figgsite

Pete D. & Mike were in the studio this past weekend to start a new Figgs record. 3 brand new songs were started.

There is a new Graham Parker movie coming out soon with some Figgs footage & interviews. Check it out here.

Our new record "The Man Who Fights Himself" is available now! 10 brand new songs featuring "Ravena" (which you can check out on our myspace pageand the single Casino Hayes which is also available on 45 format.
Click here to order "The Man Who Fights Himself" now!
It is also available at itunes and cd baby for digital download..

The band will be playing some shows throughout 2010 to promote the new record before they continue to work on the next record which is a planned double record.

The Man Who Fights Himself Tour

09/04/10 New York, NY - Private Party
09/05/10 East Chatham, NY - Private Party
10/16/10 Brooklyn, NY - Trash Bar

The Figgs bring new album, loads of new songs to town
Saratoga Springs natives set to play two CD release parties in Capital Region
Thursday, August 5, 2010
By Brian McElhiney
Gazette Reporter

Just because it took The Figgs four years to follow up 2006’s “Follow Jean
Through the Sea” doesn’t mean the band has gotten lazy in its songwriting.

“I read a review of the new record where somebody said we’re not as
prolific as we once were — he was obviously looking at the time between
[records],” guitarist and vocalist Mike Gent said from his current home in
Boston. “And I thought, ‘Oh, if you only knew just how many songs we’ve
written and recorded.’”

The Saratoga Springs natives actually began recording “The Man Who Fights
Himself” at the beginning of 2008, laying down the beginnings of about 14
songs in Los Angeles. Then they scrapped all but one of them. As the year
wound on, the band began amassing more songs — so many that at one point,
Gent contemplated making the record a double album a la 2004’s “Palais.”

In 2009, Gent recorded his self-titled third solo album, further delaying
a new Figgs record. “The Man Who Fights Himself,” featuring 10 songs
including one leftover from “Follow Jean,” finally appeared in May. The
band will celebrate in the Capital Region with two release shows — one at
The Linda in Albany on Friday night, and another in their hometown, at
Putnam Den, Saturday night.

“I wanted to maybe get something done and out by last year, but it just
wasn’t — we had enough stuff to put out, but it just didn’t seem right,”
Gent said. “I tried putting different songs together, compiling them on
discs. Finally in January of this year, I thought, ‘We need to book more
studio time to pull this record together,’ so that’s what we did.

“Now we have all this leftover stuff,” Gent continued. “We were toying
with the idea of releasing them for the next record, but now we’re
thinking we’re just going to start from scratch — we already have sessions
booked for the week after the shows up here in Boston to start the next
record.”

Combined with everything leftover from “Follow Jean” and even the double
CD “Palais,” The Figgs have about 40 songs that haven’t been released. And
that’s still only the tip of the iceberg — 2001’s six-song “Badger” EP is
in the process of being re-released as a full album, and the group has 14
singles that were never released on CD. Plus there’s even more outtakes
from the band’s ’90s albums.

“We always feel like, yeah, we should put out the old stuff, but I find
myself wanting to concentrate more on new stuff,” Gent said. “Possibly in
the future we’ll release the rarities stuff. A lot of it’s really cool —
sometimes you listen to something and go, ‘Why didn’t we put that on the
record? That was so stupid.’ Of course, some of our earlier records I’m
thinking, ‘Why did we put that on the record?’”

The Figgs — Gent, bassist and vocalist Pete Donnelly and drummer Pete
Hayes — are in no rush with any of their upcoming projects. The rocking
power-pop band doesn’t even have a proper tour booked to support “The Man
Who Fights Himself.” In fact, the self-released album wasn’t even released
through a distributor — all sales have been online through iTunes, the
band’s website www.thefiggs.net or at the band’s shows. At this point,
after 23 years of playing together, The Figgs aren’t too concerned with
marketing pushes or publicity.

“I’ve always had this old joke — somebody would ask what band I’m playing
in, I’d tell them, and they either said, ‘Oh, I never heard of you guys,’
or, ‘Oh, you guys are still around?’” Gent said. “If you’re not constantly
force-feeding people stuff by way of a publicist or a company that has
money that’s getting your name out, people tend to forget pretty easily.
My feeling with The Figgs is that if people want to find it, it’s there;
we don’t necessarily want to be reminding people we exist all the time.”

It’s not like the band really needs to be constantly pushing itself
anyway. Thanks to their short time on Imago and Capitol Records in the
mid-’90s and the massive amount of touring under those labels, The Figgs
have found fans spread out all over the country.

Back then, the group was a four-piece featuring lead guitarist Guy Lyons,
who left after Capitol dropped the group following the release of “Banda
Macho” in 1996. Looking back on the major label experience, Gent has no
feelings of bitterness or regret.

“It’s funny, because the picture that got painted over the years was that
we got kind of screwed by labels, but we really didn’t,” Gent said.
“Really, looking back, it was just a little blip in our existence as a
band, but it helped us by giving us kind of the means to go out and play.”

In a way, being dropped from Capitol was something of a relief to the
band. Before that, the band had been going strong in the Capital Region
for seven years without any label support, so the transition wasn’t difficult.

“Especially on Capitol, no one really knew at that label that we were even
signed; it’s such a huge label,” Gent said. “The guy who signed us there
loved the band, and maybe about four or five other people loved the band,
but it wasn’t enough to do anything. We were really relieved when we were
dropped from Capitol; it was like, now we can carry on and kind of do our
thing.”

That included playing as the backup band for London singer-songwriter
Graham Parker, formerly of new wave group Graham Parker & The Rumour. The
band still plays with Parker — there are plans to hit the road with him in
November to support his latest solo album, “Imaginary Television.”

“We did the Graham thing, which Capitol was super against,” Gent said.
“They did not think it was a good idea to do that tour with Graham, and we
thought, ‘You’re crazy, that’s a great opportunity.’”

Thanks to their shows with Graham, The Figgs were able to pick up an older
audience.

“What’s cool about us is, throughout our career we’ve never really had one
specific age group that liked the band,” Gent said. “We’ve had all these
little spurts whenever we’ve toured with Graham where all the older fans
get turned on to us, but they wouldn’t necessarily come back and see us.

“When we did this tour recently with Graham, we played this really
beautiful theater somewhere in Connecticut and did an opening set, and the
crowd loved it. I asked the crowd, ‘If we came back, would you come back
and see us?’ Everybody cheered, and I said, ‘You’re liars.’ It’s the
same thing with Graham — if he’s off the radar, people forget about him.”

Of course, the band will always have its audience in the Capital Region.
Gent describes shows here as something of a reunion for both the band and
its fans.

“One cool thing too about being in this band for so long — when you’re
traveling and doing shows, all of a sudden you’ll see somebody you haven’t
seen in 15 years, and it’s , I forgot about this person,” Gent said.
“The older fans enjoy it, especially up in that area in our hometown — ‘Oh
[crap], The Figgs are playing; I’m gonna go there and who am I gonna run
into?’”

Graham Parker has a new record "Imaginary Television" out on Bloodshot Records. Mike plays drums and sings on the new record.

Or... grab this deal from Gern Blandsten
A copy of the Follow Jean LP on 180 gram/White vinyl (ltd to 200) a copy of the casino Hayes 7" and a Follow Jean Poster for $20 ppd in the US, $23 in Canada, and $27 in Europe. paypal to gernbland@aol.com

The new single "Casino Hayes" Is available now! It's on the 3rd pressing because the first 2 pressings were messed up. If you have a messed up pressing, click on the link below and follow the instructions on the site. Vinyl comes with digital download with both A & B sides plus bonus live version of Casino Hayes. Order it here...
http://www.peterwalkeerecords.com/news.html

2010 SHOWS

The Man Who Fights Himself Tour

08/06 Albany, NY - Linda Norris Auditorium (Record Release Show!)
Order tix here http://www.wamcarts.org/artsched.html
08/07 Saratoga Springs, NY - Putnam Den (Record Release Show!)

In spring of 1994 we were asked to support The Knack on a tour they were doing because 'My Sharona" had re-entered the Billboard charts because of the "Reality Bites" soundtrack. While other current bands of that time were going on tour with each other, we were going out with a band from the 70's. That was alright with me (touring with older acts seems to have fit us well throughout our career). I have always loved The Knack (take a look at the back cover of Low Fi). Not just the first record, I also think the 2nd record is great as is Round Trip. I have a lot of great memories of that tour (too many to share here). The band was great to us and we hung out a lot. We were almost thrown off the tour at the beginning and banned from The Paradise in Boston because we started a beer fight with the audience and drenched the stage and The Knack's gear with Rolling Rock. After our set we had to go back on stage with towels and a mop to clean it up! On the last night of the tour in Wisconsin, during our set, The Knack and road crew came out on stage, set up a card table, and started playing cards. I think they may have put flour on Hayes' snare before we started (or did we do that to them?). I remember bugging Doug about Bruce Gary and how great of a drummer he was. Like I said, too much stuff to tell here. I just wanted to write something in memory of Doug and let everyone know how great those guys were. Mike

1. Leave My Capo Alone
2. (Romantic Needs Led To) False Alarms
3. Paper Knives
4. He's In The Bag
5. Haste & Wrath
6. Buried Me Alive
7. Alice the Goon
8. Little Yellow Eyes
9. Feeling Sound Yet
10.Stations Fading

We just found some copies of this 2003 reissue in our storage. They will be available at this site in the Store for a short period of time. Grab one or two. They are only $10. The Deluxe Edition has 29 songs on it. That's around 34 cents a song. Do it......
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=257368

THE FIGGS COULDN'T GET HIGH ON VINYL OUT NOW!!

Celebrating it's 10th anniversary with a very limited (300) vinyl pressing of The Figgs fifth LP. Click here to order now!!

Mike Gent, guitarist and vocalist for underrated pop/rock group The Figgs, is the first of three to sit down at the picnic table where we will momentarily conduct this interview. The table is situated in the grassy S. Jersey-an backyard of our House Concert hosts, Dave and Jen, and within easy viewing of the beer-laden porch; its screen door audibly squealing with the in-and-out of early trespassers. A house concert is just what it sounds like. I'm out of context in the fly-ridden heat with a minidress and my Dictaphone listening to bassist/vocalist Pete Donnelly's genu-ine baby girl wail freely up to the sky. It's a sign of the times.

Follow Jean Through the Sea (2006), released on indie label Gern Blandsten, is the Figgs' latest LP to make the scroll-worthy discography on the band's official web page, which covers the bulk of twenty years on the road pushin' so-called power pop.

Admittedly, this is not the expected venue for a live performance that usually sees a cult of twenty- and thirty-somethings jumping and singing back at the stage; or closed-eyedly following figgy beats from three hundred or so slatted seats. So they have a backyard. Drummer Pete Hayes (P. Haze) is inside talking to Dave with long hair; his Jen is intermittently busy with her own mommi-cries; and as we watch two-thirds of the band make their staggered way to the bench I blink away hesitation and mindfully switch "on".

SM: The theme weaving in and out of Follow Jean Through the Sea is what I term "retrospective irony". Regional Hits, for example, talks about how hard it is to get your art out in this business. But instead of just feeling bad for yourselves, you put a record out about it! Does it come down to 'Fuck it - let's play some music' every time?

PH: (Laughs) Sadly, yes. That's what's kept me here for eighteen years. Cause it's fun, you know... words.

MG: The song Chasing After Words is basically about trying to find subject matter to write about in songs. I mean, there's really only a few certain things you can write about in a song: Love, Hate-

MG: It's weird. I guess a lot of the songs come off as whining about the state of music, but it really wasn't that at all. It's part of a story we came up with. Regional Hits is sung from the perspective of an international hit maker complaining about these local dudes.

PH: The lyrics to that song in particular echo the thoughts of a pure musician gettin' stuffed back in the cubicle after - you know, a bad publishing deal. We never had a publishing deal.

PH: It's not biographic, but I think that the bitterness you hear probably comes from something that's inside deep. It's not a bitter song necessarily.

PD: I think we do that a lot, we write songs that aren't about our lives but they end up reflecting things about ourselves, you know, as a writer. You have to include feelings that you've had in order to sing it with any kind of real, true emotion.

PH: I think Miami is a great example of that. Stop me if I'm wrong, but you wrote that for someone else to sing. It was someone else's story entirely. And the way you sing it, Pete, it's coming right from your heart. It's like it's about you.

SM: It sounds like with age you just come to observe it and make fun of it in an artistic form, if you can. Right?

MG: Yeah. Exactly. Breaking Through These Gates is about that same guy complaining about people coming up on his lawn.

SM: Follow Jean also isn't afraid to be poppy. In fact, it's downright danceable.

PD: Yeah, because that was the way we wanted it made! We wanted it to have a party; we wanted to play live in the studio; and we wanted people there enjoying it and having a good time.

SM: When I listen to it I hear the Kinks, early Stones, Tom Petty, G.B.V., but also- forgive the comparison - Arctic Monkeys, The Vines.

MG: The Vines I never really heard except for maybe the singles. So that's cool if you can hear that stuff in our record 'cause I don't think any of us really bought a lot of modern records.

SM: Being a modern band, then, how do you keep reinventing yourselves - without alienating your original fan base?

MG: It's always a good sign when you're playing the songs before they're out and people respond to it. We're not in the situation where we put out a record and people, you know, the masses, are expecting - 'Oh, what are they gonna do to top themselves this time?'

PH: They're just grateful to have one. They don't care what it sounds like. (Laughs)

MG: Yeah, we do like to think of our albums as sets of music. I'd say we were trashed about fifty percent of the record making for Follow Jean.

PD: We played live in the studio. When we cut Miami, I took the different bits of the two days in a row that we played it and made an arrangement. We didn't want to get the band out of the element we're best at, which is playing together.

SM: You also incorporate a lot of your older songs into your sets today. Do you make up the set list beforehand, or is it all on the fly?

MG: It depends. If we're on tour, we'll come up with a skeleton of a set list so we know the first four songs we're going to play every night. And then, if we've been on the road for a while, we can change up a little part and usually know it's at the end. So we have some kind of structure.

PH: For me, there's a five-year window where I'll come back thinking, 'Damn, this is good'. It's always a trough and a valley and a plateau. It's funny, after the test of time they're all good. I love every single one of our records.

MG: More than anyone will ever know. You are what you are and you're looking at what you were. There's no point in being critical of it though 'cause you've moved on.

PH: Oh, absolutely. That's what a record is. It goes up and down. We re-released Ready Steady Stoned a couple years ago and I remember listening to it again going, 'Oh God, I can never play drums this good ever again! What was I doing there? Why can't I play like this anymore?'

SM: How does this coming of age, your family, being a bona fide grownup filter into your music today?

PD: Who ever said we were grownups? (Laughs) I think there's probably maturity in the record. Owning houses, and whatever - it affects the music a lot. I'm only really interested in performing things that I can feel.

MG: There's some reflective shit going on. Maybe more on Pete's part than on mine.

SM: Were there any new influences on Follow Jean that you'd never considered before?

PD: Yeah, our peers. Those are the models. Hanging around my friends and hearing what they're up to inspires me. I get an idea based on what they're doin' and I take that and just run with it.

PH: Yeah. One time we were on tour in Canada playing with this pretty alright band, and they had this song that was pretty good and Pete stole the main hook from it.

PD: Yeah, OK, yeah. I'm totally a supporter of absolute theft. I just feel if you have any -- any originality in your soul, then as soon as you steal something it's completely your own. (Mike and Pete H. laugh) I mean you copy something, and in copying it, you create something new. That's what punk is: white, bratty kids playing R&B. It doesn't sound like R&B, but they're trying to play R&B.

SM: Does that factor into your selection of songs to cover? You're taking the entire song and re-interpreting it.

MG: I look at it as us playing songs that we like and that are similar to the kind of music that we play. And maybe not play note for note, or word for word.

PD: You also always look for covers too that they don't blow [your music] away. That's why covering Beatles and stuff - it's like death.

PH: I'd start with Sucking In Stereo, 'cause that's our most upbeat, peppy, party record. It captures us, especially what we were at a time, very well.

MG: I would say Palais, or Sucking. Palais only because it's got a variety of different styles on it; Sucking is kind of more one thing.

PD: And I say... uh... the anthology we're gonna release next year. (Laughs) Honestly, I hate to say this, but it's usually what CD we have the most of. Palais is collectible right now, so... Sucking In Stereo, definitely the place to start.

SM: Mike and Pete - you co-wrote the title track on Follow Jean. That was pretty unusual for you.

PD: It's unfortunate that it doesn't happen more. We were less open to each other in younger days. And as you're older - you can take any liberty you want with anything I do. Go right ahead.

MG: Right. He had this song that I found on a tape of us just learning songs from a while ago, four years ago maybe. And it was the chorus - (sings) '...information too slow, no no no no no...' Something like that. That melody would randomly just pop into my head for days. I said, 'We gotta do something with this melody, it's just so good.' So I wrote the verses and just re-wrote the words in the chorus, then grabbed the bridge, and put it together. That's one of my favorite Figgs songs.

MG: That just popped into my head: follow jean through the sea. Sometimes I'll think of song titles before I write the song. And then it just flowed out, lyrically. It makes some kind of sense, the words, but it's more of a feeling.

PH: Ben Smith. He's genius. Interesting kid: he was the brother of my sister's best friend and he was given Figgs records at a very young age, maybe nine, and he grew up into this outrageous artist. He works in watercolors and he really wanted to do our record cover, so he did Palais, and then he did Follow Jean.

PD: And it was so cool he didn't put anybody in the boats. That wouldn't have worked.

PH: That cover reminds me of the end of Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man. Have you ever seen it? It ends with the body being placed in a boat and being set off to sea.

SM: The only real break in theme is with the grunge-y track City Loft Home - right smack in the middle of the record. Why did you choose that as a bridge?

PD: What most people don't know is, we think of CDs as two sides. So that closes the first side of this album. And it has a tie-in you hear at the end of it. There's a three-chord thing, really quiet, and that's reflecting the three-chord intro of Jumping Again [the first song on the second side].

PH: The next album is generally being constructed while the one before it is being recorded. (Laughs) There's so much stuff that we didn't even use on our last record. There's plenty of stuff.

PD: We went into the studio every day for that record at about one o'clock. No one even talked about music or picked up a guitar till six. Just jammin' -- with people there, and the tape rolling.

PH: You mix instruments into songs; you mix songs into an album. Our best record hasn't been made yet.

NEW STUDIO RECORD!!!
"Follow Jean Through The Sea".
10 new songs
Out on Gern Blandsten Records 11/28/06

Like The Wondermints with Brian Wilson, and The Posies with Big Star, Boston power-pop stalwarts The Figgs got to fulfill their purpose by becoming the backing band for the rock icon they most resemble, Graham Parker. Since they made that transition, The Figgs' own music has become more focused and less rote, though the hooky, simple songs on the band's latest, Follow Jean Through The Sea (Gern Blandsten), still hit the homage ceiling at a certain point. The album's highlight is "Regional Hits," with its cleaned-up version of classic garage-rock shake-and-shimmy, which sounds for all the world like the long-forgotten late-'70s one-off single that it salutes. B+

Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Milwaukee, WI

Jumping Again

Gramma always said that if you can't say something nice... so, we won't talk about the opening band. Okay, here's something: the drummer wore a tie and looked like quite a nice young man. Until.... nope, won't go there.

The Figgs took the stage at what, 11:30? Pretty late for these old working bones.

As a matter of fact, I'm hanging a bit low here this AM.

There was a pretty nice crowd, quite satisfying to see after a few Figgs giggs where Silent Mike and I were almost the only people there. A quite high percentage of ladies, in fact, along with the odd zombie and,...ummm....Kiss.

The Figgs cranked right into a quartet of new songs, all of which sounded superb. Pete D and Mike were spending more time harmonizing, rather than just trading vocals. Their voices are quite fine complements for each other, similar to Pirner and Murphy from Soul Asylum. After listening to the new CD (not available to you normals until Nov 14th) they are mostly-live takes, with the classic, basic lineup of guitar, bass, drums,... and guitar. Punky power pop with hooks that grab your belly like a meathook.

One of the hardest working bands around. They played an afternoon show at Andy's Basement, then came down to play a nearly unannounced show at Linnemann's. When they tour with Graham Parker, they typically play their own set as an opener, then come out to back up GP. After clearing away the debris of the opening band, they just started playing. No real sound check, plug in and go. It's rock and roll, not art. Even so, their sound is crisp and tight, tight as I've ever seen any band. Even when someone fouls something up, the other members just follow right along, making things right.

Mike Gent had a new guitar, a classic black Les Paul, with a funky new wah-wah pedal that he didn't overuse. In contrast, Pete Donnelley plays the most worn Fender bass in the world. There is essentially no paint left on the back, and a fair amount of wear on the front.

No setlist; like the Femmes, I think they just work from a loose arrangement and play what they feel like as they go. Looking at the recent shows on setlist.com, you can see that other than the new cuts they want to emphasize, they play very nearly random samples of their catalogue, going all the way back to Banda Macho.

At no particular loss for their own material (20 years, 12 albums and 121 songs to their credit, not counting their cassette and single releases) They also threw in a couple of covers; a fiery version of Hang Fire with energy that the Stones only dimly remember, and Love Goes To A Building On Fire that emphasized the early punk roots of Talking Heads. The notable thing about these was that appreciative as the crowd was, the most active response was for the Figgs original stuff, not the covers.

The band has found a way to share the work in the last couple of years. For Hey Mr. Moonman, they sat on the edge of the stage and the drummer took a break, with just gentle guitar strumming and allowing the crowd to take the vocals. They did this a few times; the crowd was perfectly willing to sing every single line. At least I was.

They did any number of encores, even switching instruments around just to add a bit of goof. We were fortunate to have a good number of encores; they only did one in Chicago the night before.

As always, just an excellent show. Do The Bounce; Jumping Again, indeed. I told the band members it had been too long, and it certainly was. A Figgs Fixx is indicated every 10 to 14 months. Too much fun for Zorg.

And some excellent news mined from the Figgs web site: at a 2005 show with Graham Parker in Chicago, the set was recorded and will be released by Bloodshot as 103 degrees in June. One of my favorite bands; my favorite label. All good.

Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Cheap Cassettes

And finally, one of my favorite songs performed live in Green Bay.

Can you tell I'm all the way wired about this show? Well, I am.

Hope they didn't get too wasted in GB last night.

Although the one time we saw them after a raucous GB show, they were STILL better than 90% of the bands out there.

Shit, If Green Day can be huge and not the Figgs, there's no damn justice. Maybe there ain't but the Figgs are still a damn great band.

Idolator Politely Asks: Why The Frigg Aren't You Listening To The Figgs?

If you have footage of the band feel free to post it on You Tube. Just make sure it's good!

Wednesday, November 01, 2006 Milwaukee, WI

Jumping Again

Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Milwaukee, WI