ARTSETC.
Fischerspooner’s welcome return
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Also by Gato Toninas:
- Moving out, moving up (April 18, 2005)
- Continuing search for perfect careers (April 25, 2005)
- Vegan delights for romantic dinners (May 2, 2005)
- Steep discounts for designer duds (April 4, 2005)
- High-rolling fun in Atlantic City (March 28, 2005)
Related Stories:
- Fischerspooner is #1 (March 13, 2003)
- Holopaw's debut evokes memories of Modest Mouse (January 23, 2003)
- The Unicorns -- Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone? (January 30, 2004)
- British-inspired band clearly rocks (February 20, 2006)
- Lockwood speaks out (January 30, 2004)
by Gato Toninas
Monday, October 18, 2004
Fischerspooner was a band that captured the sound of life in the age immediately following the dot-com crash. They are the sound and spirit of a motherboard from a computer fizzling and fritzing on the floor after getting knocked over by two unemployed Flash designers entangled in old-fashioned analog thrusting. Lovemaking that can only arise from that strange gut feeling that is both uncertainty and freedom.
Fischerspooner called Gato's manager Magda to tell her that they were back in the studio. Then, Magda took two days to notify Gato. That's the equivalent of forgetting to tell Gato his grandmother is sick.
Besides, being Eastern European, Gato would have thought Magda understood the electronic eroticism of these Brooklyn-based geniuses.
Fischerspooner also opened a studio and gallery space in Brooklyn to extend their movement. "Our idea was doing a salon similar to France in the19th century," Casey Fischer said. "We had this beautiful new studio space, and, because the band works with a large, extended family of talented people for our stage shows, not just musicians, we thought [the space] could be this other special outlet."
Live, Fischerspooner produces a sneering, snide version of a Vegas stage show conceived by Italian horror-film director Dario Argento. The stage fills with a choreographed melodrama staring Barbarella-esque can-can dancers strutting in sparkle and plumage straight out of a Bob Mackie nightmare. (Don't laugh, Gato had to take Valium because he had a lot of Bob Mackie nightmares last year).
Like the evolution of Depeche Mode or Magda when she has a new hombre, Fischerspooner's new work is moving away from pure electronics. "Our decision for the first album was to make a 100 percent digital work. It was 100 percent programmed on a laptop. We didn't even use an outboard," Casey said.
Saying I love you in a song written in the Fischerspooner world can be as cold and distant as being on a date with the computer-generated customer voice, although Gato has been with lovers that make that phone voice seem as emotive as Maria Callas singing Madame Butterfly.
The band adds body heat and silky sighs to their upcoming Capitol Records release.
"We are drifting into a hybrid record for the second album," Warren Spooner said. "Our first album came out of this idea that Casey had at the time that New York nightlife was boring so we wanted to do something strange to flip that state. We are a lot more personal in the new songs."
"Our first album was written before New York changed," Warren said.
Through Warren's words about the lyrical process, Gato's mind travels back to the days immediately after the tragedy, to a screaming, squawking, sexy metropolis turned into a silent birch-tree forest, the flaking bark made of a pamphlet set of photocopied best memory photos clinging to every unclaimed wall from 34th Street to the Battery.
Building back up from art made of sorrow, rage, confusion and the desperate ache to have blueberry-flavored desires dominate the mind again, Gato can hear the excitement and exasperation in Warren and Casey's voice as they describe what it's like to record with actual musicians and prepare for their first live shows with a breathing band.
Gato is most excited about the addition of David Mueller from the Fiery Furnaces to their family.
Maybe there isn't a MacArthur genius grant for pop music but,
Anonymous (October 18, 2004 @ 5:39pm):
Fischerspooner's album is quality, but a a live band, they couldn't even figure out how to work their DAT tape much less even pretend that they were singing
