Old Arrivals: The Marseille Figs
Here’s something that came in a while ago, but is worth lending your ears to. The Marseille Figs first album The Dirty Canon came out last November and has been gathering a slow swell of underground support.
We noticed a spike in sales on eMusic yesterday, when the people at the Boing Boing blog wrote this review. They describe them as “a small big band… Violent Femmes meets Tom Waits meets Squirrel Nut Zippers.” As a description, that’s pretty much on the money, excepting that while Tom Waits flyblown charm is a distinctly American proposition, the Figs remind me of the type of red-faced accordion player you’d find in the last old-fashioned bar by the rapidly gentrifying docks in port towns like Liverpool, Antwerp or Brindisi. The low-life elements aside, it’s a happy sounding collection of songs, full of battered hope, swinging dances and joyful silliness.
Cool. I added this one to my list. Anything similar to SNZ appeals to me!
For your trivia notebook and even further off topic than usual: Squirrel Nut Zippers played the inaugural ball for Jeb Bush’s first election as governor of Florida in 1998.
The consensus in the room was that SNZ have a great feel for the old tunes…updated them well…seem like very nice young kids…but why do they have to play so loud?
PS. They’d also played an inaugural ball for Clinton’s second term in the White House in 1997 – the year of the ball of course. So there you go.