FELT (Go Kart Mozart, Denim)... Lawrence is amazing!

that lawrence could've gone from felt to denim (let alone go kart mozart) is so inconceivable that i cant even bring myself to spend any time with those records

I prefer them to Felt tbh.

And also, Back in Denim > Denim on Ice > Novelty Rock > Instant Wigwam > Tearing Up the Album Charts > On the Hotdog Streets (>this probably).

― everything

I'd put Tearing Up the Album Charts ahead of Novelty Rock, apart from that I'd agree. I didn't think Hotdog Streets was that great, but it's much better than the new one.

Love Denim (esp the 2nd alb), never cared for Felt at all.

man i LOVE felt
what's not to like!?

It just feels like they lived in a field and now they live in a tin

this is my favorite felt song
it's so subtly groovy

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

not that anyone cares what my favorite felt song is but i adore that song so much i don't understand what's not to like about it!

Ward F OTM.

You keep raving, LL. There is a depth and subtly to Felt that just begs for repeated listens. I feel like my appreciation for them just deepens as I get older - and I didn't fall for them until I was 40!

i most like the felt albums where maurice deebank is soloing on electric all over everything

then i like the denim album with fell off the bank of a lorry

after that i'd put the more pillowy felt albums

never heard any GKM

the first two felt albums are like tapestries that just kinda unfurl forever, a ribbon that ties around the whole earth. deserts, snowy tundras, the pacific ocean, all that

I'm going to listen to them all morning

yes indeed
i was going to list the things i like but i don't need to
mostly on "cathedral" it's the spareness of the instrumentation and the interaction between the voice, the no-snare, no-cymbals perfectly subdued drums and the guitar solo that gets me. it's so dreamy and groovy at the same time
i love it

now that i think about it, there is a felt song that is on my ipod shuffle that always comes up and i love it but idk what it's called. it's more of a dirge. prob from the same album.
they are a band that is fun to listen to when i'm traveling from one place to another. also i didn't really hear them til my mid-late 30s so i know it's not nostalgia talking.

the first two albums take my breath away

I've been with various folks in bands who rock in a different idiom and don't know Felt, but when Evergreen Dazed or any track from Crumbling comes on in my car the tone of the lead guitar lines always stops conversation.

I am listening to the Stagnant Pool while my co-workers discuss possible punishments for a student here who accidentally left her handgun in a bathroom

good lord

since I posted that the campus police have reported a second unattended gun left in a bathroom in a different building

welcome to Texas/America/my nightmare

wth

Damn. Take care.

does that happen regularly?!?

most likely explanation is they've decided to start *reporting* such incidents. but I guess a gun is like a cell phone or a sunglasses, one more thing to scoop into your day bag or forget in the bathroom.

anyway, I'm torn on these Felt reissues. I want them, but they're 25 pounds a pop. and I don't really want the bonus 7" or need a signed sticker from Lawrence. sell me a 5-CD box set for 50 pounds!

The magical combo of Laurence and Deebank is so addictive and unique to me that I rarely go back to the latter day stuff

post-Deebank has a lot to offer, but it's absolutely a different kettle of fish

i feel like people don't give ignite the seven cannons enough credit. it's amazing for being the only album with lawrence deebank AND duffy

what happened to gary ainge?

ooh, look at this live recording from Spain from 1985, they sound great!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUcw_CkIkT8

bass player looks so sad though

Gary Ainge did this album with Marco Thomas (who I think is the sad bassist above?) under the name Fly in 2002:

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

Put The Needle Down And Fly by Fly is one of the albums listed in the sleeve notes to Instant Wigwam and Igloo Mixture, one of my happiest moments in a record shop was seeing Put The Needle Down And Fly and realising it actually existed after assuming that both the album and band were fictional

(the album came out a couple of years after Instant Wigwam but Fly had already released a single in 1998 - I wonder if it was Lawrence who came up with the album title, though)

Lawrence came up with all the song titles on the Fly album

bass player looks so sad though

no one is playing bass... that's deebank.

what happened to gary ainge?

gary plays with lawrence... and vic godard.

Loved On The Hot Dog Streets massively so can't wait for the new album.

no one is playing bass... that's deebank.

nah, I meant the guy to the left of lawrence... I guess he isn't holding a guitar though!

that's duffy.

looks like he just realized he left his gun in the bathroom

some clips of the new ignite mixes on bleep: https://bleep.com/release/95538-felt-ignite-the-seven-cannons

Hmmmm, it's a strange thing, the songs come through a lot more clearly, I feel like I'm hearing the lyrics for the first time, but also it sound a little leaden, lacking the lightness and subtlety of the earlier albums. The drums plod a little. Maybe it takes getting used to. I do wonder if Guthrie just didn't do an amazing job of recording felt and flung the dense cocteaus filigree all over it as a smoke screen.

Haha Duffy does look like a sulky 13 year old in that footage.

Maurice soloing blithely, obliviously through ballad of the band is also priceless.

I'm kind of passively approving of mozarts minimart without expecting to like it overmuch. It's great that he's stuck to the GKM remit and made a hugely irritating and slightly disturbing collection of novelty pop as opposed to the Denim on a shoestring of the last two. They were a hoot in Brighton, Vic Godard leapt on stage and tucked a tenner in lawrence's pocket during relative poverty.

these mixes r weird

It sounds like there's a little more space and separation. You can hear the dinky drums better. Might just be me, those are some lofi clips

the clips I posted aren't actually the remixed versions 😔 they're available on streaming services tho

Moazart's Mini Mart is all that matters

I was more going by the clips in these excellent interviews:

https://www.mixcloud.com/sohoradio/morning-glory-13022018/

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09rws9l#play

(scarlet servants and i don't know which way to turn),

by the way, "Denim on a shoestring" & "hugely irritating and slightly disturbing collection of novelty pop" are in no way meats as pejoratives, i adore them all...

sorry that 2nd link should have been:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09rn2mb

& I highly recommend it, Gideon Coe is a big fan & lawrence is on good form.

If you love Felt but dismiss Denim or Go-Kart Mozart give them another chance. The idea that they are all novelty songs is wrong. Yes, there's "The New Potatoes" but that's an anomaly. There's a lot of serious, clever and creative songwriting about consumerism, drug addiction, failed love affairs, being in a band etc - which Felt also covered - instrumentals not much different from Let The Snakes Crinkle Their Heads or Train Above the City. The vocals are more upfront than Felt and delivered much more confidently. There's waves of instruments that dominate the songs but instead of Deebank doing his endless guitar solo or Duffy doing his endless organ solo you get endless synth soloing and sequencers. The production aesthetic is a bit different but on albums like Instant Wigwam or Denim On Ice the DNA is 95% the same.

"In the seventies there were Osmands" is excellent

Genuinely feel sorry for the Felt fans who don’t realise everything he did afterwards is superior

Don't knock "The New Potatoes", by the way, Charlie Brooker picked it as his no.1 musical choice on Desert Island Discs.

Back In Denim is Lawrence's masterpiece. It's the perfect balance of everything I love about him. Denim On Ice isn't far behind. The Go-Kart Mozart albums haven't quite been in the same league.

Totally agree with that but as per thread title Lawrence is a genius and Instant Wigwam proves it also imo..