The Fantasies Come to Life (Again)

This Northampton band continues to be as elusive as most of our fantasies but they also continue to fulfill our musical ones quite splendidly. It took a while, but we just read a very nice email from the band. The missive contained the precious Bandcamp link to their just-released Earth Life EP, along with a note saying (and we quote in full), "thanks for writing about us before." "before," of course, refers to this post, which features what is turning out to be one of our very favorite of the thousand+ songs we've acquired so far this year, the fantastic "Tick Tock." What the heck, here it is.


Click to listen & download: The Fantasies - Tick Tock mp3

We're also posting below two tunes we "dig" from the new EP. You can easily get the third (plus some previous singles) by clicking the Bandcamp link. We could tell you all kinds of stuff about the songs, but why bother when your own ears can do that so much more eloquently than we ever could do. We readily and humbly admit, though, that the Master of Bubblegumiana, MrQwerty over at Power Pop Review, could quite possibly give even your ears a run for their money. Simply comparing his review of the Warm Fuzzies with ours will show you what we mean. We've no doubt which one you'd chews. Dude knows his 'Gum. We've kind of digressed, but not really.

Bandcamp | The Fantasies Blog

Happiness is the Warm Fuzzies

Global warming to the contrary notwithstanding, this cryogenically challenging season—in the Northern Hemisphere, at least—cries out for even more warmth. (Translation: Brrrrr, it’s wintertime, luvs.) On Tuesday happiness was a warm (One Weekly) Gun; today it’s a warm fuzzy, or, to be precise, five of them.* the Warm Fuzzies are from Athens (Georgia, that is: great clubs. . .primo rock). I was delighted when Fuzzy Jason Harwell told me he’d found me at the indispensable Absolute Powerpop and wondered if he could send me their new The Bubblegum - EP for review. I was delighted to tell Jason that I had found the Warm Fuzzies at the indispensable Absolute Powerpop and had already gone to eMusic and purchased thereof.

A flurry of (one) emailed negotiation resulted in his generously letting me share the below. I don’t think I have to tell you the feeling that immediately suffused my corpus. (Translation: I got warm and I got fuzzy.) Actually, Jason (dangerously) set no limits, so I am exercising iron self-control in holding it to a double bubble.

The bandname and EP title suggest you will be choked in the shallow waters before you get too deep.** And it’s true that Jason is quoted at the band’s MySpace site thusly: "We had a pretty simple mantra: If it's not fun, don't do it. . . ." Not so hasty, though, Bubba. There’s more here than smackin’ and blow pop. “Space Invaders” has meaning for those who get a little itchy when bumpkins get too close. “All My Friends Are Robots” might connect with those who find themselves increasingly turning to the machine you’re looking at for some of their closest encounters. But let’s not dwell on such quibbles ‘n’ bytes. Chew on this:

the Warm Fuzzies – from The Bubblegum - EP
Space Invaders mp3
All My Friends Are Robots mp3

the Warm Fuzzies Myspace
the Warm Fuzzies Bandsite
the Warm Fuzzies at eMusic
the Warm Fuzzies at Powerpopulist – Um, you’re reading it, duh.

*Jason Harwell - vocals/guitar * Davey Staton - drums * Laura Calvert - synth * Jonathan Staton - bass * Mattox Shuler – guitar

**Speaking of philosophy, I’m working up a post on a Philosopher Queen who’s been pleasantly warming my world of late. Coming soon to a blog near you.

************* These don’t really annotate anything specific in the post. They just kind of seem like apt visual representations of “warm fuzzies.”