![FHM INTERVIEW ON ACRN.COM.
Boston’s Fat History Month will be making a stop with tourmates Pile Thursday evening at the inaugural evening of Lobsterfest. Bringing up mentions of Weezer in several of their interviews, the band’s guitar-and-drums format manages to fill up their sound to create their own brand of laid-back, likeable university rock music.
ACRN talked with frontman Jeff “History Month” about the band’s newly released album Bad History Month, their stylish new album art, and their refusal to give out their last names.
ACRN: You said your last album, Fucking Despair, was your comedy album. What makes Bad History Month different?
Jeff “History Month”: I don’t know, just more sad stuff. Fucking Despair has some party time shit on it [but] this one is pretty mellow. The higher-energy songs are more angry than party. And also, I just like calling things opposites.
ACRN: What was the reasoning behind putting a comic book and a lyric poster in your album this time?
JHM: Oh, I don’t know, I just like making my life harder. I like extravagant shit. I wanted this record to be a double album, 25 songs or whatever, but I didn’t have any more songs. Well, my friend Mikey drew a drawing of a cowboy, and that gave me an idea to try and illustrate the whole thing. And there’s so many words on this record, like all the songs have way more words than any of the older songs, so I thought it would be cool to make like a little book, and my buddy Adric [Giles, album artist] is an amazing artist. He’s the guy that illustrated that whole thing and the front cover too. So we just worked on that from like January to March.
ACRN: You released this album almost on the heels of your last album—there was about a year-and-a-half gap between this one and your last one. Would you say you’re more prolific with your songwriting now than in the past?
JHM: Oh no, I can’t write any songs anymore. I don’t know, I’m kind of worried about it. These songs are all pretty old, this album took like a year to record, and we started tracking it last April. We finally finished mixing it in January—it was pretty arduous. I don’t know, hopefully now I can write, now that this thing is done. Like, the night we finished mixing I went home and wrote a new song, so maybe I can keep that up when we get home. Because we’re bored of playing these songs!
ACRN: You guys release your music on a lot of different formats aside from just digitally releasing them on Bandcamp. Do you guys think that cassette tapes and vinyl are better formats to release music on?
JHM: Oh, I don’t know. You’ve got to have something to sell on tour. I like making nice stuff for people to have. I try to make music that isn’t disposable, to put it out with cool art that also isn’t just throwaway bullshit, that’s kind of nice, you know? I had stronger feelings about all that in the past. At this point, I’m just like, it’s nice to have it on the Internet so people can hear it easy, and then it’s nice to make something that’s like, way beyond the Internet, I like the pretty extravagant art, like that comic, and all that stuff, you know?
ACRN: You said last year when we interviewed you that the “History Month” theme you have for your band name and your albums had run its course. Do you think you’ll have a different kind of name for your future albums?
JHM: We’re putting out a split 7” and the song’s called “Sad History Month,” so I think that’s the end of that trail. I don’t know what I was going for there, I’ve got to write some new music. But yeah, the stupid titles that are all connected kind of help me have ideas, which is nice. I’m glad I found that trick.
ACRN: Is there any reason that you guys prefer stage names to your real names?
JHM: I’m shy. I don’t like people to pay attention to the band. Especially on this new record, I have these songs that are pretty deep, dark, personal shit. You know, whatever, I am a person of the world, but it gives us a level of disconnection. It’s weird, man, it’s weird, reading about yourself. I try to avoid it. I don’t really like my name either, you know? History. That’s my name.
ACRN: It seems like you guys have been getting wider distribution for your albums, I was in Louisville in December and I saw a copy of Fucking Despair in a record shop.
JHM: Oh, nice. Probably because of Ryan [Davis], Sophomore Lounge [Records] is based out of there. When we’re on tour, we usually try to sell some at record stores whenever we can. Some places are nice enough to buy them from a band nobody knows about. Exploding in Sound and the dude that runs that is like, a badass on getting the word out about stuff too, which is nice. But I don’t know about this region, I don’t really have to do that. People have told me they’ve found, like, that Gorilla 7” in some random place in North Carolina, so I don’t know, I guess they’re floating around out there, for reasons I don’t know.
ACRN: It seems like you guys have a pretty close working relationship with Pile. Are you guys friends? How did that get started?
JHM: Yeah, Rick lived with me and Mark for three years. We’re all good friends. Getting to watch them get better and better, and having that encouragement from their side, it’s awesome.
ACRN: What do you guys expect to happen this year at Lobsterfest? Do you have anything you’re hoping to see?
JHM: You know, we’ve got some friends there now, it’s nice to see them. Last year we played in the volleyball court, that was pretty funny.
http://www.acrn.com/features/interviews/?review=156](http://25.media.tumblr.com/3205c09b9b4828484ba10b267376a5b0/tumblr_mnp6sexZeW1r7rmpno1_500.jpg)
ANIMAL CITY ON THE LAST EVER BOAWS PODCAST :(
01 – Connections – Nightwatch
02 – Classic Sand – PSA
03 – Implodes – Necronomics
04 – Dropdead – Stone
05 – Crimson Scarlet – Two Kinds of Red
06 – Medicine – Long as the Sunday
07 – Psy Ants – Toska
08 – Milk Music – New Lease on Love
09 – Rooftop Vigilantes – Hacking up a Lungfish
10 – Baby Tears – I Guess I Misunderstood
11 – St. Elias – Firetruck With Wings
12 – Animal City – Ceiling Drink
13 – Iron Lung – Non Contact Visit (Merged)
14 – Merchandise – Anxiety’s Door
15 – Two Inch Astronaut – Swol
16 – The Brainstems – Brainstem Animal
17 – Onslo – Wet $
18 – The Dance – Personal Grooves
Another good blog bites the dust…
Download and/or stream here: http://builtonaweakspot.com/post/49163640828/download-boaws-podcast-episode-27-01
![SOMEWHAT INSANE AMOUNT OF “BAD HISTORY” PRESS CAME IN WHILE I WAS ON TOUR. You can read a lot of it below. I think there’s probably more, but I had to stop looking for fear of falling so deep into the internet that I would never return to the mortal world.
American Pancake:
Fat History Month makes songs that can sound punk progressive and totally lackadaisical at the same time. A song like Everyday is Christmas can make you feel tipsy one moment and angry the next and this is just from the ever changing shift in tone and texture, and time signatures. The wonderfully down trodden Cat in a Box will have you taking in strays and become a cat lady even if you’re a guy: “I’m in a cardboard box that’s soggy wet and I still think it’s keeping me dry.” This somewhat acoustic track still feels as thick and strident as the rest of the album exploding when the drums kick in. Is it really about a cat (?), no way. Love this track. Melodies seemingly wander aimlessly on most of these tracks and guitar strings bend and half step almost as a matter of course making this all seem like a dreamy askew trip. The discordant nature makes you feel the compositions in your gut. The title track, Bad History Month feels itself like a dusty Western. Very much like a lazy ride on a horse until it gets all heavy and disjointed like a rock slide. Some of the music interludes are absolutely head tripping.The Future, musically, pumps out some progressive garage strains that somehow make me think of At the Drive In. Probably the most conventional composition and still out there as it implodes, breaks apart, gets a bit mellow and pretty and then ends with a electronic industrial sound. The last track, I Ate Myself And I Want To Die is avant-garde, weird and beautiful at the same time. As it slows to breathe, the guitar lines chase themselves as the rest of the song feels like it needs to catch up. This song moves along in a linear fashion, not feeling the need to follow conventional patterns (who needs verses and choruses anyway). This can feel oddly rewarding, each part revealing new discoveries. For some of you, it might be so strange as to be off putting. Me, I revel in things that are different and applaud what Fat History Month is laying down. These songs may feel like fever dreams but they are dreams nonetheless. Open your mind and check Fat History Month out.
http://www.americanpancake.com/2013/04/album-review-fat-history-month-bad.html
Awkward Sound:
Boston’s underground music scene has taken a few major hits to its foundation over the past month. Venerable alternative publication the Boston Phoenix halted press for good after struggling to stay afloat financially in the Internet age, as did the air waves being emitted from its radio station WFNX (which had already downgraded itself from a proper FM format to online-only before pulling the plug altogether.) Area cops are trolling around message boards and social media in hopes of cracking down on those dastardly “DIY concerts.” On top of all this, the city that spawned one of the most influential hardcore scenes out there continues hugging its grudge against moshing with a ban it set in place over a year ago. Down on its luck seems to be the going trend within the Hub these days, and local DIY kingpins Fat History Month have just the sound to harden the frown. Spending years building an awkward name for themselves throughout the region’s basement show circuit, the duo of guitaring dirt-eater Jeff Meff and drummer Bob Hobby bear the weight of classic indie rock with an easy-to-swallow pop perfectionist gluttony. They just released the album that should reverberate past New England corners with their sophomore effort Bad History Month through Exploding In Sound Records, making them labelmates to fellow BUZZSound alumni such as Speedy Ortiz and Pile. Unlike their noisy Baystate punk brethren, however, Fat History Month’s wordy eargasms look at the hysterical side of self-pathetic love and life quandaries through broken frames while reading the liner notes of The Lonesome Crowded West, Spiderland, Brighten the Corners and even some of Dave Matthews Bands’ mid-’90s peak bro chillness all wrong. The lyrics are wrought with detail in the way that “you can’t make this shit up,” and while any fool can pretend to be a fuck up like Isaac Brock, these dudes’ rough exteriors shows that they live the part. Currently, Meff and Hobby are surfing couches and sleeping on strange peoples’ floors across the U.S. in support of Bad History Month until April end. Hopefully, Boston is still standing by the time they get back. If not, it’s one more story about crumb luck heading toward listeners stereos to bash their heads and hearts into.
http://www.awkwardsound.com/2013/04/fat-history-month.html
Boston Globe:
The drums-and-guitar two-piece Fat History Month is easy to root for. The two make an art form of mopey slackerism with everything from their shrugged-off name to the moody tempos to the song titles, which they reuse like two-day old socks (“Free as a Cat” here, “Free as a Cat on a Leash” there, with “Cat in a Box” popping up later).
But underneath the scruff, there’s also a restless Little Engine That Could. The duo’s combustion of tidal wave guitars and gutsy song structures makes them perfect heroes for a scene of DIY underdogs. It’s a mutant mix of confessional folk and ear-piercing garage fuzz that shifts a bit with every show.
“We lost our practice space in Allston a couple years ago,” says singer/guitarist Jeff Meff, talking over a spotty cellphone connection from a tour stop in Idaho. “Since then, I’ve pretty much had to write everything on acoustic, so that’s led to maybe a different approach.”
Fat History Month, who have just released their third full-length album — “Bad History Month” (on which you’ll also find the song “Bald History Month”) — have grown into one of the city’s most beloved bands because of their willingness to adapt. The duo have been officially putting out records since 2009, developing a unique mind-meld style of performance in the years since. While constant rehearsing can often lead to thrillingly regimented live workouts, Fat History Month uses their chops more like a compass — their shows are a bit like improvised road trips.
“When we end up playing the songs the same over and over — like the way the new album is so composed — things get a little boring after a while,” says drummer Bob Hobby (the two prefer stage names). “So at shows, I try and keep messing up until it all sounds like it’s on purpose.”
This MacGyver approach can go haywire, but it often ends up in a beautifully averted train wreck. “It is basically like throwing some rubber bands and gum at the drums and seeing if that fixes things. Sometimes if you’re really feeling it, you can go off the handle.”
And going off the handle is central to their sound, which mixes spurts of thorny prog-rock riffing and Deerfhoof style berzerker drums with a heavy dose of Gen-X dejection. The guitar is a bramble of strange chording that’s likely a result of Meff’s teaching himself how to play it from scratch as the band evolved. “Bad History Month” wouldn’t feel out of place with muddy old Sebadoh and Modest Mouse tapes and tempos.
Meff’s singing is cathartic like the last tired throes of a temper tantrum. In the aforementioned “Cat in a Box,” he strings together a shut-in housecat’s diary entries in rhythms of depressive dead-of-the-night phone calls. “If you let me out and let me roam beyond the back yard/ I could make friends with everyone/ Because it’s not that [expletive] hard/ To be happy when you finally leave home.” It’s not a mystery why they’ve struck a chord with a college-fueled underground scene.
A rowdy crowd at the Middle East recently testified as much, holding onto the edge of the stage like sailors waiting for their sea legs under the band’s oddball churning rhythms. It was a tour send-off show for this current trip, which has them on the West Coast this weekend. It’s not often that the band plays in town through a full-on sound system capable of blasting vocals loud and clear — they’ve built their Boston following in scrappy house and basement shows through blown-out PA systems — and it’s great to every warped detail of the lyrics (“This is an ode to all the old lady smokers/ I wish you could wear your sticky black lungs as a bra” goes one nugget from “Old Lady Smokers”).
Even with only half-discernible vocals, though, the moody tug of the music can seem like an odd fit for house parties — and they’re all right with that. Meff says they’ve made attempts at “party jams” that rocked power chords in the past.
“We’d be playing all these depressing songs in the middle of parties all the time and felt like we needed something a little peppier,” says Meff, pointing to a handful of songs on their last album that genuinely blast off. That approach didn’t exactly carry over to the new album.
“Some of these songs are so sad!” he says, almost in disbelief, and already trying to get a self-deprecating look down the road. “Hopefully I can get around to writing some more before Bob starts to get sick of them.”
http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/music/2013/04/04/fat-history-month-make-restless-rock-from-happy-accidents/UuE4rPkKZwXdMJdSVpgzoK/story.html
Boston Hassle:
Anyone who’s been to any number of shows in Allston in past 3 years already knows all about this band; I myself look for every opportunity I can to state “Fat History Month is my favorite fucking band”. After 2011′s Fucking Despair, FHM released a demo of songs last summer to raise money for their new record, Bad History Month. Released by Sophomore Lounge (who put out Fucking Despair) and Exploding in Sound, they put it up on Bandcamp for streaming on April Fool’s Day, and the results are beautiful enough to soften the hardest dickheads.
The Bandcamp page says Fucking Despair was their comedy album, this is their tragedy, and that seems pretty apparent. No other band seems to do the simultaneously funny and sad dynamic like FHM, this has always been the case, but this album is indeed heavy on the sad. The line “I can’t help but feelin’ like the first human to hate a neanderthal” from the title track leaves you a little less proud to be a human, if you chew on it a bit. The Future ends on a huge bummer about cancer despite the songs vaguely upbeat feel. There Goes the Sun has this beautiful shimmering change up as Sean sings “Love is blind and so is rage”. Cat in a Box should get an award for being the saddest song ever written to clock in under three minutes (and that blood in my chest/is suddenly worth/more than sex and love and gold). All this melancholy remains grounded by Mark’s drumming, supplying the grooves necessary so that this album doesn’t end up being the kind of record you only throw on when you’ve had a shitty day. But you WILL be throwing it on every time you have a shitty day.
Absent from this album are the kind of epic jams that were on Fucking Despair; no track seems to bust the five minute mark. Given the theme of this album, this is probably for the best, else they’d have to standby to give everyone who bought the LP a hug. Also included is a 30 page comic and 11×17 poster by Adric Giles, who some may or may not know better as the drummer boy in CGS Power Trio, Allston’s favorite prog band, a good reason to buy two copies.
http://www.bostonhassle.com/2013/04/03/fresh-stream-fat-history-month-2/
Built On A Weak Spot:
Fucking Despair was a pretty big hit with me when it came out a couple years ago. For Fat History Month, it was supposed to be their comedy album, apparently…despite my assurances that aside from a crude drawing on the cover of the album, the comedy was certainly of a darker flavor. Now, the band has returned with their new album through Exploding in Sound & Sophomore Lounge titled Bad History Month, which is a pretty great title. However, if their previous album was supposed to be a comedy…then you can only imagine what things lie ahead when the band claims this new effort to be a “tragedy”. I wasn’t actually aware of this before listening through it the first time and by the end of the album I was certainly feeling the effects of it. As much as Fat History Month showed their ability to create some tongue in cheek subtleties with Fucking Despair while masking it in a deep pool of bleakness, they’ve certainly strayed away from the humor some here and prove to the listener that they can develop an unwavering seriousness about the accumulating sensation of self-hatred…with every step leading to just another reason to never leave the living room.
With Bad History Month, the band isn’t dabbling so much in the sprawling and, at times, glacial like movements that their previous album explored, but rather this is a much more straight forward boiling down of early to mid-nineties awkward dude indie-rock. I think I mentioned it in my original review of Fucking Despair that the band shared a certain ability to that of early Modest Mouse in how they were able to nearly perfectly capture the depressing stage of nowheresville for many of 20 somethings and the inevitable amount of self-loathing that comes along with it. For a couple albums, Modest Mouse were pretty brilliant in that respect. Fat History Month undoubtedly are able to push that same feeling of fear and anxiety 100% and have put together an album with Bad History Month that plays out with such perfect pacing to mirror it…between all of its stuttering and loose ends. It reminds so much of a lot of the slacker type rock of the nineties…very much in the area of There’s Nothing Wrong With Love era Built to Spill (maybe without some of the mushiness) or maybe more so earlier Pavement albums. A song like “Cat in a Box” is the very type that has sent me into a snowball like effect of similarly styled music listening habits over the past couple days, leaving me actively searching for anything and everything through my collection that could make me feel worse than that song does. So far not a whole lot matches it. Fantastic effort from these guys and one that honestly gets better each time through…despite the effects it may have on my mental state.
http://builtonaweakspot.com/post/48106303591/fat-history-month-bad-history-month-lp
Consequence of Sound:
Bad History Month, the sophomore effort from indie pranksters Fat History Month, opens on some befuddling terms. There’s this dog that lies sleepily in the shade underneath a family tree, only to arise angrily to chase down and eat the poor bastard who made the unwise decision to wake it up by kicking it.
Odd, yeah, but that minute and a half of sublime silliness goes a long way toward explaining the tunefully tweaked place these bratty Bostonians come from. Bad History Month, like its predecessor, Fucking Despair, is another delightful sonic potshot at singer/songwriter sappiness, with singer/guitarist Jeff Meff and drummer Bob Hobby crafting oddball songs couched in a charming, lo-fi indie pop sound. Imagine the lean angularity of early Modest Mouse stamped with Ween’s shrill sense for satire, and you’ve got a glimpse inside Fat History Month’s trippy musical wheelhouse.
Fucking Despair earned plentiful local accolades in and around Boston’s fervent indie community, and Bad History Month seems primed to expand upon Meff and Hobby’s small cult of admirers. The songs are a little sharper, while Meff spiels whimsically about cowboys sitting in the dirt (“Bad History Month”), love blown into tissues (“Cat In The Box”), and other tongue-in-cheek lyrical fare. But while the duo exhibits a well-honed sense of humor, Bad History Month offers up more than simple shits and giggles. Beneath the absurdity lies a duo with a finessed ear for the scrappy indie rock and lo-fi folk sounds that painted the American rock underground red in the ’90s.
Fat History Month has the songwriting chops to make it without the goofball gimmickry if they wanted to, but the duo’s ribald sense of humor, combined with their musicianship, makes for a pretty airtight pairing.
http://consequenceofsound.net/2013/04/album-review-fat-history-month-bad-history-month/
Ear Buddy:
When someone mentions music from Boston, it tends to bring forth images of bands like Aerosmith, Dropkick Murphys, Extreme, Godsmack, or Buffalo Tom. Those bands that seems to push forward purely on the power of their own balls. Their is a certain working class element to the city that bleeds into the music that has come to define it. When I think of Boston however, I think of two other bands. When Mission of Burma first broke in the late-seventies, they really birthed the DIY ideology that would take full shape a few years later in the form of the hardcore punk movement and SST Records. That band defied definition then and still does so today. Almost a decade later, Boston birthed The Pixies; a band that would come to define the sound of the alternative rock movement before Nirvana was even a thought. This is the lineage that is more important to understanding Boston’s Fat History Month and their sophomore LP Bad History Month.
While I certainly can’t claim Fat History Month is a group that will have the historical significance of Burma or the Pixies, but there are some seriously good indicators that bandmembers Jeff Meff (guitar/vocals) and Bob Hobby (drums) have a lot of the same qualities that made those bands great. The bands you will see or hear referenced most in relation to Fat History Month are Pavement and Modest Mouse. Those sound similarities are apparent on Bad History Month, but I continue coming back to the less easy references like the band’s Burma-esque chaotic song structures, Pixie-like subtle appreciation of melody, and Black Francis approach to borderline mythological surrealist lyrics. On top of it all, the boys have that same Do-It-Yourself-And-Fuck-The-Rest attitude that truly defined those groups. Starting as a basement party band, Bad History Month have forced their way to local attention through a loyal fanbase and they seem to care less. What else does a critic need for a serious crush?
We live in a world Where all the toilets flush themselves It’s for your safety
-Fat History Month, “The Future”
That’s all window dressing however. The meat of the subject is the actual music. What is present on Bad History Month is a little deceptive. It would be easy to hear these two and write them off pretty quickly as a rehash of 90′s alternative rock. There is a lot of fuzzy guitar and snotty attitude about absolute nonsense. What makes it deceptive is that Jeff and Bob are clearly students of this era. They understand that, above all, the most important aspect of that era was that all bets were off. You can borrow from anywhere and talk about anything and see what works. The key to the whole decade was playing like you didn’t care at all, while you clearly cared a lot. It’s a trait the boys share with another of this year’s best bands Parquet Courts. So, sure, Jeff’s lyrics are sarcastic (and damn funny), but that doesn’t mean they take some nihilistic bang-the-noisy-thing approach to the song structures. In the same vein of Dinosaur Jr., Pavement, Built to Spill, and Neutral Milk Hotel, Fat History Month are out to prove that rock music can be fun, smart, and tasteful all at the same time. In that respect, they pretty much hit the nail on the head.
I ingest every pound of my flesh Until I was just an asshole
-Fat History Month, “I Ate Myself and I Want To Die”
My strongest complaint with Bad History Month is the record’s pacing. The wall of cyclical fuzz that hits you on the nose during the album’s first half with “The Future” and “Everyday is Christmas” leaves one a little spent by the time you reach some of the later highlights. The repetition of sound becomes a little hypnotic by the time you reach what would otherwise have been my favorite moment here “There Goes The Sun”. I have no doubt these guys will work that out naturally as they continue to toy around in the studio and fill our their sound more. At the very least, the more comedic moments are enough to keep one’s attention peaked.
As Fat History Month engage on a packed national tour over the next few months, I have no doubt these two will be doing a lot to shore up their own sound. If Bad History Month is any indication, there’s not that much work to be done. On this record, it’s almost hard to believe that only two people are creating all of this sound and doing it without ever letting the wheels fall from the bus. Jeff and Bob sound like they just really enjoy making noise together. Sometimes, that’s just what you need for a great rock band. Well, that and enough cash for replacement amps.
http://www.earbuddy.net/22957/fat-history-month-bad-history-month.html/reviews
Exystence:
Fat History Month seems to be continuously touring and recording since their first single, “Safe and Sound” on Bedroom Suck Records. Between shows in Boston and New York they seem to be perpetually in the middle of a northeast tour. They’ve released countless cassettes and singles to date and the duo of Jeff Meff on vocals/guitar and Bob Hobby on drums have just put the finishing touches on their sophomore full length Bad History Month, a joint release from Sophomore Lounge and Exploding in Sound Records. The title track and single “Bad History Month” continues where their previous full length, Fucking Despair left off. Barely audible, gently brushed guitar to the snap of metal strings, feathery high hat vibrations to pounding smack snare hits, these are the extremes…
…in Bad History Month’s dynamics within the first few measures. They constantly set up an expectation of collapse with off kilter rhythms that can’t possibly remain perched on the edge of this timing. The reverb is a surf variety of echo but that’s the only effect in this stripped down setup. These two almost counterintuitively keep things minimal, the highs and lows are executed with the utmost precision of bursts. Meff sings in Issac Brock’s style of deadpan empathy, layering in a higher register yell, flickering guitar strings while Hobby matches every heavy step, twitching with fills. They aren’t after the arrangement of notes but rhythm and volume. They create the calmest of seas that turn in an instant, swallowing the tiny melody whole. As fast as it blew in, the track fades out. They’ve been known to take their brand of post rock to incredibly complex places, investigating untested math equations and exotic time signatures, but when they rise to an epic peak, you’ll forget all of these details.
http://exystence.net/blog/2013/04/10/fat-history-month-bad-history-month-2013/
First Order Historians:
Fat History Month are a duo that exceed the normal confines of a guitar and drums band. Silly name aside, Bad History Month is a heavy dose of late 90′s/00′s indie rock nostalgia. Melding songs in the same disjointed guitar line ways that The Joggers did but with vocal melodies that avoid too many off-notes. They are mathy at times, pop at times and ass kicking always. There is plenty of distortion without turning into a hard rock album and enough hooks to have you pushing the repeat button often. Everyday is Christmas is a fine example of how the brooding nature of their music nestles nicely with the cocksure bravado approach as if they are egging you on to rock out but they want you to do it with a grimace on your face. There are many times you wonder if the songs are going to dissolve into a jangly mess but each song finds a steady footing, even if it takes a bit to get there. Bald History Month wants to blow up in your face but it is the restraint that you gravitate to and at the 2:20 mark the bridge??, brings on some great guitar lines including a start/stop moment which builds to the finish. Most duo’s sounds just like that and are very limited by lack of other musicians but Fat History Month fills every crevice with sound and has enough sonic variation to warrant many, many listens. Score: 8.5/10
http://firstorderhistorians.com/2013/04/11/
GroundFloorGo:
Born in beer-soaked Boston basements, Fat History Month is a rock duo on the rise thanks to their rabid cult following and progressive output. Led by Jeff Meff on guitar/vocals and Bob Hobby on drums, Fat History Month use oscillating guitars and odd rhythms to propel their tongue-in-cheek odes to the human condition and the despair it brings us all.
Bad History Month (Exploding in Sound/Sophomore Lounge) is their second full length album, but my first go around with the band. There were immediate flashbacks to early-Modest Mouse with Meff’s Isaac Brock-esque vocal inflections and finger picking with unrelenting bends, hammer-ons, and pull-offs, but also quick shots of Pixies, Dinosaur Jr., and other impetuous 90s bands that made accessible noise. Much like they hide deeper introspection within layers of sarcasm and wit, FHM mask their respect for melody in coats of dense instrumentation. This makes for a compelling listen because your challenged with a constant flux of tense build ups, fluctuating rhythms, and shifting dynamics, but are also rewarded with enough short subtle bursts of pop to keep you grounded and coming back for more. This is a recipe that not many bands are able to pull off, but one Fat History Month cooks up solid almost every single time, and with half the manpower.
I have a feeling the overly derivative Modest Mouse riffs and arrangements that appear in a few songs are presented that way on purpose, so there goes my only gripe. The rest is all praise for songs like: Bad History Month and Bald History Month, two slow-building yet catchy anthems fueled by lethargic guitars and Meff’s matching vocal tone;the clamorous tug and pull of Everyday is Christmas; Cat in the Box, an emotive track both vocally and instrumentallywhere a crushed runaway cat muses about love and death; and the slow burning There Goes the Sun which eventually explodes into a fever towards the end. Fat History Month might not grab you instantly, but their quirky intricacies leave a lasting impression if you allow them to sink in.
New Artillery:
Here’s what I think of, in rough order, when the topic of two-person rock bands comes up: 1. Bands who took the “We only have two members” restriction as a dare to make the most noise possible (godheadSilo, Lightning Bolt, Hella, Big Business). 2. Married or once-married couples banking that romantic chemistry translates to musical chemistry (The White Stripes, Mates of State, The Like Young, and, even though it feels strange to mention them here, The Evens). 3. Holy shit The Black Keys are popular. 4. Watching post-grunge survivalists Local H from the back of The Highdive in Champaign with the evening’s now-implausible opening act The Dismemberment Plan. 5. When you name a band Drums and Tuba, you can’t add a guitarist. Come on. 6. Don’t make me talk about The Dresden Dolls, please don’t. 7. Wait, did I really forget Wye Oak until now?
Somehow I’m not surprised that one of my favorite current acts slipped from memory in favor of archetypes, improbable arena acts, and gimmicks. When I think of Wye Oak, I focus on the songs first, then sometime later the image of drummer Andy Stock playing keyboard bass lines with his left hand will pop into my head, reminding me that they lack a proper bassist. I don’t think of them as a two-piece because there are more important things to think about. Make no mistake, it’s a compliment.
A few months from now, after Fat History Month’s sophomore LP Bad History Month has enjoyed an extended residency on my turntable, I’ll be paying the Boston-based duo the same compliment. Right now I’m busy marveling at the ways guitarist Jeff Meff fills the mix, balancing folk finger-picking, knotted chords, agitated strafing, and panoramic melodies. You might not even realize there’s only one guitarist at work; the first time I saw them, I abandoned an obstructed-view perch for confirmation. Once you do, however, you’ll quickly forget it in the best way possible.
Bad History Month steers between the restless coming-of-age seen on Modest Mouse’s Lonesome Crowded West and the careful arrangements of American Football, a compelling combination of nerves and calm. On a micro level, the band excels at subtle dynamic shifts, the (relatively) quiet but distinct ebbs and flows that ’90s math/post-rock groups explored when avoiding the line at the crescendo rollercoaster.
Without a full lyric sheet on hand, it’ll be tough to make the case for how well Meff tempers humor with sadness and vice versa, but the fact that “I Ate Myself and Want to Die” and “Bald History Month” are anything but novelty songs should help. (An April Fool’s Day release date—that’s less help.) For every ponderous line like “I feel my fear moving away / In me from time, for a billion years” in “Bald History Month,” you’ll also get chuckles from “We live in a world where toilets flush themselves / But here’s good news, people like to live dangerously” in “The Future.” If Bad History Month is their tragic record, at least they’ve found the brighter corners of depression.
http://www.newartillery.com/reviews/reviews-fat-history-months-bad-history-month
OurVinyl:
Fat History Month is a Boston-based indie rock duo that incorporates bits of freak-folk, lo-fi, hard rock, DIY prog, and garage blues elements into their music. It is extremely difficult to create so much force and sense of space with guitar and drums as these guys generate and their sophomore full-length album Bad History Month (Sophomore Lounge, 2013) continues to prove their exquisite execution and exemplary songwriting which pulls from late 90′s era Modest Mouse to the more frenetic side of mid-2000′s Devendra Banhart with flourishes of all kind to fill in the nooks and crannies. They play in the pocket with extreme tightness, but those glorious nooks and crannies. That’s where this band lives.
Until the band members’ last names come to light, we’ll get to know them on a first name basis. Sean, on vocals and guitar, is ridiculously deft on the guitar and propels a great indie vocal delivery style that is characterized by nimble melodies, DIY attitude, and touches of hollering here and there. Mark, on drums, has a powerful style which fills the space as both rhythm and melody. His cymbal work is performed at the level of a jazz musician while he employs hefty fills with the snares and toms performed with a lot of class for how heavily rock infused the rhythms are. The guitar settles on straightforward clear tones with a touch of drive and reverb as needed. The finger-picked playing style gives the classic 4/4 beat a facelift when Sean creates the perception of odd time signatures with unexpected interplay between bass notes and relentless treble hammer-ons and pull-offs. Instrumentally this record is sophisticated but youthful, an extremely difficult kind of vibe to write and Fat History Month executes these tracks with precision. The vocals are present in every track and hold roughly half of the listener’s attention with the rest of each track devoted to instrumental prowess. Occasionally the vocals are doubled, giving a low register drawling lead melody overlaid with a countertenor holler to give some oomph. The vocals are tastefully produced to draw the listener in but definitely give a rawness to the album that makes for a very compelling listen. These guys believe that intensity comes from the playing, not just from being able to manipulate levels and pre-amps to instill the feel they’re going for. And on this album, they make believers.
The tracks are dynamic. They are very linear in their structure, and often you get the sense that each guitar lick and vocal falls into the next segment. The songs unfold with a youthful energy that mimics running downhill in the woods, bounding joyously with momentum bumps and jarring fallen branches, laughing all the way. There are extreme juxtapositions of frenetic energy with sudden resolution, only to rapidly build back up to the forceful amplitude they seem to revel in as band mates. But for how overt the energy shifts are in their music, their songs are very nuanced. Consider the rambunctious instrumental break in third track “The Future”, with wailing guitar fuzzed solo over relentless hammering on the crash and floor tom only to immediately break again into this beautiful finger-picked melody way up on the fret board, giving it an angelic innocence that couldn’t possibly be coming from the same guitar that was just being ripped apart. Or perhaps the actually-not-contrived use of strummed harmonics in fourth track “Everyday is Christmas” that sound like the welcoming mat for the coming crescendo. This crescendo resolves into a 3/8 time with wonderful arpeggio sounding finger-picking that gives a refreshing sense of depth after the claustrophobic build. All their songs carry this aggressive form. They write so many melodies and transitions, they have to mash them all into a finite number of songs and consequently there is a feeling of restlessness and verbosity in their sound.
The lyricism and vocal delivery has their own complexity, naturally. Images of Isaac Brock, Rivers Cuomo, and Jeff Mangum come to mind in regards to both the vocal inflections and melodic phrasing. The album is full of recurring themes that seem to represent their effervescent persona. The tragedy of the American cowboy; self-mutilation, courage, and triumph over precarious situations. The vocals are easy to rally around: singable, encouraging, but with the perfect touch of realistic pessimism at just the right time. Written by guys that must have been there and done that, in a sense. Perhaps it comes off this way because of their extremely focused songwriting form, but it seems hard to believe that musicians with such ambitious and thoughtful structuring to their songs would write anything other than lyrics that carry a deep meaning to them on a personal level.
If the album needs help, it’s in the low end. This seems natural given the lack of any instrument to lay down bass lines. However, there are moments where the leveling on the percussion could stand to be reworked to increase the bass drum and some of the guitar’s root notes could be brought to the forefront in the engineering to create a bit more of a live feel to the production. Indeed, the songs have plenty of force entirely in the treble range and generally they carry enough weight without a low end. But it does lead one to consider what the band would sound like with a bit more chest thumping richness. They’d need to be damn discerning as to who would fill the position of a third band member. Finding someone to keep up with their excellent chemistry as a duo without changing the excellent spontaneous feel would be essential. It definitely wouldn’t be easy but, until that day comes where someone just fits in, they seem to manage just fine as a duo.
This is exciting music. It’s energetic without being cheesy. The dynamic interplay of the two instruments is dense and ever-listenable. Even each instrument alone would be engaging to listen to in isolation. Fat History Month seem to exude rock sensibilities that manifest with multiple different styles. Their transitions are tactful, and riveting as hell. This is a strong combination and gives the music a sense of freshness despite very familiar elements that most listeners might have thought were lost when the indie scene transitioned away from overdriven rock into more electronic and subtle folk-infused tastes. With Bad History Month, Fat History Month proves they have the chance to continue down their current path and solidify their role as innovative artists creating music that pulls from the past but has inimitable contemporary virtuosic appeal.
http://ourvinyl.com/fat-history-months-bad-history-month-album-review/
Sonic Masala:
Back in 2011, I was enamoured by Fucking Despair, a small release by Boston’s Fat History Month, specifically the title track (it made our best songs for the year). This song still slays me. It is acoustic desperation excellence bar none, the kind that sweeps you away. There is a slight Australian connection with these guys also, seeing as their Safe & Sound 7” came out on Brisbane’s Bedroom Suck Records the same year (you can still buy it here). The band have a LP out, Bad History Month (on Exploding In Sound/Sophomore Lounge), and it continues the duo’s scattershot imagery interspersed with whimsical angst, shambolic regrets and enough rustic bombast and flippant half-jokes to fill a fleet of freak-folk flotillas, only to sink them all as they come within eyesight of the shore. Psychedelic breakdowns for the straight-edged, or pop for the deranged - either way, Fat History Month are possibly one of the most underrated acts that I have come across since I started Sonic Masala. Their songs are the kinds that you come back to time and again - and in an age of disposable art, this is mighty high praise. Like their good labelmates Pile and their album from last year Dripping, they don’t make such rambling, discordant indie rock like this anymore - maybe they never did. A very good album that deserves much higher kudos than it’s ever going to receive.
http://sonicmasala.blogspot.com/2013/05/rad-history-month.html
Stereogum:
Yesterday, I wrote a piece for Stereogum discussing some of the difficulties associated with running an underground music space in Boston. Sometimes keeping house show culture vibrant in this city seems like more trouble than it’s worth, but then you hear something like the new record by Fat History Month – probably the most championed band of the Boston basement-show circuit in recent years – and it’s enough to squash your cynicism for a while.
While the backstory of Fat History Month — a guitar and drum duo who seem to take inspiration from Slanted & Enchanted-era Pavement, Modest Mouse, and other similarly self-deprecating indie-rock bands — is one of off-the-grid smoke-filled basements around Massachusetts, none of that history is even really necessary to appreciate the series of painfully overlooked experimental rock records and tapes they’ve released since 2009. Fat History Month’s 2011 debut full-length Fucking Despair (comprised of “redemption songs of freedom” with names like “Free As a Cat”) was marked by the singer’s perpetual deadpan, and distorted guitar lines that shift between the tight/angular and the droney/cyclical. Now, that’s followed up by songs in a similar vein on a second full length, Bad History Month, out on April Fool’s Day via Sophomore Lounge and Exploding In Sound Records.
http://stereogum.com/1297541/fat-history-month-bald-history-month/mp3s/
Sweet Tea Pumpkin Pie:
I invariably make the mistake of buying too many albums from different artists at one time. This often leads to slanting towards the album that catches my ear the fastest. Last November, I happened upon Pile’s newest album, Dripping at the same time that I bought Fat History Month’s 2011 album, Fucking Despair. While FHM’s album was cool, I was riding the tide of Pile’s wave of noise rock, especially after getting into their prior album, Magic Isn’t Real earlier that month. Then, Guided by Voices released The Bears for Lunch and, before I knew it, my ever-growing iTunes collection buried FHM.
As luck would have it for me, the duo from Boston released a new album in April 2013 and I remembered their name. I heard the title track from Bad History Month on a music blog and it jogged my memory. I remembered that these guys had a cool sound that I meant to indulge, but just forgot.
Good thing I came to my senses. FHM has a lot to offer listeners who have some patience and a taste for the loud-quiet-loud rapport of The Pixies, and the jangle of Pavement and Modest Mouse (before MM were neutered by quasi-fame). The band also has a lot in common with their label mates, Pile. Aside from their Boston roots, both bands excel at taking listener on a musically askew journey with each track.
FHM features similar churning guitars and strumming rhythms, and angular hooks drowned in some appealing distortion and fuzz. The drums splash through the songs and each track sounds like it is a mere second away from spinning out of control. These guys are true artists and work hard to make their songs sound chaotic. Case-in-point, the opening track, “(bad history),” barely gets started before the band has to stop and restart. Intentional? Who knows, and who cares? I would not have it any other way.
Things really get going early. The title track is bouncy and peppered with sullen, downtrodden moments. “Everyday Is Christmas” sputters along at the beginning, but takes a dramatic turn and has a rift that Slint would envy.
“Bald History Month” is a wonderful rocker that boasts many shifts in dynamics and has such a large sound that it is hard to believe just two people created this joyful noise.
The last quarter of the album takes a melancholic turn with the track “(bad future)”, but shifts into a rather hopeful yet ominous vibe with the epic behemoth “There Goes the Sun” and the final crescendo of “I Ate Myself And I Want To Die”.
Glad I remembered this band, as the reward was worth the wait. Now I wonder what other musical treasures lay buried in my iTunes.
http://sweetteapumpkinpie.com/2013/04/23/album-review-fat-history-month-bad-history-month/](http://25.media.tumblr.com/439c2335d8cae8369cd499443ede5279/tumblr_mmt4t7KWjK1r7rmpno1_500.jpg)
