(Sit down and allow yourself plenty of time for this one - Mike's replies are again italicised, so you can just focus on those, if you're in a hurry)
Big Interview # 2 - Mike Haliechu(c)k:
Me (by email): Here we are, a little more than a month after you said the Tower 7” would make more sense and now David Eliade is back, but apparently stuck in someone else’s story. Is that him speaking on ‘Tower of Time’ and is it relevant that his words were penned by a fake band called Jade Hairpins?
Mike: there's no evidence to suggest that jade hairpins is a fake band
Me (thinking): This is the second time in two days I've been picked up for describing something FU related as 'fake' and both times realised they might be on to something. What I really meant was, having spent several seconds searching for 'Jade Hairpins' and finding nothing but jade
hairpins, concluded the band probably didn't exist before this record was conceived. Which IS different to it being written by a fake band. Anyway, after several more seconds on google, searching 'Jade Hairpin' found a Kung FU movie franchise and a love story, with a happy ending. Now this might, or might not make the first part of the next question redundant, but he doesn't answer it anyway, so just skip to the boldfaced second part below and the interview will join up neatly, keeping things concise, so you don't have to read a lot of pointless, time-wasting, small-space-filling words, all in the same font, with just one tiny little word of joy.
Me (By email again): Why Jade Hairpins and not Hairy Custard? You’ve used different colours symbolically in the past, can you tell us what’s inspired the colour themes on the new LP and maybe David Comes to Life? Reading can be a way of getting out of a story, so please mention a few titles / writers that you think might help. Just tell us your favourite colour, if you can’t think of any books.
Him: my favourite colour is creamfruit
Me (thinking, again): Shall I ask what creamfruit is? maybe it has special powers, like that transcendent shade of pink, experienced by the author, narrator and protagonist of Valis, or does it just make the records look like nice big wobbly eggs?
Me: Some of the press describes the LP as an ‘odyssey’ and the first new character is Joyce. Is there an enormous Ulysses reference going on here, or is Joyce the most joyous name out there?
10K: because it contains joy
Me (over-thinking before managing to stop): But... oh
Myself: A mysterious 80’s punk compilation just appeared on Static Shock Records. It’s reminiscent of David’s Town, but has a different emphasis; the ‘revolting woman, a constant through history’. So, in terms of FU history, is it safe to say that the ‘Mother Forever' 12” marks a significant change / development in FU content, in much the same way as ‘Looking For Gold’?
Him: that's not really up to me to decide
Me (dream-typing):
Part 4, Chapter 1 - Mother'Mother Forever' marks a...
Me: (real-typing my last and as it turns out, best question): Lastly, please rate the birthing of the following LPs from 1 -5 , with 1 being natural / comfortable and 5 being complicated / painful:
Mike (adding numbers to the provided list of LPs):
CHEM COM 2
DAVID COMES TO LIFE 3
DAVID’S TOWN 2
GLASS BOYS 4
ZANZIBAR 2
DOSE YOUR DREAMS 2
RAISE YOUR VOICE JOYCE i wouldn't know
Anyway, this is meant to be a discography, not an inane personal blog. I'd better add some more relevant nerdy stuff, like these two below. The record on the left is an 'epics in minutes', the one on the right is the 'baiting the public' (with epics labels), but it's got a picture sleeve. I've seen a few of these with different epics sleeves, the dust jackets aren't numbered, but they otherwise look the same as the real thing. Maybe they should be called fakes, but I own a couple so am calling them 'variants'.
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| The "secret" 7" and the secret variant |
Also, at last, after 8 years managed to get one of these:
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| "Tour Sleeve" - 50 or so copies exist. This one also comes with a second sleeve, the highly sought after 'spare copy variant' |
Which marked the end of the futile quest to make a collection containing all the FU vinyl variants that were available in 30 or more copies. Or at least it would have done, but still need ''Hare'' on black and gold and ''Live at Third Man" on black and blue.
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| Incomplete collection of FU 12"s |
