Why I Love: Five Iron Frenzy

Welcome to another edition of Why I Love. Today we’re going back deep into the recesses of my musical mind and unearthing one of the first bands I was totally geeked on: Five Iron Frenzy .

I’m still kind of puzzled as to how I got into FIF in the first place. Here are the facts: When I was 18 I started going to Waterloo MB church. I was from a Catholic family and didn’t know much about Contemporary Christian Music (CCM), but had gotten into a little bit thanks to some of the people I was hanging around. I remember early favourites being Audio Adrenaline and Johnny Q. Public (who, according to the best searches the Interweb can offer, disappeared sometime in 2000). Sometime during winter of 1998 I was in the Carpenter Shop (now the Gospel Lighthouse) in Waterloo and I saw this CD:



Before I knew it I walked out with the disc. I have no idea how I knew who they were, or what they sounded like, or why I thought I would like them: I just bought it and stuck it in my discman (ten years ago, gimme a break).

At the time I had just started listening to ska, so it was the right time for me to jump on board. FIF started as a “pure” ska band, all upstrokes and quickness and horns. But over the course of their career they branched away from ska, rooting themselves in rock sensibilities with an edge.

FIF is among the few bands to successfully swing between manic, silly humour and serious introspection and anger. They wrote an entire rock opera based around losing their pants (this is on the tail end of Quantity is Job #1 ) but also explored the nature of grace, personal failure before God, and more. Most importantly, they were attuned to many social issues, most notably native rights (“Banner Year” from Our Newest Album Ever is still one of my favourite songs).

Quantity is Job #1 was, is and continues to be my favourite FIF recording. I especially love “Dandelions”. It’s written around a metaphor that’s simple to the point of childishness: God sees us the way little kids see Dandelions. That is, He sees flowers where everyone else sees weeds.

I was lucky enough to see FIF twice, both times in Michigan. Their live shows were phenomenal, and their two live albums (Proof That The Youth Are Revolting and disc 2 of The End Is Here) are testament to that. Nobody could walk away from an FIF show in a funk – they were too much fun. It’s interesting to see how the Christian youth music scene is dominated mostly by screamo bands these days. There’s not the same sense of joy fused with reckless abandon there that there used to be, and I think FIF were one of (if not the last of) the generation of bands that embraced that side of culture.

FIF broke up in 2003, which still feels like it was yesterday for me.

I’ll admit that by the end of their run I was buying albums more out of completism than I was out of love for the band. There were a lot of tracks I liked on The End Is Near/The End is Here , but none that I abjectly loved. If you want to look up what I think reflects the best of FIF, here’s my top ten list:

1. Dandelions -- Quantity is Job #1
2. Handbook For The Sellout (live) -- The End Is Here (Disc 2)
3. World Without End -- All The Hype Money Can Buy
4. Every New Day -- Our Newest Album Ever
5. On Distant Shores -- The End Is Here (Disc 1)
6. Pre-Ex Girlfriend -- Five Iron Frenzy 2: Electric Boogaloo
7. Banner Year -- Our Newest Album Ever
8. All That Is Good -- Quantity is Job #1
9. Oh, Canada -- Our Newest Album Ever
10. Giants -- All The Hype Money Can Buy

Why I Love: The Golden Dogs

So this will be another regular (read: space filling when I have no shows) feature on drummerthoughts called Why I Love. I tend to follow bands more than genres or record labels, so there are a core of six or seven bands that I am listening to incessantly at any given time (just ask Krista, she will confirm this). So in the hopes that I will be educating the masses I am going to tell you today Why I Love the Golden Dogs

When I was reviewing CDs for Echo I was given the Dogs’ Everything in Three Parts by my editor because I had professed a passing interest in ska. “They do a little bit of ska,” he said, and he was right: exactly one song (“Elevator Man”) on that album could be considered ska, and I would hesitate to place it in that genre at all. It seems that when white dudes play summery guitars with horns in the background it’s considered ska (unless you’re Sloan).

Anyway, I fell in love with the disc almost immediately. The I said in that review that the Dogs “convey that rare sense of having listened to a lot of bands but not wanting to be any one of them”, and I stand by that today. They dip their toes in so many genres that you honestly wonder where they find the time to listen to all that music. Everything in Three Parts runs the gamut from summery rock to waltz to alt-country to acoustic indie and seem utterly comfortable in each of those places. I was super excited for a follow up.

In summer of 2007 Big Eye little eye was released. I remember being so excited that I kidnapped my friend Meagan, who I was supposed to be driving home so show could study for an exam, and dragged her to Sunrise so I could pick it up sooner (don’t worry, Meagan got into med school. I’m not that bad a friend). I had already heard two tracks: a Paul McCartney cover called “1985” (not to be confused with the craptacular Bowling For Soup song) and the first single, “Never Meant Any Harm” .

Right off the top, I was disappointed. Very little caught my ear that first time through, which I’ve only just come to realize is pretty consistent for me when listening to sophomore releases. I didn’t listen through Big Eye little eye again until almost a month later and the disc started making sense to me. It’s a more focused effort: rather than wildly jumping genres, which was admittedly attractive, the Dogs had anchored themselves in fuzzy indie-pop and reached out in different directions from there. They have such an excellent sensibility for building songs and making everything (lyrics to melody to rhythm to structure) mean something.

The final piece was seeing them live. At present I have seen the Dogs three times: at the Starlight in Waterloo, at Call the Office in London and at the Student Life Center on University of Waterloo campus. I can tell you for sure that the Dogs are one of the best live shows I’ ever seen. If you don’t believe me…

So that is why I love the Golden Dogs.

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IN OTHER NEWS!

Musicwise, nothing much happening, at least from a performance perspective. I've been working on some stuff for a fun Runaway show we have coming up in July. I'm writing some hip-hop rhymes for the first time and it's awesome. The process, I mean; I hesitate to say the rhymes themselves are awesome. Although I'm the first MC I know of to do a verse about a car with teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles references. That's right.

I'm also starting to brainstorm about this year's Indie/Acoustic Christmas show. Assuming it happens, I have some big ideas. BIG, says I.

This is all.