Adrian Simmons
FishboyYou only own one shot at life
There’s no undo or backspace
So just wait and take your time
Aaron The Afterthought Astronaut
Fishboy“Aaron the Afterthought Astronaut” by Fishboy
Fishboy : Classic Creeps
So this is the story all about how I listened to Classic Creeps by Fishboy and ended up liking it as well.
I was checking out some music on bandcamp, armed with my last 6-something dollars and found this. More on that later.
Anyways, my 6 bucks didn’t cut it so I bitched about it on twitter.
The guy behind Fishboy picked it up and, in a gesture making my day and then some, graciously offered a press copy of his new album.
If you wanna have a listen:
But I strongly suggest checking out the website and listening to it there whilst reading the comic version.
Classic Creeps is a story. And a pretty Epic story at that.
Not just “OMG this cheeseburger is EPIC”-epic but the literal meaning of it as well.
Every song tells the story and provides a connection to the next one. The whole album tells the tale of the Simmons brothers that try to travel back in time and take over a factory in the process, there’s an owl involved at some point… You just gotta listen to it, really.
Ever see that movie Slacker? Following people, tell their story, move on to the next guy : It’s kind of like that.
Even though the songs are between two and four minutes long the charachters are lovingly rounded and coloured in and just so damn human that you can’t help but fall in love with the whole thing. This whole falling in love business is helped by the unapologetically upbeat and just overall great sound provided by the 4 piece surrounding the infamous Fishboy. He actually does a good job describing it himself:
If only I had that extra 30 cents. It definitely would’ve been worth it.
So it’s come to my attention that Fishboy finally put the acoustic version of their pretty-much-perfect album, Classic Creeps on the internet (i have a copy of the cassette release, but i haven’t been able to listen to is, as my tape decks are broken. i plan to learn how to fix em eventually). It’s for sale digitally, or free with his Classic Creeps tour diary mini-comic that he’s selling (and that i wish i could just buy right now. stupid adulthood).
The music itself i guess could be defined as Indie-Pop. It’s a concept album about all these ridiculous people that share a purposefully overcomplicated story. It has a similar vibe to Wes Anderson movies, what with all the quirky behavior and dialogue book-ending all the REAL TALK.
When i saw them live, they were touring for this album, but had problems getting their keyboard player and drummer, so they decided to have the Singer/Writer on an acoustic guitar, looking at people and moving around like an old minstrel or something. He was really into it, and i appreciated that. The Bass player played one of those weird six string Mexican basses (Guitarron, wikipedia tells me), and to round it out, they had the guy from Googolplexia switching between a glockenspiel, accordion, and a weird kazoo-trombone thing. They also played completely unplugged, which is a huge deal to me for some reason.
When i got home with the record, i was a bit disappointed that it wasn’t quite like the stripped down performance i had just seen, but that didn’t last for very long. The studio album is kind of a pop-masterpiece. Complete with brass-flourishes, electric and acoustic guitars, and a Stylophone! anyone that seriously uses a Stylophone is OK in my book.
Oh yeah, the story! i don’t wanna give away too much of it, as its almost all character related, but i will say that it has some overly-catchy and sometimes weirdly moving stories about a cop with a photographic memory, his son Aspen2000 (who was born during “Y2K”), a shut in, a company owner facing a mid-life crisis, an owl that “mistakes the feelings of being in love with the feeling of being an owl”, and thieving brothers with plans of time travel. There is also a sheet explaining what happens song by song if you don’t feel like piecing it together like a rad modern-day radio soap opera.
Really, the only real complaints i have about the studio album are that it didn’t have the googolplexia guy doing his really neat vocal contributions on Aspen2k, and the final song seemed a bit out of place when i first heard it. It’s still great though.
Speaking of, i still need to check out Googolplexia. I was a bit disappointed that he was just a touring member, and he seemed like a really cool guy when i met him. He deserves for me to check his shit out.
also just for good measure, here’s the original album.
This album is super awsome, and you should listen to it.
classiccreeps.comClassic Creeps (by Fishboy) is an awsome concept album about ten different characters all interconnected through a fascinating story involving rockets, time travel, lost love, kidnapping, owls, etc. The music is catchy, the story is compelling, and I’ve never heard anything quite like it before! A must listen. :D
