The Poisoned Arrow

Updated Feb 2019

When I was a boy, Fucked Up would release info / teasers for upcoming LPs in one convenient place. Nowadays, you have to scan multiple sites, picking up snippets like a lot of tasty aperitifs. That's great, but it's difficult to keep track of everything. I prefer things in the equivalent of a family bucket, with indigestible fries, (and pictures, obvs) so that's what this is.



This album is about the freedom to live, to dream, and to make new dreams come alive in our real lives, which have been fed over to the forces of greed, social media, reification, consumerism, and social media. I can still remember when there were other dreams to be had. We read fantasies and history and the adventures of those who came before us, the failed romantic revolutions, and the struggles to make something different. I made this record to remind people that all those dreams are still up in the air, and that it’s up to any of us to grab one and make it real. You still get to have your own dreams and you still get to live your own life, in this era where social media and phones vie for our attention and take away all our time and put our emotions and relationships under lock and key and into shining little boxes, where we are more connected than ever, but more alone. Where we live in a world led by those so afraid that their only dream was to make money, and to make sure everyone had the same dream, those who would scold us, and make laws against us, and send us to work and to school, to shoot us and kill us and to lock us up and distract us, and kill us, forever. We remember other dreams, and we remember when living in other ways wasn’t just a dream. FUFB Jul 23




The drama unfolds like a miniature world of many parts being explored, a map being illuminated, location by location.
As with David Comes to Life , there is a story here. David—who once came to life—is now indentured to a desk job. David meets the elderly Joyce who closes his eyes, opens his mind, and sends him on a spiritual journey. David embarks on his own metaphysical odyssey. He sees a stage adaptation of his own life. He speaks to an angel in a lightbulb. He sees an infinite series of universes as simulations within simulations. Meanwhile, Lloyd—Joyce’s lover—was sent, decades ago, by Joyce on the same odyssey, but was lost in the void. Lloyd seeks to be found and reunited with his lover. Where will David end up? Will Joyce and Lloyd be reunited?
Dose Your Dreams—meaning: treat your dreams as you would a dream, allow yourself to be lost within them, allow them to open your heart and your mind, enjoy them as you would a drug. Reach out for my hand and pull me close. Owen Pallet Aug 15

Dose Your Dreams covers -- take a deep breath -- time traveling, anarchy, simulation universe theory, love, existential doubt, self-sabotage, suicidal urges and inescapable corporate culture.
“That's the Dose Your Dreams thing. Everybody has a dream of how the world should work, and certain people and certain companies make their dreams come true,” Haliechuk opines. “Unfortunately, the people that try the hardest to make things happen, it seems their only dreams are about making money and selling things to you.” Billboard Aug 15

“Raise Your Voice Joyce”, the first single from their fifth studio album, the sprawling odyssey Dose Your Dreams. The A-side, an exclusive single mix of the album track, concerns Fucked Up’s perennial hero David as he encounters the revolutionary sorcerer Joyce Tops, set to an incendiary Buzzcocks-inspired stormer that features backup vocals by Jen Calleja of Sauna Youth. The B-side of the 7-inch is a cover of Anna Meredith’s “Taken.” Merge









Part of the new album’s narrative is depicted in the music video for “Normal People,”...
Featuring Haliechuk as a supermarket-browsing clown, drummer Jonah Falco as a businessman in a fruit-and-sausage-strewn bathtub (a reference to The Who Sell Out, not the bathtub bacon from Gummo) and septuagenarian fashion model Judith Maria Bradley as central character Joyce Tops, the motley music video mirrors the album’s breathtaking stylistic diversity, which goes from snarling punk to dream pop to full-on dance music with the title track. Billboard Aug 15

Father Coin

Dr Smile

Mary Magazine

David Eliade

Joyce Tops

Dolly Dream

Nick Fenstle

Motherman

 

'House of Keys’ is the chapter in this epic where protagonist David—having been sent on a vision quest and had his eyes opened by revolutionary anarchist fighter Joyce—sees the true nature of music and art in this society, and seeks something greater.” Dose Your Dreams isn’t universally this heavy, by the way—seeing the true nature of reality is just like that sometimes. (Spin) Sep 10

Jellicoe & Woodbury* 'Fear b/w Doubt': The dogs snarl without mercy or respite offering soaring solos, a bleak outlook, a big bass tone and pummelling drums. Over exhilarating guitar density and hoarse bark, Jellicoe and Woodbury chase, dismantle, and advocate obliteration of mankind.
Jellicoe and Woodbury are the twin dogs of Doubt and Fear, a poetic interpretation of James Joyce’s 'Ulysses', where dogs seemingly are ready to attack at any moment, based on Joyce’s well known fear of dogs. Doubt and Fear channel 'Ulysses' through a Bastard ‘Wind of Pain’ like lens. These self-created monsters use capitalism to keep us afraid to really move forward in life, and scared to connect with each other. They chase us back and 'breath down our neck’. Recorded in Toronto by some weathered but familiar statues in the Toronto punk community. To compliment the style, as well as the in depth and swirling world of these characters... Quality Control HQ Sept 11

*Jellicoe & Woodbury must (I thought) be a reference to some female artist or activist, but rather than confusing things further with random speculation, I decided to ask someone in the know: Ola runs Quality Control HQ and fronts Game, backed up by Jonah on drums... I asked her for the facts: "The name Jellicoe and Woodbury comes from an intersection of two streets in the west of Toronto where two large dogs, Rhodesian Ridgebacks - a breed of dog bred for hunting and killing lions - lived in a friends house many years ago. These dogs terrified Mike from FU as a child. The dogs were mostly friendly and just curious even though they were this snarling violent breed used to kill the most fearsome thing in Africa - one lets their own fear of dogs dictate their relationship with these creatures. The names Jellicoe and Woodbury are the formal names of Doubt and Fear in the world of this story."

"Mother Man" b/w "Gracefully" EP: Jade Hairpins are hiding quietly in a tall grove, softly whisking away the mask of dew and doubt, thrilling the needed speakable truths of equality and peace into four beats and cascading melody on their debut. The shapes and names of a world appear... Merge Sept 11

"Raise Your Voice Joyce" (The recurring and much loved 12" comp namesaked by a 7")
"Contemporary shouts from contemporary voices charting a small piece of the limitless history of women in revolt. Eight tracks; each one a history; a story; a biography, told through disparate styles, from early anarcho punk and UK82 to DIY snapshots of goth crossover – all bound together to cement an activated and radical disruption vita. Joyce is the revolting woman; a constant of history. Contributions from members of today’s UK and European punk scenes (Nekra, Good Throb, Arms Race, Sauna Youth, Terrible Feelings and more), RYVJ is a command, a demand and a well-spoken message for tomorrow."  Static Shock

Have you seen this man?

Fucked Up present Scotch Tape:

Best FU 7" sleeve image ever? 

Superchunk’s Mac McCaughan on their latest benefit single:

“Our Work Is Done” is an imaginary conversation between the last two living residents of a hot and dying planet. Damian Abraham from the band Fucked Up lends his gravitas to the situation. “Total Eclipse” is a song about a different kind of holocaust, originally performed by Klaus Nomi. When I saw the film Urgh! A Music War, the Nomi clip blew my mind. I didn’t know what to make of him or the performance. Truly a unique artist trying to convey the urgency of several emergencies at once.


The news these days is overwhelming, and sometimes it’s hard to focus on the larger issues we are all collectively facing. Climate change is transforming the world in dangerous ways and requires immediate action. The proceeds from the single will go to Bill McKibben’s 350.org, and we stand by them as they build the global grassroots climate movement that can hold our leaders accountable to the realities of science and the principles of justice.


Our Work is Done

"Hear this: When our masters' work is done, every living thing will have the status of a machine. There will be no creativity, only productivity. Instead of love there will be fear and distrust, instead of surrender there will be submission. We will replace contact with isolation, and joy with shame. Hope will cease to exist as a concept. We will cover the earth with steel and with concrete, this planet will be a factory farm producing morons to fuel and maintain the factory engines and feed our masters. There will be an electronic policeman in every head. Your children will be born in chains, live only to serve and die in anguish and ignorance. Look around you, the process is already in its final stages. And you, like everyone else, will take your place on the production line". 

(Invisibles)

Dolly Dream:

Dolly Dream dwell in a cryptic space where love meets danger, and where enigmatic song can lead one to ecstasy or onto more ambiguous terrain. The dark and dreamy "The Way To Heaven" could be a lost classic from a sock hop in a David Lynch film. Featuring a stellar, heart-tugging vocal performance, the effect is rather like a ballad from a young Brenda Lee or Wanda Jackson. It's the song that made them fall in love. Says Dolly: "It's hard to make an honest love song. What's the most honest thing? Death. Lovers don’t wanna think about Death. Yearning is the flip side of mourning. Yearning is the feeling of some future ghost. Dolly Dream is the sound of that ghost." 

On the AA side we find an altogether more forbidding sonic journey. "Slip Thru Hell" is a phantasmal soundscape of backwards vocals, tape manipulation and near impenetrable noise. At once scarifying and compelling, there's a siren-like song straining to get out -- will you unblock your ears to hear it?

Hear, it