the FURther adventures of…

Does this blog even work anymore.  Who knows?

Anyway creativity has been coming at us like a cat in a washing machine as of late.   It’s been an age since we’ve last updated and it’s been itful.  While it’s true we’ve only played one or two gigs on the songwriting front we’ve moved forward in huge strides.

Sharp Knives:  This is short and poppy andf we ever got signed would be a contender along with Russia for a single.  It used to have some pretentious lyrics about the Russian revolution, but they were clumsy and ruined the song.  I finally got over myself and made it about an argument me and Chris had.  We played it live at Battle of the Bands and it got a nice reaction.  Think it’s going to be our set openener for the forseable future.

Face the Morning: We wrote this in February and quite frankly it’s the best thing we’ve ever written.  It’s a real album real album centrepiece track.  It’s built around a wicked riff and has a proper chorus.  Me and Dom are really staring to gel on the harmonising front.  The songs about my quarter life crisis it critiques my lack of ambition or ability to even get out of bed some mornings.  I honestly only felt i could writeabout it after i sorted my life out.

The Orchard: It’s based on a Nick riff and it’s basically complete we just need to sort out the breakdown.  It’s very much in the same reign as Sequoia only it uses all the tricks we’ve learnt in the last two and a half years.  Lyrically it’s about the Garden of Eden.. That came as a flash of imspiration.  I’d really wanted it to be called the Orchard but had no idea on a theme.  Inspiration came when I came up with the line “try the fruit, but is it worth the price” …

Untitled:  No that’s not it’s name it’s genuinely untitled despite being almost finished.  Yes I need to get off my ass and work out what it’s about.  Might try and go fast in a REM “End of the World” style… Who knows how that’ll turn out.

Aliens: It started out fast and sludgy like a lot of stuff we did, but Nick suggested we went Ska with it.  It’s certainly interesting and I like it just because it’s something a bit different.  I used a 7th chord as well :-O!!!!  Time will tell if we keep it or not.  Lyrically it’s a bit silly, being about aliens.  I think it’s endearing.  Came up with the idea after Danny told me his old band was called 2000 Lights.

Severed Intent: No that’s not a mistake.  This was originally written in 2006 just after Dog in a Garden, but got shelved so it’s  another tentative one.  We tried it yesterday and it sounded good and why not?  How can having anothe slowly in our repetoire ever be a bad thing.

So that’s it.  A storm of creativity means we’ve almost written more songs in the last six months than we wrote in the last year.  We have a gig on sunday at the Actress and Bishop.  Lots of new stuff to play so hopefully it’ll be good.

Face the Morning

James Furs

 

Websites a-go-go

Well we now own http://douglasfurs.co.uk – simple as that. We had a band discussion on Thursday, I came home, bought the domain, and set up a quick landing page for the time being. 

At some point, we’ll get on and expand the site, maybe add song info, lyrics, some tracks to listen to, mp3s, a calendar of our gigs (which you can find on MySpace and Upcoming.org already). So there will be a few things to get started. And this blog will eventually move over to there, but for now, it’ll stay here.

So bookmark it for the future.

DF

 

Suite Number 2

Hey Furs/Furettes

James here for the first time after Dom commented that he’d like more postings fro the rest of us. I thought I’d oblige.

At the moment we’re working on a second suite of songs. Personally I class the first suite we did as Russia, Sequoia, Bird Clock, Just Woke up, Siesta Sun and Dog in a Garden. These where all written between October 2006 and May 2007 and make up the sets we’ve been playing live. We spent a long time practicing them and I’m quite proud of them. We’re heading to a studio this Sunday with the intention of recording Dog In a Garden and Russia which are unarguably the two songs with the best reaction. This should close that period.

We’ve moved on to a second suite of songs. We’re trying new things and making them more complex. Basically many of the first songs where a learning experience and now we’re trying new stuff out. If you’ve seen us live recently you’ll already of heard Flight, but other songs include (working titles.) :

- The Watchmaker: An awesome funk bass led work which we’ve been struggling with for a while. Hopefully with lyric and drum changes we can get it to work.

- Distance: This came from a Dom bass line and was written pretty quickly once we where all together. Apart from Flight its the closest to completion and has some nice new twists for us.

- Old Newy: Obviously a working title, but the resurection of one of the first songs Me and Nick wrote together. Its interesting in that Nick plays rythm guitar throught giving it a heavier feeling that much of our stuff.

- The Waltz: No music yet, but general agreement was reached we’d like to try something in 3/4 time soon.

- Severed Intent: A song that was intended for our second Alternation night, which was cancelled. It originally had Chris singing about an annoyed conversation with Seven Trent water, but is in need of a huge overhall. No demo exists of this due to it falling out of favor after the summer break. Although technically a member of the first suite, it will maybe feature in completely new form.

Anyway the plan is to work on these and other new songs and get them into live shows as soon as they’re ready. Hopefully we’ll go in Dance studio and record them for you as well.

Thanks for listening

James Furs