Here is the download: Flap - Brotherload/Bruised Molecule 7"
Update: Michael Koenig who plays in the band Lesbian Afternoon has posted live footage from their show on YouTube, here is a sample:
As Flap has a show coming up this Friday October 23rd at the 529 Club in Atlanta, I thought it would be appropriate to post their Half Baked single from 1992 here on the blog. Mr. Radford posted a nice blurb about them and the upcoming show, check it out here. Musically, Flap (especially this era) really treads some dangerous ground, being a quirky acoustic guitar duo with so much going on in their songs, but somehow keep it all together and make it work. It's an impressive feat, and definitely not a safe route to take for a band. I wonder if a band like this could even exist today and get to the same notoriety that Flap did in their heyday. They really won people over back then, and I remember them being one of the bigger experimental bands in town with some very devoted fans, including Amy Potter from Half Baked records. I love reading her reaction, though, to their decision to leave the label:
Well, in the spring of '94, Flap called me from Chicago wanting off the label to pursue other opportunities and better distribution. Apparently, they had found someone else in Chicago to put out their records. I just hated the way they told me. They called me collect; they had borrowed my van to make the trip (which I had bought so they could go on tour); and then they had the nerve to ask me when they were getting royalties for there record (it had not even come close to breaking even). I kept asking myself - "why can't you wait 'til you get home to tell me this shit?" I was pretty angry, but relieved, so I let them go.
You have to love the internet for keeping this stuff online for 10+ years, very entertaining if not at all applicable 15 years later. I wish them all the best for Friday's show. I would check it out myself but I will be at another show a few miles to the west of the 529 Club that night.
Here is the rest of the classic artwork by Ben Rush and the insert for the single.
I know Andy's out there readin' this, but I'm'll say some shit anyway: FLAP kicked my ass all over and was a huge part of my WREK-related mental awakening. I saw Andy and Matt a bunch and couldn't get enough of it. I think they were my first face-to-face introduction to real communication between musicians.
ReplyDeleteUp til that point, I probably thought everybody in a band needed to just stay on the damn beat and everything would work out. Of course, when you're 19, the bands you've been in usually can't stay on the beat, so that's what you're striving for. At least I was.
FLAP didn't stay on the beat. They just listened to each other. Seems silly now, but it was hard for me to accept that before I heard/watched them play. They have that perfect balance of everything's been rehearsed ten thousand times so it's automatic and everything is stream-of-consciousness at the same time. Like some omniscient Star Trek alien overlord band. They memorized the encyclopedia. They watched the movies backwards. The radio stations are always playing on their braces, even when they hide in the old freezer behind Granny's house. They sat with sunglasses on and ran their fingernails through the grooves over and over reading records like braille. They disassembled their houses and rebuilt them inside out. They ate the tapes. All of them.
They teach by example, and I learned a lot about why I want to play music from them. I can't wait til Friday night. It's been a long time.
I got into Flap right after Pal came out. From the first time I went to see them until Andy left for Chicago, I don't think I missed a single one of their shows.
ReplyDeleteIt's fitting that Burnes has commented on this entry. I remember one week in which I saw either Flap or the Gold Sparkle Band (or both of them together) five nights in a row.
I don't think I can overstate how inspirational both of those bands were to me.