which actual copy I wanted: The one in the Super Savers bin or the old gatefold copy with someone's name written across the singer's face.

I bought the plainest $2.50 copy of the Clash’s Combat Rock at the Oak Park branch of the Chicago chain store Second Hand Tunes. They had a shrink-wrapped copy for $3.99, but I believed the open one to be more standard (whatever that meant) and therefore, more appropriate.

When buying old records (Combat Rock was three years old at the time), I was very concerned to get actual versions of the album. But I didn't want "original issues" (which were a few dollars more). I don't think I had any sort of notion of heavy ‘60s vinyl as opposed to cheap ‘80s plastic. And what did that matter with an ‘80s record?

I just wanted to be choosy, but I was confused with what to be choosy about. I had just graduated from being concerned with buying bubblegum to buying records, really, and the pleasures of buying records were still mostly just the pleasures of buying.

I then felt determined to be particularly attracted to the particular copies of the albums I took home. That was especially the case with the Combat Rock I picked, and I succeeded. I got it on a very pleasant Saturday and put side two on first. I stared at the back of the cover as it played.

So, what can I say about the record? Well, forgive me, but what can you say about first love, or better than that, third, or fifth love? I mean, what can you say about your own teenage nonsense? A record can be ruined for you by how stupid you were when you bought it.

Though that didn't (necessarily) happen with Combat Rock. The important thing was that there were things on every song that I hated or thought were terrible. But without ignoring the things I disapproved of, I loved the songs anyway. I learned, I thought, that — in this instance — my place was not to find fault with, but, instead to be flattered by the record's arbitrariness and, more importantly, its willingness to sit and spin on my turntable.

In other words, it wasn’t first or third or fifth, but true love! And we lived happily ever after.

For June 30, 2006: Jeffrey Lewis

Archive:

Caught up in a song, No. 1: the Mountain Goats

Caught up in a song, No. 2: Electrelane