Haven't heard 'peep' from the internets about them in a while. While I know Gruff has been doing a lot of solo stuff for the past year or so, does anyone here know the 'status' of the band?? Inquiring minds wanna know!
Yes. Gruff is finishing up a U.S. tour, Cian just released a solo album (with another to follow in a few months), Guto has a new band called Gulp (who just released a single), Daf is working on a couple of projects and Bunf is reportedly nearly done with his first solo album.
I wish they would have had some success here in the States. Fantastic group. I think they have the same problem acts like Ween and NRBQ have - TOO eclectic!
I just threw on the DVD of "Rings Around The World" for the first time in ages. I listened to this album non-stop when it first came out. Was lucky enough to catch their Baltimore show on this tour. It was at a tiny club (Otto Bar) and they had the 5.1 system with them. It was unbearably;e loud but an excellent show. This band does not get enough due.
I'll second the 5.1 Rings. I saw them three times in San Francisco plus a two man acoustic set at Amoeba Records on Haight Street. A great innovative bad, And Hotel Shampoo IS a wonderful solo album.
mwng is my favorite by them, and one of my favorite albums of the past 20 years or so. All lyrics are in Welch and I can't understand a word, but so what? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mwng
Nice to see fellow SFA lovers in the house . Just received an e-mail that there will be a new NEON-NEON album out in April, so, there's that. The wife and I were lucky enough to catch their LA show for the"LoveKraft" album. I'm one of the 'crazies' who bought "Rings.." BLIND solely for the fact that McCartney plays vegetables on the album. Then, I bought everything they made.... I love it all! On a personal note, my wife, who was a 'no-more-new-music/it-all-sucks' kind of girl, was thumbing through my iTunes collection, when she saw all my SFA. She played "Northern Lights", and she was hooked! I remember her big smile when she came to me and said, "Jeez, these guys are good! And, you know I hate saying anything new is good!" It was a great day!
I don't believe the super furry animals have called it quits. They're still at it. To wit: I just saw a raccoon going through my trash can. I guess it depends if you consider a raccoon super furry.
Saw them three times and the first club show when Rings came out had a surround sound set up. Really loud and beautiful.
She'd fit right in around here! It does rather appear as if the good ship SFA has run out of steam of late. Ah well, they had a solid run--I particularly view the Rings-Mwgn-Phantom phase as their peak--but some of the later albums like Love Kraft felt a little less fresh to me.
I maintain 'Love Kraft' is their best album. If I was them I'd continue to lie low, it will end up being at least 5 years between albums if they do return next year... The critics and public may have taken them for granted a tad, their prolonged absence could make their eventual 'comeback' more noteworthy...
Gruff and Boom Bip have a new album, available for pre-order: http://shop.lexrecords.com/products/praxis-makes-perfect It just showed up in my inbox this morning.
Gruff's Hotel Shampoo was pretty close to what I would imagine a great Super Furry Animals would sound like. I never had a good sense of how that band operated. I always assumed Gruff was basically the main guy and that he wrote the best songs. I still think that.
I'll be sad if they have indeed called it quits. They were my favorite band of the late 90s and through the 00s, but their catalog is nearly faultless and will stand the test of time, I think
Interesting that this came up, just yesterday I received my order for Love Kraft. I bought it used for about 4 bucks because I read that it's an unmarked SACD. And it is. 5.1 + 2.0 Stereo hybrid disk. I never listened to them before but they sound really good. Does anybody know if any of their other CD's are also SACD's?
That's interesting. My copy is not SACD. They did surround DVD's for Rings and Phantom Power, but I'm not aware of any SACD's from them.