Last Call on THE FUTUREHEADS

Have you checked out the mp3 of THE FUTUREHEADS' "Meantime" yet? Did that get you to buy their self-titled album? If not, I'm going all out tonight. To paraphrase Micheal Biehn in "The Terminator": I absolutely will not stop. Until. You. Are. Dead. It's 15 songs in under 36 minutes, tossing off influences (Gang of Four, The Kinks, The Jam and XTC) like sweat from their pasty brows.

Here is their Allmusic.com bio. It looks like almost every damned site on the web has posted this bio, so you might as well get it from the source. I can't pretend I found them myself. Two of my friends on the east coast reported back to me about a concert they'd seen in Philadelphia. Since I truly trust one of the guy's taste in music (sorry James), I clicked over to the iTunes music store and started checking out the Futureheads.



The first song I downloaded was "Hounds of Love", a cover of a Kate Bush song. I always had a little crush on Kate when I was growing up, but I never really got into any of her albums. She gets my respect though. I've always liked "This Woman's Work," and admired Maxwell for covering it on his Unplugged special a few years back. His version is insanely good.

Anyway, I had probably listened to about 1 minute of the Bush cover when I decided to pony up and buy the whole album. Anything that kicks off with a song as good as "Le Garage" is bound to be an enjoyable ride. If you just want to buy a few songs and check them out a little further, try "Decent Days and Nights," "Trying Not to Think About Time" and "Robot." Fun stuff... but I insist you play it really loud. Listening to these guys at a low volume is like watching a fullscreen DVD.

I always like to throw in the occasional obscurity or b-side, so here's a wacky alternate version of The Streets' "Fit But You Know It" that features The Futureheads as emcee Mike Skinner's backing band. And while I'm throwing all this UK love around, why not throw in what I think was one of the best hip-hop singles of the past half decade, The Streets' "Dry Your Eyes."


FOR MORE ON TONIGHT'S ARTISTS:
The Futureheads official web crib
Always on the Run, a Kate Bush page
The Streets site