|
Pulse of the Twin Cities Login |
|
If you do not have an account yet
Create One.
|
|
|
Twin Town High (vol. 8) |
|
|
|
|
The Future: Its About Time
Wednesday 28 February @ 15:31:36 |
 By charlie vaughan
"I never think of the future--it comes soon enough."--Albert Einstein
Yeah
and now what? That little gem pretty much sums up The Future. We could end this article right here if I wasn't getting paid for a thousand words. But I am getting paid, so we will have to disregard the wisdom of Einstein and crank on this bugger a while longer. Which is fine by me, as long as the check clears.
"No one gives two shits about us."
That's Math Johnson and he's dead on. It was said with an offhand laugh and the understanding that a good joke is built on hard truth--especially this one, at least for now. We are sitting in the makeshift living room of a battered old house, rambling across strange territory: the internal mechanics of a rock and roll band. The talk is loose and human, greased with cheap beer and sometimes brutally honest.
"People always ask us what kind of music we play and we're like, 'Rock and roll
kind of punkish.' And they're like, 'I'm bored already. I don't want to hear anymore, fuck you.'"
That assumption is a terrible mistake. Johnson is primary spokesman for one of the better bands currently working the local music scene, a firebrand three-piece called The Future. I might've had the same knee-jerk reaction if I hadn't stumbled onto The Future opening for another local act. That night they screwed me to the floor. It was an old-fashioned blindsiding and I was certain the band was inches from locking onto something big. But a year later, while other bands have washed into the spotlight on the tides of popularity, The Future remains largely unknown, working in the shadows, saddled with a low profile. And that's disappointing because the band has only gotten better.
"Nobody. We got nobody. We've got nothing." The question was in regards to The Future's promotional tactics and whether anyone outside the group has championed their cause, but Johnson's answer cuts to the marrow of the band's condition. After some minutes of standard gibberish about playing in a band for the love of music, he adds, "None of us practically believe this is going to pay the bills."
No, probably not. Right now you could get better odds on a three-legged horse winning the Kentucky Derby, but the worm is beginning to turn
This week The Future releases Neon Black, an album that genuinely captures the band's feverish spirit. Saturday night's release show at the 7th Street Entry is sponsored by 89.3 The Current and features local heavy-hitters Bridge Club, The Alarmists and Vampire Hands in supporting roles. It has all the makings of a breakout gig for The Future and beautiful madness for anyone who attends. I imagine it's going to be similar to having a car battery wired to your spine.
The new album has plenty of juice too. Neon Black is a dirty, pots and pans whirlwind heading in about 85 directions at once. Each song rattles and scrapes like a handful of loose change in the pocket of someone running for his life. And each has the makings of seven other songs somehow crammed into an average of three minutes. The second you fall into one stuttering riff
bang, bang, bang
the thing shoots off in another direction at 100 miles an hour. By the time Neon Black finishes, you're out of breath and feeling like you've been jerked around on a leash.
There's plenty of movement in the album, but is there any meaning?
"We make music, not meaning," replies bassist Greg Sincheff tersely. I'm too scared to take it any further.
The interview is taking place on a bitterly cold afternoon with the long shadow of a neighboring liquor store creeping over the front yard and large blackbirds circling in the twilight. It seems a perfect setting to question a band called The Future. Neon Black is their second album--not many bands live long enough to make a third.
Rock and roll bands age in dog years. It's the nature of the business. There's no time like the present for bands. Tomorrow is more likely to bring wolves to the door than fame and fortune. The Future, however, don't seem concerned with their (ahem) future, bright or bloody.
In fact, during our two-hour interview, the band doesn't even seem concerned with tomorrow. They're zeroed in on a small television set in the corner blaring "Repo Man," a cult piece of trash and, apparently, Math Johnson's favorite movie.
Math Johnson? Just typing the name makes me cringe. How about Buck Rogers, or Anthony Firestorm? Whoops--that last one's already taken, and by another member of the band.
"Lots of people get mad at numbers," he offers by way explanation.
That's plain stupid. It's hard picturing anyone getting too angry at the easy-mannered guy with matted cornstalk hair and stylish eyeglasses
then again, there's the other side of his personality: Math Johnson the drummer. I once described that man as a giant menace, a 400-pound gorilla gone crazy on cocaine and wild moonshine. There's nothing to suggest a single word need be changed.
If Johnson's personal manner belies his crazed stage persona, the same cannot be said of Gregg Sincheff. He is a full-bore menace onstage and off, capped with a jet-black mane of hair, which appears to have been hacked out with a Bowie knife, and the grim disposition of a mother jaguar. Throughout the interview, I'm troubled by the very real idea that I might have to beat him off me with a beer bottle. I fear one of my questions is going to rub a nerve and he'll leap onto my back and clamp his teeth into my neck. Do not corner this man unless you have nerves made from steel ribbon.
The other man in the room is guitarist and vocalist Anthony Firestorm. You'd expect a frontman named Firestorm to be 12 feet high, covered in sheep's blood and foaming at the mouth--but he's a rather quiet guy with an eager personality and jaw-droppingly blue eyes.
"None of us know what we're doing," he says when asked about the process of writing and recording Neon Black. "I just can't wait until the next album."
And there you have it: a clear shot into the heart of The Future. There's a certain undercurrent in Firestorm's answer, a good vibration to the words that catch my ear. I recognize it as the same high-powered feeling of having money in your pocket, a pint of fire in hand, and the whole world spread out in front of you. Sure, tomorrow is gonna be hell, but right then ... it's a long ways off.
|
|
 |
|
|
Comments -
Post Comment |
|
The comments are owned by the poster. We are not responsible for its content.
NO comments yet! Be the first!
|
|
|
