Here’s Bobby…

1 You can take one record to a desert island for the rest of your life – what would it be?

Probably Guided By Voices’ Bee Thousand. Never get sick of it.

2 Who is your favourite artist?

Once again, I go the GbV route and say Bob Pollard

3 Favourite chord?

D for definitely.

4 Can God invent a rock that he cannot lift?

God gave rock n’ roll to ya.

5 Who did you last vote for in an election?

The only one that matters at this point.

6 Favourite fiction writer?

Don’t read much fiction, but Tolkein was the shit.

7 If you could invite 5 people to dinner (dead or alive) who would they be?

Bob Pollard, Jesus, the Buddha, Charles Bukowski, and Smally cos I think he’d get a kick out of it.

8 What pisses you off?

Pissed off people.

9 What’s the best song you’ve ever written?

We Love You.

10 One wish – what would it be?

To be able to shut my mind off at will.

11 Favourite band?

Why, GbV, of course!

12 3 websites worth checking out?

I don’t really use the web much anymore… Maybe cozyhomerecords.com, daydreamgeneration.com, and thefigmints.com. Sure, that’ll work. dictionary.com is pretty good….

13 Posters above your bed when you were a teenager?

Nirvana, Pear Jam, and Metallica. Dude.

14 When was the last time you cried with laughter?

Never got to that point. But I did throw up once. It was great.

15 If you could learn and play one instrument, what would it be?

The piano.

16 Preferred mode of travel?

Foot.

17 Shuffle your iPod – what are the first five songs that play?

Don’t got no iPod…

18 Snowballs, snowmen, or sledging?

Sledging? Like sledgehammers? Yeah!!!

19 Best gig you’ve ever been to?

The Warlocks and The Gris Gris at the Bowery Ballroom in NYC.

20 What’s the most embarrassing record in your collection?

Too many to list. Seriously.

21 Favourite drink?

Old Fashioned. That’s Bourbon, bitters and club soda… Mmmmm…

22 Drug of choice?

Used to be coke… Ahem… Like the soda, yeah… That’s it… Now it’s just good ol’ booze. Maybe psilocybin…

23 If you were an animal, what animal would you be?

Homo Erectus

24 And if you were a colour, what colour would you be?

Meh…

25 Are you good at any sports?

Nope. Well, I guess I’m pretty good at video bowling with my buddy, the Wii.

26 Last book you read?

The Art of War

27 First thing you think when you get up in the morning?

Oh fucking hell, not again…

28 Last thing you think when you go to bed?

Why?Why-why-why-why-why?????

29 Describe your music in three words?

Absolutely fucking brilliant.

30 If you could be someone else for a day, who would you be?

Someone with a lot of money, so I could pay my tuition in advance.

31 Favourite comedian?

Neil Hamburger.

32 What colour is your front door?

Brown.

33 Favourite film?

The Fellowship of the Ring.

34 A quote that stuck in your head?

“Goddammit!! Never leave a man behind!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

35 Favourite subject at school?

Probably history, or math.

36 Which actor/actress would play you in a film about your life?

Tom Selleck.

37 What music makes you want to dance?

ESG, Animal Collective, Motown, Michael Jackson before the third nose job.

38 What should they write on your gravestone?

Don’t want one. Too expensive, and it just clutters up the Earth. Y’dig?

39 How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man?

6,665,420,319.1314599999…

40 When did you first start writing your own songs?

Whenever I figured out what melody was.

41 What’s the weirdest thing you ever saw?

My friend Johnny’s face appearing on a wall in Benny’s basement… Then it turned into Jesus. Then I said, “Jesus!”

42 Favourite smell?

Grillin’

43 Favourite sound?

Feedback.

44 Swings, roundabout, chute, or climbing frame?

Whoa, those last three ain’t part of American English, but I get the gist… Roundabout.

45 Who is your favourite Beatle?

Goddammit Smally, don’t ask me that. I don’t wanna get beat up for not saying Ringo.

46 Point us in the direction of a band one of your friends is in?

www.frogvillemusic.com

47 A YouTube video the world should watch?

48 Cats or dogs?

Dogs.

49 If you had to join the circus what would you be?

The ringmaster.

50 Favourite book?

Oh, I don’t know….

51 Have you ever been on TV?

Yep.

52 Have you ever been arrested?

Nope.

53 What songs do you (would you) sing at karaoke?

Loser, Fight For Your Right (To Party), Surrender, I Wanna Be Sedated.

54 Have you ever seen a ghost?

Every time I look in the mirror… Oooooh, creepy.

55 How do you like your coffee? Or would you prefer a wee cup of tea?

Black with sugar. And very strong.

56 Punk or Raver? Mod or Goth? Hippy or Beatnik? If you had to label yourself, what gang would you be in?

No.

57 What’s the worst job you ever had?

Gas station in Herkimer, NY. I lasted half an hour.

58 What’s brown and sticky?

Oh, don’t even get me started.

59 Do you have any recurring dreams?

Can’t say that I dream often enough to have anything happen more than once….

60 How many records have you released and which is your favourite?

Seven. I think Exercises In Futility is the best (plug plug… Buy my record!!!)

61 Where in the world would you like to go?

Scotland.

62 Favourite kind of cloud?

Altocumulus at sunset.

63 Favourite line from a song?

Wrapped in a cocoon of skintight buffoonery… Now here’s the plan. (Guided By Voices)

64 What’s the music scene like where you live?

Nonexistent.

65 Who would make up your dream band? (one singer, one guitarist, one bassist, one drummer, plus one extra)

Bob Pollard, Brian Eno, Robert Fripp, Krist Novoselic, Mike Garguilo.

66 Favourite cover art?

In The Court of the Crimson King

67 Early bird or night owl?

Depends on my agenda, eh?

68 Which of the seven sins are you?

Sloth… Only cos I’m trying to work on getting rid of gluttony and pride.

69 Three words people use to describe you?

Quiet, nice, drunk. Two of those are totally inaccurate.

70 You have ten minutes left to live, what would you do?

Take some pills and go to sleep.

71 Do you support any sports teams?

Syracuse Orangemen basketball, yo! Go Big East!!!

71 What do you want for Christmas?

Animal liberation.

72 Favourite track from all the Daydream Generation compilations?

Don’t Ask Me Again What I Dreamt by Becky N

73 Can you cook up a storm in the kitchen?

Just made some kick ass baked shells & cheese last night… Mmmmmm….

74 What’s the first thing you remember?

A metal railing on a concrete staircase, and a question without an answer.

75 How do you go about writing a song?

If I only knew…

76 When you look in the mirror, what do you see?

Not enough hair on my head.

77 What’s the best advice you were ever given?

“Be the change you want to see in the world.” It’s become a cliche by now, but really. Think about it.

78 Do you smoke?

Sometimes I wish I never quit…

79 Tell us a joke?

How can you tell if an elephant’s been in yr cupboard? There are footprints in the peanut butter!!!

80 Pick a card, any card?

Bill Gates’ Visa.

81 One question you’ve never been able to answer?

How will I know?

82 If you could travel back in time, when and where would you go?

NYC 1982

83 Favourite philosopher?

Ah shit… Maybe Lao Tzu

84 Do you have any pets?

Ah, my lovely pit bull, Mishu.

85 Ever climbed a mountain?

Yeah. Then I got a migrane threw up. I hated it, but the scenery was grand!

86 What do you do in the real world to pay the rent?

Direct care for the developmentally disabled

87 Self-diagnosis: any psychiatric disorders?

I don’t even want to comment.

88 Favourite poet?

Jim Carroll

89 What wouldn’t you do for a million dollars?

Kill any living thing.Well, I guess unless it was a bug. Or fish, maybe but I’d have to think long and hard about that.

90 Adrenalin junky?

Nah, just the regular kind.

91 What bands have you been in?

Oh. Well… From the beginning: David’s Boys; The Chesterfield Medical Experiment; Acoustic Mayhem; The Groan-Ups; Yous Guys; The Fucking Flame; The Real Burnouts; Pinky Stink’s Problem; Arthur Rules; Electric City Subway, Euro Language Abusive, the original Utica Flower Co. (Plural Noun); Fig Mints (of Your Imagination). Probably some others too…

92 Favourite board game/computer game?

Chess, even though I suck.

93 What kind of recording set-up do you have? Equipment etc.

Tascam 488, Sony Minidisc deck, lots of outdated stuff.

94 A character you love from a book or a film?

Ted Theodore Logan

95 Who is the sexiest person in the history of the world?

Rita Hayworth

96 If you could genetically fuse two animals together what would they be? And what would it make?

I don’t fuck with nature.

97 What kind of drunk are you?

Depends on how many days running.

98 What was the first record that really blew your mind?

Sonic Youth’s Washing Machine

99 What are your musical plans for the future?

Just keep cranking, and maybe get a band together.

100 Got some websites of your own we can visit?

www.thefigmints.com and www.cozyhomerecords.com

The boundaries of home recording equipment have been removed for quite some time. Long gone are the days of four-track cassette machines and bouncing; the art of scotch-tape over the protection tabs on Michael Bolton tapes given as gifts from far removed relatives because the store was closed seems almost lost. Digital interface, non-destructive editing, primitive pitch correction, and a galaxy of on-board effects at “reasonably affordable” prices makes analog craft boxes seem archaic and knucklish. The mix tape is gone, the mp3 era as arrived, and the wake created a great wind that set the lo-fi dream ship to sail into the great abyss we call “The Island of Forgotten Toys.”

Or so it was thought.

The latter half of this decade has seen a rejection of this silly idea. While digital recording is nifty and allows for a palette far beyond the capacity or need of many modern musicians, its missing the charm, the soul of tape hiss and natural distortion, the blood of bobbles in the takes, the mistakes that make a song human, the warmth that makes a song honest. This is not necessarily a new idea. Guided By Voices did it way before anyone thought is was cool. Lately bands the likes of the Black Lips and Wavves have been poking out of the mire and grabbing the affections of many purists and old-schoolers. For every group noticed for doing something “new” there always lies a subculture that understands the principles as well or better than the flagships that give it awareness. Fig Mints (of Your Imagination) is a shining example of a band that not only has had a solid grasp of this new ‘old’ sound, but have been at it for several years, culminating to this record, “Exercises in Futility”. It’s from this frame of reference the title is apt.

On the surface this album is unbridled and unkempt. Things are slightly out of tune or minutely out of key. Instruments are pegged and microphones are flattened out by the immensity of the sounds that pummel them. This is the future, ladies and gentlemen. Like track 2, A Change of Season, this record is the sonic equivalent of skipping class with your friends and mocking the world as it toils around you. Its unbounded and focused, yet is fenced by morals and codes that culture seemed hasty to forget. These songs call for normalcy in the midst of hurry, with the understanding that often the express route to normalcy can include a level of self-medication, most clearly represented in the opening track, The Well-Worn Road. What may be most striking about that particular song as well as the rest of the record is its consciousness. The Fig Mints are well aware of what they’re doing, much to our benefit. We are all entrenched in a field of voices, and “Exercises in Futility” sets up camp and is perfectly content to stay where it is and wave to the passing cars.

This is not a complicated record. The songs are ushered and unrelenting, moving like freight in the night. Guitars are towing ever further, yet are not overpowering. Even the solos are conservative and well shaped while commanding and necessary. The understated and restrained rhythm section plants its grooves like furrows in black soil, emerging from its toil to bomb the universe into bending at its every whim. All the while the vocals talk you through, calming and inciting, and always in the drivers seat. The range of the album is great, yet cohesive. Its tantric nature easily takes the mood from darkly introspective (Strung Out Sentries) to warmly reflective (the Stooges-esque My Days At University). The movement of the record as a whole resembles the behavior of a house party. At first all talk is intimate and the ideas are big, the songs are pointed and relaxed, often without drums. As the room fills up, songs like Undead Idea Mines convey a letting go, an acceptance of our own weirdness and the weirdness of others. Further down the line, as the room gets looser, the vibe descends into a lo-fi fuzz fest of whirl and rock and roll, particularly with Don’t Stay There and Its All I Can Do (To Stay Awake).

Down and dirty Ariel Pink kids will love this record. Black-shirted rock kids will love this record. Literate post-secondary astronauts that have learned to enjoy poverty will love this record. “Exercises in Futility” is eerily relevant and strongly appropriate for its time and season.

Wilford Benevolus
Junior Rock Analyst and Amateur Spokesperson for the League of American Wheelmen, Intl.

For more info on “Excercises In Futility” go to: www.cozyhomerecords.com

Out Now!

Here it is! Two years, two states, one retrospective outtakes EP, and five relocations after “Hugs and Smiles” hit the virtual shelves, Fig Mints are back with “Exercises In Futility”!

At the moment, the album is available only through mail orders for $8. Suffice to say, it’s worth it. The songs are his best yet, and it’s been reported that Bobby is only interested in breaking even with the money that he spent putting it out, so show some love and email bobby@cozyhomerecords.com for info on how to buy a copy, or just send your name and address with the payment to:

FIG MINTS (OF YOUR IMAGINATION)

Fig Mints is the brainchild of Bobby Rogan (real name “Pinky”), a band name that he flippantly coined to make fun of himself recording without a band, and he’s been reluctantly stuck with ever since (“I had this idea to mix instrumental versions of my songs and do a self-styled karaoke with each “band member” having a part in the act that was prerecorded and very self-deprecating”). Unofficially coming into existence in the Spring of 2004 after moving into the actual Cozy Home on Henry Street, Utica NY – Bobby was inspired by the music and madness of that “scene” to start recording the songs he’d been writing, teaching himself how to play the drums and bass, and attempting to write lyrics “that weren’t sappy”. The last four years have been productive with 5 official Fig Mints full-length records recorded on 100% analogue cassette (“Tascam 488 all the way, baby”) being released through Cozy Home Records – How’dyer Day Go? (2004), Enjoy It While You Can (2005), Bad Choice Brigade (2006), Is It Today Already? (2006), and Hugs & Smiles (2007). All 5 records are available for free download at www.cozyhomerecords.com More recently Fig Mints released “The Passionate Understanding” via our own Quixodelic Records, a 7-song collection of unreleased tracks recorded between 1999 and 2005.

Over the years, Bobby has honed a very distinctive style combining elements of indie guitar pop, experimental punk, and American psychedelics – a style that he frequently attempts to break free from but thankfully never does, describing it as sounding like “someone trying to sound like Guided By Voices but failing miserably”. Quirky intelligent lyrics combined with this spikey and sometimes fragile pop-punk sound have become trademarks of Fig Mints recordings, influenced initially by like likes of Sonic Youth and Nirvana, and latterly by Bob Pollard, The Jesus & Mary Chain, and Syd Barrett.

Although the majority of Fig Mints recordings are written, recorded and produced exclusively by Bobby for live shows he often enlists the help of several Cozy Home crew members including Paul, Luke and Dusty from The Real Burnouts, as well as Jenny Penny, Cashew Cook, and J. Schnitt. Likewise Artie Lester, Paul or Dusty Burnout and Jenny Penny have helped on the records “when I needed an extra bit of something”. As one of the accidental driving forces behind Cozy Home Records over the last 5 years Bobby has frequently been involved in writing, producing, and playing with a seemingly neverending list of bands and deviants such as The Real Burnouts, The Fucking Flame, Pinky Stink’s Problem, The Chesterfield Medical Experiment, The Utica Flower Company (et al.), and Travel Labyrinth.

After a relatively short and perhaps unproductive spell on the road, Figs is in the process of relocating back to his Utica roots where it is fully expected that at the very least he will continue writing ”a song a month” and complete the most recent record he has been working on. There appears to be no definitive plans for either the immediate or long-term future of Fig Mints other than “to make music until I run out of ideas. Hopefully I die before that happens, cos I’d be bored to death otherwise” – how can you not dig an attitude like that?

Find out more about Fig Mints (Of Your Imagination) at:

www.myspace.com/figmints or www.cozyhomerecords.com

“The Passionate Misunderstanding”

That’s what I should have called “Hugs and Smiles”. It was a phrase uttered by my good friend Alan while talking indirectly about a situation that was happening in my life at the time, the gory details of which I have only shared with one other person. This situation was well documented in, though at times obscured by the language of the lyrics in most of the songs on “Hugs and Smiles”. I was too chickenshit to call that album “The Passionate Misunderstanding”. I though that the person that I wrote most of the songs about would find it offensive… Or something. I honestly regret that decision, and have ever since I put out my last album.

And so this EP, I guess, is about regret. These are fragments of a bygone era that I have been trying to revisit ever since learning how to write rock songs.

War In Space was recorded in Mom’s Basement sometime in 2000 or so. Trying like hell to emulate Beat Happening, this was the first song I ever recorded that had lyrics (more precisely, the first song that I had the balls to actually sing on).

Front Porch/Cars Passing was recorded sometime in 1999 in my bedroom. Originally called “A Misguided Attempt At A Wednesday”, I had an idea to put out a 7-song EP, writing and recording one song a day for a week. I lost interest on Thursday, the intro of which mistakenly (but fortunately) can be heard fading out at the end of this song.

Light 100s is a direct and unabashed reaction to discovering Sonic Youth. If reading into SY’s genesis, one will inevitably become familiar with at least the name Glenn Branca, as two of the members were regular contributors to his performances. After reading about Branca’s multi-guitar symphonies, and before ever hearing a note that the man recorded, I wrote this song, comprised of 12 guitar tracks recorded on my little four track. I attempted a cigarette-themed album called “Camel: The Album”. This is the only surviving piece.

What A Day is about feeling stuck, bored, and lonely. One winter I found myself drunk, missing my friends, disgusted with society and desperately needing to get laid. And there you have it.

My Dreams Are Boring:  I don’t dream. And when I do dream, mostly it’s about regular, everyday shit. I lived through a period of time around 2004 or so when I dreamed every night and had an almost constant and unshakable feeling of de-ja-vu. So I wrote this song, which really is not about that specifically. That’s just the inspiration.

Requiem For My Puppy Dog:  One night in 1999 or so (maybe 2000, but no later), I found my dog Pepper lying on the floor, breathing heavily. I couldn’t get her up to walk and knew that she wouldn’t make it through the night. I couldn’t deal with it, so I convinced myself that she was just tired and went to bed. I woke up and found Pepper dead the next morning, and realized that her last moments were spent alone and terrified because I chose to ignore my own intuition. I buried her in the back yard, and wrote this song immediately afterward. I’ll never regret anything more than going to bed that night, and still cry when I think about it.

They’ll Be Here Soon (Full Moon):  This is an account of a booze-soaked, acid-influenced freakout that happened a few years ago with my friends. One night on a full moon, we decided (as we have in the past and will in the future), to go up to the Valley View Golf Course in Utica, NY and howl (literally). The Real Burnouts had been doing this since they were kids, and I had only accompanied everyone a few times before this night. I brought my tape recorder, and got whatever I could on tape (I’m the one who tried to push the bench over, but found that it was bolted to the ground). The fact that the recording ended up underneath all that backwards music is the result of not knowing what the fuck else to do with the sounds… I thought it was just what the song needed after playback.

You can download THE PASSIONATE MISUNDERSTANDING at the Quixodelic Record Store (the “Store” link at the top of the site), find out more about Fig Mints at www.myspace.com/figmints - download Fig Mints records for free at www.cozyhomerecords.com

Out Today!

FIG MINTS (OF YOUR IMAGINATION)

The Passionate Misunderstanding

In association with our brothers & sisters & weird cousins twice removed at www.cozyhomerecords.com we’re grinning to present a seven-song slice of history available to download at your free & easy Quixodelic Record store right now so you can hear how it all began…

JUST CLICK ON THE STORE LINK AT THE TOP OF THIS SITE

FIG MINTS (OF YOUR IMAGINATION)

The Passionate Misunderstanding

If record reviews were personality contests then anything from Fig Mint HQ would be greeted like a long-lost Beatles album, recorded in a sunkissed LSD-obliterated Bermuda triangle of a fortnight in the summer of 1967. And on the Quixodelic underground “The Passionate Misunderstanding” should be afforded the same treatment… roll out the red carpet, download it for free, make a little space in your life, hang onto your headphones and disappear down a tunnel of time, way back to before it even started. But we all know it doesn’t work like that – the old cliche about good guys finishing last was seemingly written about songwriters like Robert Richard Rogan, the brains behind a name that began as a piss-take of himself, but stuck for the best part of a decade thereafter. The truth is, if there is a red carpet then it’s a ragged one – beer & vomit stained, threadbare in places, half-rolled up in a stinking backstreet of urban America. And yet, like a resplendant punk beatnik guitar-wielding troubadour, if you peer through the darkness of your own head, you can vaguely make out the silhouette of “Pinky” staggering bottle in hand on the carpet’s remains, perpetually flying beneath the radar. Perhaps more than anything, the reason I love Fig Mints records is the way it deals with the desolation and confusion of just being here through the songs, through the tangled guitar riffs, with bittersweet and comical words that you instantly recognise as the universal badge of intelligent bewilderment.

“The Passionate Misunderstanding” is something for the curiosity collector inside us all, documenting a time pre-Figs, when the music was nameless, and finding it’s feet while trying not to drop the bottle. 7 tracks ripped from almost-forgotten spools of tape recorded between 1999 and 2005, it is as raw and ragged as the carpet I’m imagining it walks down, but for anyone who has been lucky enough to catch any official Fig Mints records released in the last 5 years, it is well worth your attention. Make no mistake – if you want an introduction to Bobby Rogan’s particular brand of music, then head over to www.cozyhomerecords.com where you can download the brilliant “Bad Choice Brigade” or the equally impressive and most recent recording “Hugs & Smiles” for free. But if like me, you’re wondering how it all began, or simply just wanting some more Fig Mints on your iPod then “Misunderstanding” intentionally misses the spot and rolls off down the road behind you.

“The Passionate Misunderstanding” kicks off with the prototypical Fig Mints “War In Space”. There is an umistakeable sound that runs through the veins of any Figs records – like a compass of pop, punk, indie rock, and experimental folk with a needle that spasmodically wheels around the face, stopping for a moment here, before wheeling around to there. Reassuringly, you never know exactly what you’re going to get next, but at the same time you know that it’s going to be somewhere on that compass face. What I think I’m trying to say here is a Fig Mints record without a “War In Space” wouldn’t be a Fig Mints record. Think punk-pop. Or pop-punk. And smile at simply neat lines like “Of all the human race you’re the only one that I would like to save…” while you’re thinking. 

Next stop for the needle is the distinctly lo-fi “Front Porch-Cars Passing”, a dual acoustic recording that is exactly what is says it is – an experimental few minutes of instrumental guitar lines, switching between grungey chords and atmospheric folk licks all the while the Utican traffic rumbling by in lo-fi space. It sounds as chaotic and unplanned as a jazz trumpeter, and gets better and better with every passing second until it closes on a curious bar of seemingly accordian-esque notes. “Misunderstanding” is mathematically heavy on the non-vocal side with a whopping 43% of it being music only – but the other two instrumentals are perhaps two of the high points. “Light 100s” is my current favourite track of the 7, verging on atmospheric psychedelic rock it takes a riff and runs with it building in a crescendo of frenzied guitar squalls, whereas in stark contrast “Requiem For My Puppy Dog” is a breezy little electro/acoustic ditty hinting at the direction of jingle-jangle folk-pop that comprises some of Fig Mints finest later recordings. The instrumental side of this record is really no surprise if you join the dots and trace the development from musician/guitarist discovering and finding their way as a singer/songwriter, and frames a curious glimpse at such a transition. That perhaps the most endearing quality of more recent recordings (the lyrical connection of the words) is absent for much of “Misunderstanding” in the context of this record being such a snapshot, is forgiveable, and actually pretty damn enjoyable.

The record is made up with “What A Day” (the most recognisably Fig Mints track on the record – a chugging acoustic/electric drawl, with a catchy melody, Beck-esque in its delivery), “My Dreams Are Boring” (more of the same, an electric beat and a deadpan delivery that pulsates with digitalised “oohs” and “ahs” like tiny insects), and closing track “They’ll Be Here Soon (Full Moon)”. As a record closer it’s worth the admission price alone – oh shit, yeah it’s free – well, if there was an admission price then that track would be worth it. Here comes the sound of a recognisably Utica-style experimental madness – backwards guitars, tapes fizzing, voices screaming inexplicables (did I just hear someone yelling something about “dodgy ball”?). It is the soundtrack of mispent, beautiful hallucinogenic youth – too many drugs, too much drink, too much thought, much hilarity, alive and prickling with the electric NOWNESS of it, like listening to your own worst nightmare and waking up many years later to find out someone actually recorded it on the other side of the world.

So there you have it. “The Passionate Misunderstanding” is the sound of the artist stretching on the start-line before taking off on a neverending sprint to a finishing line nobody knows exists. If anything, it’s a timely and slightly eccentric reminder of why you can’t wait for the next chapter from a songwriter who is producing “one song a month” in a blacked-out bedroom somewhere, getting on with it, goofing with friends when he can, slowly digesting the absurd world he inhabits so that he can later regurgitate it in the shape of songs and observations, with great guitars and drums to keep it simple, and give it momentum. Beyond that it’s a neat and strange little record in its own right, with a compass needle that goes haywire pulling recordings that never found a place to be from spools of tape and pasting them together on the cutting floor of hindsight. The silhouette is singing to you, an upstairs window opens and someone hurls a slipper down into the street below with a shower of insults concerning time – but what does the silhouette care… the tune he is drunkly trying to whistle is timeless and the red carpet rolls out in the shadows beneath his feet. Long may the carpet keep rolling.

You can download “The Passionate Misunderstanding” from the Quixodelic STORE link at the top of this site FOR FREE

Or find out more about FIG MINTS at: www.myspace.com/figmints