SUPER FURRY ANIMALS

Yeah, the following show was a documentary on the aborted "classical" project, but that was put together/first originally shown years ago. Just seems a bit bizarre to me that they didn't even mention it (or Das Koolies) in the new doc. Thinking about it, 2006 was probably one of the busiest years for the band, individually and collectively: Omni was released, Candylion was recorded, Neon Neon formed/work started on Stainless Style, The Peth had formed and were working on material, the aborted "classical" project was started that year, Super Furry Animals played various shows throughout the year, and work may have even begun on Hey Venus!. There's a scene in the documentary for the aborted "classical" project where they're in a studio, and on the wall is a list of songs that made it onto Dark Days/Light Years, even. So much stuff... doesn't surprise me that they ended up slowing down!

Actually, this NME news item (dated December 6th 2006) mentions that the band are at the mixing stage for (what was eventually titled) Hey Venus! so yeah, they'd pretty much started and almost finished Hey Venus! that year too. I don't know if this refers to the first mix (by Newfeld) which was mostly scrapped, or the second mix (by Chris Shaw) which was put out as the released version.

I actually find myself wanting to check out the pre-SFA bands after watching the doc. I've heard almost everything by Ffa Coffi Pawb, but have not listened to U Thant or managed to track down the WWZZ release. U Thant sounded all right based on the small amount of footage.

Ric mentions that Cian and Bunf toured France together with a guitar and some sequencers. I'd love to hear what that sounded like. I know this stuff must exist in some form. There really should be a wealth of unreleased material out there. I didn't realize they didn't use Newstead's mix. I'm not a big fan of the production on that album. It sounds kind of flat to me. I recall hearing that "baby ate my eightball" was originally quite heavy.

Like I said above, it seems like they didn't really have any new ideas after 2007 since DD/LY was mostly made up of songs that had already been floating around. I know that's not usual--for a band to carry a song or idea for a while before they record it. I wonder if they left anything off DD/LY.

That's not unusual, rather.

I'm excited to see how the shows go. They were a pretty inconsistent live act and Gruff's solo show has become extremely good in recent years. There's a setlist near the end of the documentary that didn't seem wildly different from the setlist they'd used in their last years together. I hope they end up taking some risks.

There's camcorder footage on Youtube of U Thant on a European tour in 1991. I don't think Bunf was in the band at the time, so he's not on there. Guto is, though.

As I understand it, they recorded Hey Venus! with Dave Newfeld and he also did mixes of all the tracks on the album, but for some reason or other the band chose not to use his original mixes and instead opted to get Chris Shaw (who worked on Guerrilla, Rings Around The World and Dark Days/Light Years) to mix the tracks instead. Only one Dave Newfeld mix made it to the album, which was 'Suckers!', the rest are Chris Shaw mixes of Dave Newfeld recordings. The intro to 'Crazy Naked Girls' on Dark Days/Light Years was actually recorded during the Hey Venus! sessions.

There's a bit of footage of Bunf in old bands on YouTube.

Anyway, on to some more rumor mill type stuff:

http://bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05sdh9s

Lauren welcomes Wales' finest hirsute beings Super Furry Animals in session. After an impressive nine album span, SFA leader Gruff Rhys decided to go it alone, it seems he had many projects in his head to unleash on the world. Not least bringing the story of the Welsh explorer John Evans to light in last year's American Interior multimedia outpouring. But luckily for us, the SFAs are back with brand new material and a live session. Hold on to your hats, this could get strange.

Do you think they're just mistaken on the last part?

Yes. Although stranger things have happened.

They're on stage in about 15 minutes in Gloucester. Can't wait to see what they play!

A kind fellow by the name ianjwills on Twitter promises to live Tweet the set.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CDrePStWgAAbBQp.jpg:large

Jesus christ, that picture!

The set looks pretty great right now. They're wearing suits that recall their Love Kraft outfits. They even have a horn section tonight.

Setlist looks pretty predictable to me, bar 'Y Gwyneb Iau' which hasn't been aired live often.

Ooh, and 'Pan Ddaw'r Wawr', which hasn't been played live since the Mwng tour. Makes sense that they're playing a lot of Mwng, though.

They're now playing "Arnofio/Glo in the Dark"! One of my all-time favorites.

Yeah, that's the biggest surprise of the set so far, and very welcome after the preceding four or five songs.

'Gwreiddiau Dwfn'(!)

I wonder if they're going to completely skip Hey Venus! and DD/LY. I know they're not done because they haven't played The Man Don't Give a Fuck. Then again, the one you just posted has been used as a closer before...

'Slow Life' now, this must be the beginning of the encore.

xpost:

Yeah, I've just noticed that they haven't played anything from Hey Venus! and Dark Days/Light Years yet, but they also haven't played some others like 'Juxtapozed With U' or 'Golden Retriever' yet.

Ah, and there it is!

I wonder if they're going to completely skip Hey Venus! and DD/LY.

Yup, it would seem like this was the case. Tonight's setlist in full:

1. (A) Touch Sensitive
2. (Drawing) Rings Around The World
3. Do Or Die
4. God! Show Me Magic
5. Bad Behaviour
6. Demons
7. Northern Lites
8. Ymaelodi A'r Ymylon
9. Y Gwyneb Iau
10. Nythod Cacwn
11. Pan Ddaw'r Wawr
12. Bleed Forever
13. Run! Christian, Run!
14. Hello Sunshine
15. Hometown Unicorn
16. Zoom!
17. Arnofio/Glo In The Dark
18. Ice Hockey Hair
19. Gwreiddiau Dwfn/Mawrth Oer Ar Y Blaned Neifion
20. Slow Life
21. Golden Retriever
22. Receptacle For The Respectable
23. Fire In My Heart
24. Mountain People
25. The Man Don't Give A Fuck

Not the most surprising setlist, but there were still some surprises and the live horn arrangements must have been a nice surprise. 25 songs is really long, especially for a band that hasn't played together in a while. I guess we now know how they feel about their last two albums, unless songs make an appearance at another date. I think they might swap in a few different songs depending on the night.

Yeah, it was particularly good to see 'Y Gwyneb Iau', 'Pan Ddaw'r Wawr', 'Arnofio/Glo In The Dark' and 'Gwreiddiau Dwfn/Mawrth Oer Ar Y Blaned Neifion' being played. Other than that, some not particularly surprising selections: it wouldn't be an SFA gig without them playing 'Slow Life' at this stage as it's probably their defining song overall along with 'Ice Hockey Hair', which is also one of their best ever songs. 'Receptacle For The Respectable' is always a welcome addition to any SFA set, and it's good to see 'Mountain People' got an airing. On the other hand, 'The Man Don't Give A Fuck', while it can be a great live track (particularly in its extended form) has always been an extremely overrated and often incredibly misinterpreted song.

Criticisms? I'm not keen on the new stage outfits they're wearing - they look as if they're about to do some DIY... and that run of songs: 'Bleed Forever', 'Run! Christian, Run!', 'Hello Sunshine', 'Hometown Unicorn' and 'Zoom!' (with the exception of 'Hometown Unicorn') looks like a very long "time to go for a piss" moment.

I've always enjoyed "Zoom!" in their sets. I think they play it well live. It's got a nice prog rock edge that gets your blood running a little. I think they have some sort of new lighting gimmick that's meant to play into their suits. Gruff mentioned something about visuals that feed back into themselves. Having not been there, I wouldn't know. I'm surprised the yetis made a comeback. They supposedly chopped them up or doused them in gasoline and set them alight, depending on the story.

It's also kind of funny that they seem to be branding their new web presence with all their names, like we need to remember it's not just Gruff. yet they only played Gruff's songs. Anyway, not surprising. Might as well play the hits after being gone for six years.

The thing about the slow numbers like 'Zoom!' and 'Run! Christian, Run!' is that I like 'em just fine on record, and get a lot out of 'em when I'm listening to 'em at home, but during live shows I enjoy the uptempo numbers a lot more.

The BBC 6music session with Lauren Laverne was basically four of the Mwng songs they've been playing: 'Ymaelodi A'r Ymylon', 'Pan Ddaw'r Wawr', 'Y Gwyneb Iau' and 'Nythod Cacwn', so I guess those four are going to be mainstays in the set.

I haven't had a chance to listen to the radio session yet. I saw a pretty low quality recording of the last part of their set and I have to say the addition of a horn section really livens up their performance. I was always a bit disappointed by their reliance on Cian's laptop and backing tracks. I understand why it wasn't feasible to tour the world with horn players, etc., but they were missed.

This interview is pretty good:

http://thequietus.com/articles/17781-super-furry-animals-interview

You mentioned earlier that there's a bit of a backlog of songs from that period. Do you have Prince-style vault of unreleased material that you're sitting on?

GR: We've got a load of stuff. There's definitely unreleased songs, unreleased experimental albums.

HB: There's the (Princess) Diana song.

GR: Yeah, there are songs that are so outrageous they'd be career suicide. There's albums we've lost, but they weren't particularly good. Just a lost album, not a great lost album. What was it, Steelworks In Stone?

HB: That's right. When we were recording Guerrilla, it was such an overly ostentatious studio, ironically called The Real World. You had so much room. [keyboard/electronics man] Cian started getting bored, I think. There was a lot of waiting around and dissecting, so we ended up starting a parallel band called Das Koolies. We all took on different characters. I think the Stereophonics were next door and they came in to see what we were doing, so we exposed them to Das Koolies. Their late drummer, he was quite taken aback. He said to concentrate on what we were doing.

GR: We took his advice. That was the year before Mwng. We wanted to retreat from polished pop, I think.

HB: We hired some steel drums for one little bit in a song, so we felt like we wanted to use them. They were one of the main instruments in Das Koolies. That and the Taurus bass.

GR: Are you familiar with the Moog Taurus? It's a synthesiser you play with your feet. It makes some howling noises.

HB: Those two instruments were very much the meat and potatoes of Das Koolies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2rRuKZpdvE

Excellent version of 'Gwreiddau Dwfn/Mawrth Oer Ar Y Blaned Neifion'!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXPDyVv_KaI

It's great to see they still have "it." That's one of the better performances they've done in years.

Maybe time apart and purging all these new song ideas led to something. They still have quite a few shows to run through before I make any proclamations.

In other news, Gruff says that they're putting alternate mixes of Mwng tracks on the CD reissue.

The break seems to have done them some good, they sound far more with it in these clips than they do on the 2009-era footage.

and that's even with "first night problems" (ballsing up the intro to 'The Man Don't Give A Fuck', for example)

After the sell-out success of the first two SFA parties, the Furries return to Corsica Studios to throw another all-night warehouse bash, straight after their second show at O2 Academy Brixton!

Featuring DJ sets from:
Super Furry Animals inc Gruff Rhys, Acid Casuals, Cherrystones (Whatever We Want, Poptones), Andy Votel (Twisted Nerve, B Music, Finders Keepers), Pete Fowler (Monsterism) + many more!

The event will feature everything from deep-fried acid-folk to fuzzy psych and freakout madness, plus a dedicated SFA rave tank will feature in the second room - catering for all those techno music needs.

Add to the mix a selection of mind-bending visuals, B-Movie trailers, kaleidoscopic light shows and (believe it or not) a Kool-Aid bar, you'd be forgiven for thinking that this was some Merry Pranksters' gathering in Haight-Ashbury at the tail end of the sixties, not 21st century Elephant & Castle!

The last two warehouse parties sold out in mega quick time, so what are you waiting for? Get tickets now!

It's going to be interesting to see what else they play live over the next week or so, they've never been ones for changing their set up dramatically every night.

I'm expecting 'Juxtapozed With U' and 'Calimero' to be two of the "subs" they didn't play at Gloucester Guildhall.

Might be a bit obvious, but perhaps "Cardiff in the Sun" this weekend? I don't believe they'll completely ignore their last two LPs.

Yeah, I guess that would fit. I don't believe they'd completely ignore their last two albums either: 'Run-Away', 'Show Your Hand', 'The Gift That Keeps Giving', 'Into The Night', 'Baby Ate My Eightball', 'The Very Best Of Neil Diamond, 'White Socks/Flip Flops', 'Helium Hearts' and 'Pric' all deserve to be aired at some point or another. However, if they do end up ignoring their last two LPs like at the Guildhall gig, or even don't play anything at all from Love Kraft (I hope they avoid playing 'Frequency' in particular, as I've come to the conclusion recently that I hate it), then that's no problem. The amount of different, killer setlists they could put together with the 1994-2004 stuff is incredible. It would be a shame, though, if they didn't sneak in the occasional track from Hey Venus! or Dark Days/Light Years, but they'd have to be the better songs (and I speak as someone who likes Hey Venus! a lot) and not absolute shite like, for example, 'Moped Eyes' or 'Mt.'

I like most of those songs!

Anyway, there's a pair of pretty encouraging interviews out today:

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/whats-on/super-fired-super-furry-animals-9154558

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/whats-on/music-nightlife-news/sneak-peek-super-furry-animals-9052717

It seems like Ric's book jolted them into action, which makes sense. That's pretty awesome.

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/whats-on/music-nightlife-news/return-super-furry-animals-its-9161677

Wrong Wales Online link.

Well, at least something positive came out of the book release, because I can comfortably say that the book itself isn't all that great and is far from the book that could and should have been written about this band. Thank fuck I wasn't the only one to notice.

It's funny to imagine Bunf watching himself on YouTube. It's almost like you're covering your own music. I also like that the bit about how it's the most they've ever rehearsed for a show.

I agree the book wasn't the best ever. I would've liked a bit more fact and maybe a little more insight into their sales "decline" that began with Love Kraft.

He wouldn't be the only musician to confess to watching old live shows on Youtube to remember how to play certain tracks. I think that Blur have copped to this, too!

I agreed with all the reviews that called the book a missed opportunity, really. The kind of book that I would have liked to have seen for this band would have been incredibly detailed, not just the events that led up to their formation or throughout their career, but information about song inspirations, references in the lyrics, the recording process, a timeline of events such as when things were written/recorded/mixed etc. I would have also liked to have seen something which examined SFA as a collaborative, musical unit.

Instead what we got was a pamphlet that was written from the viewpoint of "OH LOL! SFA R SOOO WACKYYYYYY! THEY BOUGHT A TANK!!!11!!!!1" ... Sure, stuff like the tank, the inflatable bears, yetis and all that kind of stuff is part of the SFA story, but ultimately it's the music that is the most important thing and I have a hatred of anything that emphasises the gimmicks and stunts over the music.

Anyway, the first night of the tour proper is happening right this very moment... can't wait to see what the setlist is like.

Looks nearly identical except they swapped the order of some songs:

https://twitter.com/asoundreaction/status/594277998234316801

Maybe they...don't like Dark Days/Light Years? :'(

Obviously the majority of the people buying tickets aren't there to hear "Inconvenience."

I kind of think "Golden Retriever" could be swapped out for something better. I've never found that one of their better songs.

Looks nearly identical except they swapped the order of some songs

Not even that - the setlist is exactly the same!

My guess (based on what I've seen of SFA setlists in the past) is that they're not going to deviate from this setlist too much. They're playing gigs in Cardiff on the 2nd and 3rd as well, and I don't think they'd keep the same set for all three Cardiff dates. My guess is that at the very least they'll swap the order of the songs, or they might replace one or two songs with something like 'Juxtapozed With U' or something along those lines.