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Here are some more updates. I don't know if I've said this before, but copying and pasting all these reviews is pretty much for my own sake to have everything in one spot online before sites change around and things fade away and whatnot...like a little scrap book or something... with that said, here are some more words.

Boat, “Awesome,” Fishboy, Eux Autres
(Comet) Since our pages have already poured praise upon local headliners “Awesome” and Boat, this brief recommendation is better served touting a memorable out-of-towner opening the bill. Fishboy the band is named after Fishboy the lead singer, a bespectacled dweeb-rocker from Denton, Texas, who currently writes and performs some of the most smile-worthy pop this side of They Might Be Giants. The 25-year-old draws epic-length comic-book fliers for concerts and four-tracks songs about anthropomorphic Christmas trees and Teddy Ruxpin, but lest you think this Fish is too much “boy,” he’s gotten help from members of Okkervil River and the Baptist Generals on his albums for a reason. Fishboy comes to Seattle on the strength of his latest record, Albatross, and he’s bringing a frenzy of horns, guitars, and giggle-worthy songs in his lunchbox. THE STRANGER

There are smart-aleck rock bands, and then there is Fishboy - which is a smart smart-aleck rock band.

The Denton quartet has just released what may be the world’s shortest rock opera with the longest title - the 33-minute Albatross: How We Failed to Save the Lone Star State With the Power of Rock and Roll. Leader Eric Michener has described it as a concept album about riding shotgun in a tour bus with the ghost of Buddy Holly in an attempt to discover the song that will save Texas. But the key to any concept album is whether it holds up on shuffle play, and Albatross stands as one of the finest rock albums to come out of Texas this year, loaded with loud guitars, catchy melodies, and fun verses like “I’m so broke, it makes me sick/ I use cut-up credit cards for guitar picks.”

At their quirkiest, Fishboy resembles “Don’t Let’s Start”-era They Might Be Giants. But Michener and his bandmates add a ragged garage-band energy that makes the songs work beyond their clever lyrics. “Minus Two” may have been conceived as a setup for Michener’s wacky opera plotline, but it’s also a passionate anthem about literally being born to play music. And love songs set in fast-food restaurants have never been as bouncy or endearing as the rollicking “Taqueria Girl.” KERA.ORG

Liz originally fell in love with Fishboy when she saw them earlier this year at the Athens Popfest. Since then, they’ve released one of her favorite albums of the year (Albatross: How We Failed To Save The Lone Star State With The Power Of Rock And Roll) that chronicles our hero’s fight to save Texas with music and shenanigans. During the course of this indie-popera they encounter “Proper Name Spelling Bees” and taqueria stands. How could you know be compelled to follow them around as they tour the Pacific Northwest? KEXP BLOG

f nothing else, I’ve learned two things as an English major. First, always follow the “show don’t tell” model — rather than writing abstract, existential prose about a suburban kid, rebelling against his white-collar parents, sit said private schooler down in his room listening to Clipse and UGK on his oversized headphones, with dreams of DJing and spitting 16 bars over the latest Timbaland beat. I’ve also learned that a lot of indie rockers were, at one time, English majors. The genre seems to be making an overarching, whole-hearted effort to trend toward writing personalized, affecting lyrics à la John Darnielle (of The Mountain Goats fame).

Fishboy is no different. The group’s latest release, Albatross: How We Failed to Save the Lone Star State with The Power of Rock and Roll, is riddled with stories of fishermen lost at sea, grade school spelling bees, and criminal trials. A concept album about, “how [frontman, Eric Michener], the band, and the ghost of Buddy Holly attempt to save Texas by going on a tour/crime spree in order to perform all 8,030 of the songs [he’s] written in [his] sleep since [he] was in the womb,” Albatross is ripe with stories for just such lyricism.

Outlandish concepts aside though, Albatross plays like a perfectly succinct and collected work. Few tracks run over three minutes, while all of them seem to coalesce together, creating more of a composed piece, broken into varying acts, rather than an album of wholly separated tracks. When “Blackout/Flashback” gels seamlessly into the distorted intro of “Half Time at the Proper Name Spelling Bee” — a track that sounds incredibly reminiscent of Neutral Milk Hotel’s In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, as Michener’s voice embodies the same searing, nasally quality Jeff Magnum became known for — the concept aspect of the album seems fully realized.

And yet the most disappointing aspect of this disc is that those showing-not-telling lyrics seem to fall flat in the exact moments when they’re supposed to be most powerful. When Michener sings, “I’m so broke it makes me sick/ I use cut-up credit cards for guitar picks” on “Taqueria Girl,” his jovial croons make it impossible to believe he’s truly upset about where his life is. Similar blunders appear on the aforementioned “Half Time at the Proper Name Spelling Bee” (“At the proper name spelling bee everyone loses”) and “Thought Balloon” (“When the trial/ Started Monday I decided/ To represent myself/ They called it on TV / The trial of the century”).

Though maybe it’s the album’s concept that pigeonholes these lines into abstraction and banality. Michener obviously has the chops to write alongside the likes of Darnielle and others, yet something about Albatross seems slightly off-kilter. As Mountain Goats’ tracks seem true to life, Fishboy’s distended concept occasionally forces the lyrics/album into the realm of the surreal, a place they are wholly unprepared to arrive. In any case, it’s clear that Fishboy fits squarely into the indie rock cannon. They just need to stop trying to save the Lone Star state and focus a bit more in the studio or in their rooms listening to UGK or wherever they happen to write.

TINYMIXTAPES.COM

review update

we're at Joe Terry's house in Des Moines so I thought I'd take this time to copy and paste some of the new albatross reviews before they fade away.



Happy Happy Birthday To Me [CD, 2007]

They call it a rock opera. Its full title is Albatross: How We Failed To Save The Lone Star State With The Power Of Rock And Roll. The storyline includes a bank robbery, a flee from the law that includes a rock tour, and a sting operation involving a proper name spelling bee. While there are several gems in Albatross, the album is best taken as a whole—as is the case with any album that follows a storyline from inception to conclusion.

Told in the first person, Eric [Fishboy] Michener [Fishboy front-man] follows the storyline from before his birth in “Minus 2” to an epic conclusion in “Farewell Albadross”. Not only does Fishboy plot within the album a fantastic fairy tale of a story, the rock opera makes up their live performances in natural progression—in other words, it follows the story from beginning to end. And the result is astonishing. Albatross may very well be one of the best albums of 2007, a year already packed with top-notch music.

When an album follows a storyline, the basic story elements should apply. Each song is a chapter in the storyline. There is a definite beginning and a definite end. There’s a climax, characters, and a recurring theme and plot. Fishboy covers them all. “Minus 2” sets everything up with a man [the hero of the story] from the age of "Minus 2" in 1981 to present day as a naturally born songwriter. In “Parachute (Using Buddy Holly’s Ghost As)”, a change occurs in the psyche of our hero and he sets out to to save the Lone Star State.

But conflict ensues as every journey costs money. Our hero gets a job and meets the “Taqueria Girl” and the journey commences with two on the run from the law after a successful bank robbery. From here, I’ll leave the plot behind for a moment and focus on the music itself.

Fishboy covers your standard twee-like rock/pop, but they do it with massive amounts of style. Sometimes in-your-face loud, other times softer and mellowed out, the band flows through climaxes and subdued sections with ease. The flow is impeccable with the storyline. There’s not too much power, nor too little. Everything is precise. “Hard Earned Money” takes the album to a lighter note before hitting hard with the anthemic “Racecar”. A major theme here and throughout Albatross is the conjuring of Buddy Holly’s ghost, who appears to dictate elements of the journey, guiding our hero along his quest. In the mind of the listener it could refer to our hero as Holly reborn to continue to spread the joy of rock and roll.

“Blackout” returns the album to the softer elements with a quiet beginning. As a title, Albatross is perfect. The title bird has gigantic wingspans, is known to cover millions of miles during its lifetime, and rarely stops to rest. It is in “Blackout” that our hero comes to the realization that the running may never end. And the album kicks back in the follow-up “Proper Name Spelling Bee” as the trumpet blares and the band backs Eric’s vocals by spelling out the title before concluding in a plot twist: The proper name spelling bee was only a scam / The cops busted in and shouted / ‘up with your hands tonight it ends your crime spree / We had been deceived / So we began to scream / The worst obscenities / At the proper name spelling bee.

“The Details Of Our Trip” continues with the fervor of “Proper Name Spelling Bee”. The climax of our story is near and our hero reflects on recent events. Things fly by and we soon find ourselves at the conclusion, where the band repeatedly chants: Farewell, dear albatross / Fly away home.

After a brilliant story, beautifully written and performed songs, a concept that will touch your heart and make you fall in love; how can you not love this band and this album? Were this Ebert and Roeper, it would be two thumbs way up (hell, they'd throw in the other two just for fun to make it four). Were it a play it would receive massive cheers from the crowd and a standing ovation. Were it a charity, I’d give a million dollars if I had a million to give. Were this site to have ratings out of 10, my answer would be 10 ten times over.
-FENSEPOST.COM


Fishboy - Albatross: How We Failed to Save The Lone Star State... (Happy Happy Birthday to Me) [audio] [upcoming shows]

Layered and not lo-fi, there's piano and trumpets announcing "Proper Name Spelling Bee" and a blasting organ carries the number-one-song-on-another-planet "Racecar". In other words, Tullycraft and Crayon team up and wrestle Apples in Stereo to the ground while singing songs about writing songs. This features the doubletracked nasaly vocals a la Daniel Johnston and Doug Martsch. Including the Cheap Trick meets Superchunk feel of "The Details of Our Trip", this is eleven blasts of sugar rush indie power pop. - mark 75ORLESS.COM

It's nice to come across a band that genuinely makes you laugh and enjoy life. Fishboy does that and more. Upon first listen, Fishboy reminds me of bands like The Dead Milkmen and old Flaming Lips. Then after a coupla more listens I was completely sucked into the crazy world that is Fishboy. I guess you could call it Fantasy/Comedy/Lo-Fi/Rock/Other/Thing music. Out of the musical mixing pot that is Denton, Texas, Fishboy, aka Eric Michener, and his band of merry musicians(John Clardy, Justin Lloyd, Adam Avramescu) have just set out on a Midwest to West tour promoting their album, Albatross: How We Failed To Save The Lone Star State With The Power Of Rock And Roll. Released on Happy Happy Birthday To Me Records, Eric says it's "a rock opera about how myself, the band, and the ghost of Buddy Holly attempt to save Texas by going on a tour/crime spree in order to perform all 8,030 of the songs I've written in my sleep since I was in the womb.” I guess that says it all.
PASTA PRIMAVERA


sweet!

be back in a sec with another poster

reviewws

Here are some more reviews.

SMOTHER.NET
Good luck saving the Lone Star State with anything other than a good old fashioned Texan ass kickin’. As a quartet indie pop band from Denton, Texas, Fishboy is perhaps ill-prepared for taking on the second largest state in the United States by themselves but they’re quite capable of smashing out a few amazing pop hooks or two. I hear a lot of They Might Be Giants influence on Fishboy’s tracks but whether or not that’s on purpose is way beyond me.
- J-Sin

FENSEPOST.COM
Written by Fense
Wednesday, 24 October 2007
Live at The Tank: HHBTM Showcase at CMJ’07

Your eyes may deceive you, but it is important to note that Jason Schwartzman does not front this Texas band. Instead, Fishboy is fronted by Eric Michener. The group’s name, oddly enough, comes from a nickname much like that of this here site—Fense was my radio personality during my time at KZUU—and was given to Michener years ago after fulfilling a dare at an aquarium from then fellow middle-school students.

Denton can be found in the outskirts of Dallas. It’s a town whose non-commercial radio station is known for playing jazz—almost strictly and unapologetically, according to Michener, who hails from the suburbia town. We sat down after their performance and had a brief chat about non-commercial radio, as is the norm at CMJ. And I also dropped the name Patience Please as a recent signee to the Happy Happy Birthday To Me (HHBTM) label on which Fishboy resides.

Fishboy will, beyond any question or doubt, light a fire under your belly, make you shuffle your feet, nod your head, wiggle your arms, and possibly even clap your hands. Their performance is poppy and edgy and fun. They jump and squirm and toss their heads around. Their performance, according to Michener as they took the stage, was a Rock Opera in its entirety. That rock opera is titled Farewell Albatross and is their latest release on HHBTM. Listen and/or buy: you won’t be disappointed.

RETROLOWFI.COM
We’ve reported on Fishboy a few times, namely because they keep blowing us away at the Athens PopFest. Since then, we’ve been oh-so-eager to get our hands on the Texas band’s new release, the twee-pop rock opera Albatross: How We Failed to Save the Lone Star State with the Power of Rock and Roll. And holy god, is it incredible.

First, of course, the story: singer Eric Michener, aka Fishboy, apparently had been singing songs since before he was born. His father was so impressed that he gave him recording equipment and told him that one day his songs would save Texas. Later, while skydiving, the ghost of Buddy Holly visited him and told him that he would write the song that would, indeed, save Texas. So Fishboy gets a job at a taco stand to raise money to tour, where he falls in love. The girl convinces him to go on a crime spree robbing banks, all the while playing shows along his journey. Eventually, Fishboy gets caught and is sent to jail, where he starts a new life, but not before inadvertently writing the song that would become his destiny.

And that’s the simplified version. The story is so much more complicated than that, and missing even a single line means completely losing the plot. Yeah, pretty impressive to do in less than 33 minutes. It might not be entirely logical, but at least it’s more plausible than The Who’s Tommy. I kid, I kid.

At any rate, those 33 minutes are complete twee-pop bliss. Ridiculously energetic, emphatic, and adorable. Fishboy ranges from pensive “Blackout,” in which Fishboy waxes nostalgic against a quiet guitar and piano, to the absolutely frenetic “The Details of Our Trip,” in which drums, keyboards, and guitars thrash and clash against each other. But mostly the latter. And often with a ton of joyous piano. Said pianos in “Thought Balloons” define the aesthetic of the living room dance party. And horns? Forget about it. They make “Proper Name Spelling Bee” absolutely epic. Consequently, Fishboy excells at grandeur and bigness. The final song, “Albatross,” swells to an enormous close, as a choir cries out to a magnitude not often seen from a twee-pop band.

Again, Albatross: How We Failed to Save the Lone Star State with the Power of Rock and Roll is astounding. As silly as it sounds, this album should save quite a few people, if not entire states and countries.

AWESOME!!