We spoke today via email with Jason Lowenstein from the Fiery Furnaces. There was a rumor floating around the official Furnaces forum (temporarily offline for upgrades) that the new Furnaces live album Remember was culled entirely from “bootlegs”. This rumor is not completely true. The recordings that provide the raw material for Remember include over a dozen recorded by Jason himself, three multitrack recordings and five recordings from nyctaper.
Obviously, we are thrilled to have contributed material to an official release for one of our favorite bands. This kind of news makes all the hard work worthwhile.
Remember will be released in August by Thrill Jockey, but the album is finished and pressed and copies will be available at Fiery Furnaces merch tables at concerts this summer.
Visit Fiery Furnaces website or MySpace page for more concert dates.
“copies will be available at Fiery Furnaces merch tables at concerts this summer.”
FYI: The ERMP does not allow merch tables at their shows. Something about a city policy for free show. At least that is what members of Oneida told me when they played there a few years ago.
CONGRATS!!! you guys def. deserve it. Thanks for all the Furnaces recordings and everything else!
I think I’ve said this before, but one of the many things I love about The Fiery Furnaces is their tollerance, actually no – support of people who record their live performances. I always liked the way that they seemed to have been equally as keen as this site to develop the relationship, and it’s great from both perspectives to see them include the recordings in this release.
Not only because the recordings are top drawer, but because they can promote you for a change – nice.
This strikes right back to what in my mind is the fundamental reasons why this site is great:
Why do bands play live performances?
It’s either
a) The love of doing a live show and having the interaction with the crowd.
or
b) Getting paid on the night, and as a means to promote (and engender a love of) studio recorded material.
Wherever a given band sits on this scale there’s a reasonable justification for allowing live recordings out. As an element of a tour, an individual show is basically budgeted to finance itself through fee’s and door takings etc. So unless the objective of the performance was to record official release material, there is no financial loss in allowing a third party to record and distribute the audio (even video I suppose). In an era where many people would just as readily look to the internet, as to media such as television or radio, this is not really that much different to getting airplay is it?
Which leads to the second point I’m making. As someone who lives on the other side of the atlantic, and managed to entirely miss all mention of the Furnaces at the Gallowsbirds Bark / Blueberry Boat era. After this time they largely dropped off the radar in the UK.
I became aware of them through someone’s web blog, and then became a fan of them after listening to live material offered for download.
Since then I’ve bought all the studio albums (including ordering in a second, Japanse 2cd edition of Gallowsbird’s, only to discover that the second disc was just tracks that I already owned on E.P.) – my point being that having this available via internet downloads is an effective way to build a fan base (without constantly touring the globe) and sell music.
I’ll definitely be buying the Remember pack when I find one in the UK, even though I’m fairly sure I’ve pestered the site for the links to every Furnaces show they’ve recorded.
The system works.