FBO: 'FBO Celebrates SAGA Week (Days 6-7)'

SAGA's 'CHAPTERS CONCEPT' -- NEEDS NAME



No one will ever be able to hang any label of 'softie' or 'all talk, no action' on the Failed Bands of Oklahoma. To conclude the first-annual, partially successful first-annual SAGA WEEK, the FBO did something no prog rock fan, or otherwise, has ever done:

Listen to Saga's eight-chapter 'concept album' in order, five times, back to back.

Over each of Saga's first four albums -- the underrated disco/prog Saga (1978), the overworked Images at Twilight (1979), Silent Knight (1980) and the masterpiece Worlds Apart (1981) -- the Ontarian band released two songs subtitled by 'chapters.' They came out in a scrambled order (eg Chapter 6 in 1978, Chapter 2 in 1979 etc). Most songs are gloomy, meandering, synth-based songs -- frequently with chants. Debatably the 'chapter' subtitles provided a prod to what were often the least interesting songs on the albums.

Some notes:

* 7 or 8 songs begin with synths, the other begins with piano -- the full deal is nearly 50 minutes
* 5 of 8 songs are over six minutes, none are under four-and-a-half
* 3 of 8 have clear-cut sissy vocals, while 4 of 8 have very Dennis DeYoung-sounding vocals (no, that's not always the same thing)
* 5 of 8 songs have touches of macho guitar riffs
* 2 of 8 songs have obviously unnecessary musical segways
* 1 of 8 songs sound like the band Europe (who, by the way, still exist and at last have decided to do an 'almost unplugged' record... in 2008)

--> FBO Observers: Saga never named this Chapters album! We need ideas for a name of the Saga 'Chapters Concept Album.' We'll send on our suggestion. To help the brainstorm, here's an overview of each song.

IMAGES (Chapter 1)
Synopsis: guy sits with chalk drawing pictures that the rain blurs while people circle him and laugh.
Sound: Sissy piano, almost operatic/Antony vocals, hard to pump up at traffic lights, gets stronger at musical outro
Lyrical highlight: the character uses 'small bits of chalk' to draw
Year: 1979


DON'T BE LATE (Chapter 2)
Synopsis: The song (a single, appearing as a live video in early MTV days) is a dialogue between Saga's long-haired, whispering keyboardist (playing a robot/humanbot?) and lead singer Michael Sadler (as The Lead Character/Parcel Carrier). The robot/keyboardist wants the other to 'not be late.' And is really worried about it, it seems. The Lead Character (LC) must deliver 'a parcel' at 10:00 (presumably night) and seems rather blase about it all.
Sound: Spooky, prodding with water-stream keyboards and classical-music outro with distorted guitars. Not unenjoyable in all fairness.
Lyrical highlight: 'can you pick up this slowing pace' -- slowing?
Year: 1980




IT'S TIME (Chapter 3)
Synopsis: The elusive story plot starts to unravel here, something akin to a prequel to Styx's 'Kilroy Was Here'. The Lead Character has 'metal thoughts' and yells out 'it's time -- make me now!' Apparently he's being transformed from human to machine.
Sound: Sound-wise this again sounds like what Styx would pick up for 'Mr Roboto,' with full synth chords playing off overly busy sissy acoustic guitar fills -- then going into a rather poppy song, and turning into a pre-'Red Barcheta' solo (to simulate machine construction?).
Lyrical highlight: 'Even larger than I dreamed/this metal shift, a perfect shift'
Year: 1979

WILL IT BE YOU (Chapter 4)
Synopsis: Lead Character is feeling good, under a joyful keyboard pattern, and deliriously tells us that 'only one will survive -- 'will it be me? will it be you?' (Apparently talking to the tense keyboardist/robot character, but it's unclear.) In the end, he sassily predicts 'yes! it will be me!'
Sound: Possibly a single if the 'Chapters' album were packaged together (and it should be), with a sing-along chorus but the dreary chord-changing musical bridge should be edited out and brought right into the guitar-chugging last verse.
Lyrical highlight: 'computer dance, metallic romance, it really seems you had no chance'
Year: 1978




NO REGRETS (Chapter 5)
Synopsis: A classic 'morning after' song with Lead Character pausing for reflection following the narcisstic romp of Chapter 4. Casual listens beckon thoughts of gay human/humanbot sex and abandonments, but it's more likely LC betrayed the keyboard/humanbot by escaping some sort of 'transformation precedure' half done...
Sound: Synthetic bells lead into an unbearably sissy vocal and deceptively interesting melodic lines that lead gradually into the one-time-only robotic chorus 'can you say there are no regrets?'
Lyrical highlight: 'Far down below, he could see the scars, left from the night before.'
Year: 1981

TIRED WORLD (Chapter 6)
Synopsis: The Lead Character wanders into an abandoned city. Hey man, where is everyone?
Sound: Fuzzy '70s keys slip into a rhythmic song with a lot of high-hat action and chants, and a little Brian May guitaring in the unsatisfying chorus.
Lyrical highlight: 'This cry has no one left it can bother'
Year: 1978

TOO MUCH TO LOSE (Chapter 7)

Synopsis: Ah! The Lead Character wakes up from a dream, but 'one picture still stood clear' -- he looks around him and sees nothing but hordes working and working. Apparently on something 'metal' to 'enable its flight.' Matrix? Bladerunner?
Sound: A roaming keyboard leads into a peppy, open-guitar-chord song with uplifting, Queen-style choruses and Brian May-style guitar overdubs.
Lyrical highlight: 'As the numbers grew, their swarm blackened his view'
Year: 1980



NO STRANGER (Chapter 8)
Synopsis: The keyboardist/humanbot character returns here to confront Lead Character in a 'something is happening here and you don't know what it is, do you Mr Jones?' moment. Apparently they'll both lose their memory of everything; New Character sighs at the end, 'I suppose we'll have to miss what you'll decide to do.' Perhaps sit and draw images with chalk? (See Chapter 1.)
Sound: This song is fantastic: the lost Saga classic you may not know. Again starting with a pokey keyboard softly winds its way into an explosive, summer-single guitar riff with quarter-note piano notes and infectious vocal line. (Unlike Geddy, Sadler CAN sing.) Curious the chorus comes about once, then sits buried under the verse later on. Long meandering musical outro.
Lyrical highlight: 'It wasn't long ago... I was one of your kind'
Year: 1981


And such concludes the FBO's first-annual Saga Week.

FBO Admin
Mobile/Semi-Permanent HQ -- Brooklyn, NY

FBO: 'FBO Celebrate SAGA Week (Day 5)'

FBO & ONTARIO'S SAGA RELEASE VIDEO
Warning: This video cover version of Bob Dylan's 'It's All Over Now, Baby Blue' features (successful and failed) gunshots from the footage of the FBO-induced rehearsal for a re-enactement of the Battle for Hutchens.



The video excerpts lyrics from Saga's 'No Regrets (Chapter 5)' from the 1981 record Worlds Apart:

As the clouds
Continued to open
Each vision was hard to believe
Minimal motion
As far as the eye could see
Yesterday held so much promise
Today, only misbelief
And now the task of reconstruction
Salvaging all they could see...
Can you say there's no regrets?

For an explanation of how the collaboration happened see here.


FBO Admin
Mobile/Semi-Permanent HQ -- Brooklyn, NY

FBO: 'FBO Celebrate SAGA Week (Day 4)'

DAY 4 CANCELLED

Due to budget restraints following a far more lackluster reception than expected to FBO's first annual Saga Week, Day 4 and Day 6 have been cancelled. Day 5 and Day 7 will go on as planned.


FBO Admin
Mobile/Semi-Permanent HQ -- Brooklyn, NY

FBO: 'FBO Celebrates SAGA Week (Day 3)'

FBO/SAGA COLLABORATION IN WORKS
As part of the FBO's first annual SAGA WEEK, the Failed Bands of Oklahoma have collaborated with surviving members of Ontario's Saga (pictured) on a collaboratory cover version of Bob Dylan's 'It's All Over Now, Baby Blue.'

If you don't know the song, rent the best 'rock' documentary of all time, Don't Look Back, which follows Dylan on his brief tour of England in 1965. Hovering in the background of the film is the adoration of British press of the 'new Dylan' folkster Donovan, who finally meets up with Dylan in Dylan's hotel late in the film and plays a 'sing a song for you' campfire diddly that Dylan interjects sarcastically 'hey, that's a good song' then takes the guitar and puts Donovan into place with the unsubtle lyric of 'It's All Over Now, Baby Blue.' It's classic.

--> See it here.

Meanwhile, the FBO offers this video as an explanation of how the song was chosen and how the collaboration happened.

--> Remember to vote through October 11 on who the best Canadian progressive rock band is.

FBO Admin
Mobile/Semi-Permanent HQ -- Brooklyn, NY

FBO: 'FBO Celebrates SAGA Week (Day 2)'

IS SAGA or RUSH CANADA'S BEST PROGRESSIVE ROCK BAND?



Somewhere, somehow -- and soon -- the hipster quotient is going to (re?)discover progressive rock and you'll find songs coming out in 'Chapters' in scrambled order, lyrics discussing outer space or mind control, and melodies happily nicking from Bach's cupboard. Plus they'll let it bounce along enough that the softies can dance to it.

That's where Ontario's SAGA comes in.

Despite busy song arrangements, they never take themselves too seriously on the lyric front. Rush are nice guys, but there's little irony in theirs. Saga's songs tend to deal with confusion or flawed characters. The paranoid 'Framed' from 1981's epic 'Worlds Apart', for example, included this bit: 'Midnight courtroom confusion/The sentence of guaranteed seclusion/(no more Ernie Bilko)'

Ernie Bilko?

In 'Wind Him Up,' a catchy though ultimately revelatory-less assessment of gambling as an addiction, singer Michael Sadler (born in Wales) resists a literary reference to name the lead character something of a 'modern day Tom Sawyer,' and instead gives the guy a name: ALDO. And like Queen's 1980 hit 'Another One Bites the Dust,' the lyric begins by uttering the name (Queen's #1 song famously begins with 'Steve'). It's worth noting that rival Canadian rocker ALDO NOVA whose Top 40 song 'Fantasy' was released the same year, so in a way Crichton is pre-dating Stephen Malkmus' taunting name-drop jabs at Stone Temple Pilots and Smashing Pumpkins in Pavement's 1994 classic 'Range Life.'

--> Read an interview Aldo Nova discussing work with Jon Bon Jovi here.

In between finger-furied keyboard breaks, doubled on the guitars -- while a pounding Bonham-trained drummer ignores any thoughts of breaking into 7/8 time signatures and occasional keyboard overlays that wouldn't be out of place on the 'Teacher, Teacher' soundtrack pepper the scene -- Crichton looks dead serious when he sings (or taps his temple to stress a line), but his lyrics wisely don't strive for Rush's overly lofty themes. That's a subtle art prog rock could use more of. There are occasionally some nice, unexpected details from a prog rocker more keen on musical changes: 'Aldo lights a smoke, he's shakin', from carnation right to the ground...'

Saga also pre-dates Rush by a year with a curious voice-over. In the same song, as Aldo 'leaves the table' a Cockney-accented (it seems) young woman innocently asks 'no luck today?' A year later Rush would have Neil Peart (pictured, writing lyrics) chime in 'subdivisions' during the chorus of its namesake song (guitarist Alex Lifeson only pretended to do the speak-over in the video). This is not an accident. Rush, whom we support (and actively campaign for inclusion in to the flawed Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame, was copying Ontario's Saga.

The FBO asks you to decide who the best Canadian progressive rock band is, per a poll through October 11: Rush, Saga, Godspeed You! Black Emperor or Aldo Nova. (See poll to right.)

FBO Admin
Mobile/Semi-Permanent HQ -- Brooklyn, NY

FBO: 'Trivia Time; Launching a Celebratory Week'

Quick. Name a band with three keyboardists who were huge in Germany and Puerto Rico, where a sold-out early performance caused a riot of over 10,000 disappointed, ticket-less fans?

Hint: it's the same band that doesn't shy away from borrowing Bach melodies, and released a Q Tarantino-inspiring, sequentially-scrambled 'chapters' of a concept (that still defies explanation) over its first four albums.

Another hint: They're Canadian.

Their website includes recorded radio broadcasts from the Neal Armstrong's first step on the moon in 1969.

And, no, it's not Rush. Really.

The band is the best band of all time, Ontario's SAGA, who turned 30 years old this year.

The FBO dedicates the week of October 6-12 as FBO Celebrates Saga Week.

FBO Admin
Mobile/Semi-Permanent HQ -- Brooklyn, NY

FBO: 'European Sense of Pop > American Sense of Pop?'

TWO GREATEST POP STARS THE US DOESN'T KNOW
The long debate of who does rock better, England or the USA, has lingered long after the British Invasion showed the Brit bands seem to cull out memorable harmonies and anthemic riffs in a way that tends to allude American pop bands. What bands -- bands, not solo artists -- can really compare with the Beatles, Stones, Who, Zeppelin, Motorhead ultimately?

(The answer of national supremacy, though, might be Australia. After all, what song is truly better than 'You Shook Me All Night Long' by AC/DC?)

Pop follows the same lines, and it's something the FBO gets a refresher on every time it goes on a cultural symposium tour of Eastern Europe, where VH-1 plays 24 hours daily without commercials. Two huge pop stars -- Kylie Minogue of Australia, Robbie Williams of the UK -- are hourly represented on cafe stereo systems or video hit channels over here. Yet neither make a blip here. One wonders why.

Kylie, who beat breast cancer last year and is the famed ex-flame of Michael Hutchence, has long grown out of being the 'Australian Madonna.' No, she doesn't write her songs, but she's nicer, more attractive, a better singer and a better dancer. And can you imagine Madonna doing a duet with Nick Cave where she's taken to a river and beaten to death with a rock? (Video follows.)


Robbie -- quick, name three famous Robbies* -- is enigmatic to US audiences, and humor. He plays a self-obsessed showman, with a hint of chump-ness that leads the literal to say 'that guy's just a chump,' rather than realize he gets the joke too. He mocks himself constantly. In one video, in fake KISS make-up, he ends with a glance into his leather-studded speedo bottom and shakes his head in disgust.

Pop music is a no-go zone for some, but there are charms in having a hook sung by people you can be generally entertained by. Not sure that Britney or Miley or Madonna can compete with these guys.


FBO Admin
Mobile/Semi-Permanent HQ -- Brooklyn, NY

* Robbies: We need three famous Robbies. The FBO starts the process: Robbie Krieger was the Doors guitarist. You may remember him in the 'Touch Me' video where Robbie's been touched by a fist; note at the 1:06 mark his huge black eye; apparently beaten up for allowing Ray Manzarek in the band.

FBO: 'Delays Panhandle Show'

The Panhandle Show -- featuring FBO's four members and possibly members of the Central Iowa Rock website -- has been delayed. It's now scheduled for May 2009.

FBO Admin
Mobile/Semi-Permanent HQ -- Brooklyn, NY

FBO: 'Answers Eternal Negativity of FBO with Questions (Actual Version)?

FBO Admin
Mobile HQ -- Sofia, Bulgaria

FBO: 'Answers Eternal Negativity of FBO with Questions?'

RECORDED IN MELNIK, BULGARIA



Now consider this closet classic, recorded atop the same hill in Melnik in 2006.

FBO Admin
Mobile HQ -- Plovdiv, Bulgaria

FBO: 'Tributes Poetry/Rant'

It hurts us to say so! But we missed the first birthday of the greatest poem ever uttered in all orange.

On Sept 22, 2007, Mike Gundy -- the 40-year-old coach of Oklahoma State's football team -- let loose after a close win. If you haven't seen the following get ready for beauty; if you have, you haven't enough.

Please watch:



A few things to note:

* Mike's introduction is the most under-rated part of this, or any other dialogue. 'This was brought to me by a mother, of children.'
* This off-the-cuff rant apparently came moments after he learned about the offensive, and perhaps accurate, article. (The player in question -- Bobby Reid -- left the team shortly thereafter, and is already at odds with his new one.)
* The length is the same as 'Hey Ya!' -- perhaps the best pop song of the last 15 years.
* The following week's press conference Gundy brought his young son.
* The next week, when the author asked specifically wasn't true or accurate, he never answered.

FBO Admin
Mobile HQ -- Plovdiv, Bulgaria

FBO: 'Three Important Messages'

FBO Admin
Mobile HQ -- Sofia, Bulgaria

FBO: 'Explaining the Poem from Bulgaria'

In the Failed Bands of Oklahoma's ongoing efforts to increase the transparency behind artistic/creative decision-making -- along with a steadily rising backlash against the poem -- the FBO offers this explanation behind the eight lines:



FBO Admin
Mobile HQ -- Sofia, Bulgaria

FBO: 'It's Time for a Poem'

Here is a poem from Bulgaria:




FBO Admin
Mobile HQ -- Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria

FBO: 'Discovers Heavy Metal Capital'

Heavy metal never died, it just went to East Europe. A few years ago, while traveling across the Russian Far East, I kept spotting Dio promos in places like the Theatre of Musical Comedy in Khabarovsk, and learned the five-foot-plus singer was starting his tour in a place gulag labourers agonized to build seven decades ago. This year in Vladivostok, I dropped by a snooty CD store to ask about local bands, and a giant blond guy handed me a band called 'Masters of Defecation.' 'It is death metal, very hard.'

Nothing beats Kavarna, Bulgaria though -- perhaps the heart of the heavy metal world. It's a crummy place, with aged housing blocks sweeping down a dramatic cliffside setting to a crummy beach. The sea name? Black of course. It jumped onto the heavy metal map when a headbanging mayor delivered, apparently, on his campaign promises by launching the Kaliakra Rock Fest, an annual three-day metal fest named for a dramatic cape nearby dotted with remains of Thracian and Roman forts.

This year Manowar, Alice Cooper and Slayer headlined the nights.

In town, the main road passes communist-era housing blocks with a twist. The murals of 'workers power!' have been whitewashed and replaced with full images of a few Bulgarian metal singers in the process of a fist-pump, plus Billy Idol ('Mony Mony' era). This is a town where John Lawton -- singer from Uriah Heep and a Rock Fest regular -- is more of a household name than David Beckham or Vladimir Putin.

There is more than your average share of turreted rooftops -- essential for warding off dragons I hear. Down by a rather crappy beach lined with old buildings, some out of use, is a grey silo re-fashioned into a castle.

--> The FBO would like to invite the planners of Kavarna Rock Fest to a FBO-planning seminar in Varna tomorrow, or in Brooklyn on October 2, to discuss the FBO Panhandle Show.

FBO Admin
Mobile HQ -- Varna, Bulgaria

FBO: 'Oklahoma Rock Song Contest Snubs the Failed'

Over the next two-and-a-half months, an open vote -- by Oklahomans and non-Oklahomans -- will determine the official Oklahoma Rock Song, which will be presented to the Oklahoma legislature in 2009.

Their website explains why: "From the days of rockabilly to modern alternative rock, Oklahomans have made significant contributions to the history and evolution of Rock & Roll."

The list of ten nominees, picked by an open nomination process already ended, supposedly accepted only songs "written or performed by an Oklahoman." One song by the Ventures is included partially because "Oklahoman Bob Bogle suggested the band cover the song." A cover.

The Failed Bands of Oklahoma are enraged that no failed bands are included in the list.

Hence, the FBO offers a more suitable late entry than a Ventures cover. FBO Member #001 Tall Tales is a failed Oklahoma band with several Oklahoma-themed songs, including 'Heck No.' In 2006, the FBO induced Tall Tales to record a fake three-long live EP called "Live in a Place in Oklahoma" which featured the song "A Place in Oklahoma."

THE FBO NOMINATES FBO #001 TALL TALES' "A Place in Oklahoma"

--> Otherwise, there's no choice but to vote for Leon Russell's 'Home Sweet Oklahoma," for recognizing that "Alabama" rhymes, more or less, with Oklahoma.

Acknowledgment to Tom Caw for finding the contest.

FBO Admin
Mobile HQ -- Sozopol, Bulgaria

FBO: 'Oklahoma City Basketball Club'

THUNDER OK?
The Failed Bands of Oklahoma have recorded a special response to news that the OKC BC (Oklahoma City Basketball Club) of the NBA has chosen 'Thunder' for its name:




FBO Admin
Mobile HQ -- Shipka Pass, Bulgaria

FBO: 'In Bulgaria'

The FBO is again undergoing a 'fact-finding mission' across the EU's Bulgaria over the next four weeks. So far, the program has reached the northwest corner of Bulgaria -- sticking like a little thorn between Romania and Serbia, several hours northwest of Sofia. Few go, but it's quite interesting.

More on Bulgaria is here.

FBO Admin
Mobile HQ -- Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria

FBO: 'Will Re-Stage Battle for Hutchens'

RE-ENACTORS (SERIOUS ONES) NEEDED

The Failed Bands of Oklahoma will re-stage the legendary Battle for Hutchens on its upcoming anniversary next May. The re-enactment will be faithful and not G-rated. Unlike so many displays of rifles and uniforms in a kid-friendly environment, the FBO re-enactment will replicate the truth: meaning simulated cut-off limbs, simulated decapitations from canon fire, and soldiers (of both the Continental and Federal armies) screaming actual obscenities.

Importantly, re-enactors will not 'break character,' as happens SO often at these re-enactments. If an observer has a question about historical implications of the Little Creek stand-off, don't ask a re-enactor: go look up it in your library.

The FBO recently underwent a field trip to the site to plot out where the battle took place. Unfortunately a gazebo and parking lot is located near the bulk of the battlefield, and a soccer field fills most of the rest.

See upcoming posts for more on this key tribute to history.


FBO Admin
Mobile/Semi-Permanent HQ -- Brooklyn, NY

FBO: 'Vote on OKC Skyline'

WHAT IS THIS OKLAHOMA CITY MISSING?


Oklahoma City plans to build its tallest building. Considering, after so many years, Oklahoma City is also getting its first major sports franchise -- and is apparently flubbing the name choice with Thunder (probably will go with a teal color scheme too!) -- the FBO wants to get a head start on the building OKC needs to have. To avoid mistakes.

The FBO would like Oklahoma City to steal an already existing building and re-build it in OKC. We've narrowed it down to three options, which we leave up for the FBO Observers to vote on. The winning decision will be sent to Oklahoma City HQ.

Kuala Lampur's Petronas Towers is the world's tallest buildings, for the moment. Oklahoma City should built ONE of them. 'You've heard of the world's tallest buildings -- the Petronas Towers. Well, now there are THREE.' It would be a miniature version called the Oklahoma City Petrona Tower (no s), about 52 floors.


Yes yes yes! We've seen the 'Bird's Nest' in Beijing enough already. China's best building, including the Forbidden City, is Shanghai's Oriental Pearl Tower, which Oklahoma City could replicate, even if it means knocking down the Skirvin to do.



Tulsa is proud of its Williams Center, so steal it. The Williams in Oklahoma City would be called the Actual Williams. The Tulsa Williams is 52 stories, the Oklahoma City version would be 54.

FBO: 'Confusion!'

The FBO remains confused by some things seen on its symposiotic journey across the Russian Far East. Namely, Petropavlovsk's Lenin Square, which features a banner reading 'Putin's Plan Will be Realized!' and an ice cream labelled 'CCCP' (USSR) and featuring the subliminal images of a Che Guevara.


FBO Admin
Mobile/Semi-Permanent HQ -- Brooklyn, NY

FBO: 'FBO Member Has NY Times Article'

It happened again. FBO Member Robert Reid had a little piece on Vladivostok, Russia in yesterday's New York Times.

FBO Admin
Mobile/Semi-Permanent HQ -- Brooklyn, NY

FBO: 'Defeating Smash'

What's with the Olympics' fascination with 'smash'? World records and opponents are repeatedly 'smashed' this time -- not any recent Olympics has a verb other than 'beat' or 'defeat' held a higher monopoly on word-play as 2008 Beijing. A quick Google search shows that, in addition to NBC's syrupy coverage, Reuters, the LA Times, China Post, VOA News, American Scientist (!), and even NPR has gotten into the act. Where did this come from?

Maybe it's France's fault. Apparently -- and no sources have been given -- the French relay swim team boasted they'd 'smash' the Americans, only to lose in a last-second reach.

--> The Failed Bands of Oklahoma bans the use of 'smash' in terms of athletic achievement for four months -- it's OK to smash cans though.

Meanwhile we're keeping an eye on overuse of 'crush,' long-ago hijacked by REM's awful-U2-ripoff song 'Orange Crush'.


FBO Admin
Mobile HQ -- Middlebury, Vermont

FBO: 'Another Bout of Dean Reed'

Not enough people have watched the best video of all time.

Here it is again:



And a bit about 'The Red Elvis' documentary:


FBO Admin
Mobile/Semi-Permanent HQ -- Brooklyn, NY

FBO: 'Summer On Probation'

For decades, Tulsa's three-par course at LaFortune has been lighted during the worst time of year -- roughly Memorial Day to Labor Day, when it hurts to be outside. By the time the weather cools down -- late September and October -- lights are off, the night game's long gone.

Similarly, we pile our sweaty selves into all-day summer weekend concerts, like Roklahoma, where dizziness comes not from drugs or the distortion, but the mid-day heat.

Summer? A time of street fairs, festivals, air shows. Parades, concerts, crafts fairs. Why?

--> The FBO is standing up to summer, the most overrated season. In 2009, the FBO will launch a 'FBO street-fair/festival/concert series' in MID AUTUMN. Meanwhile, the FBO asks America to 'wake up.' And condemn summer's monopoly on year-round activities.

Think of the children at least.


FBO Admin
Mobile/Semi-Permanent HQ -- Brooklyn, NY

FBO: 'Acknowledges Dean Reed'

WHO KILLED THE RED ELVIS? WHY, WHAT'S THE REASON FOR?
Coloradoan Dean Reed began his pop career(s) imitating Elvis -- simple, non-confrontational songs about young ladies and (his) broken hearts. Unlike most stars of his era, he bought into the '60s, big-time, becoming an out-spoken critic of the US and, eventually, an all-out Marxist known as the 'Red Elvis.'

This guy is classic. When his US career started to fade, he got huge in Chile with love songs re-recorded songs in Spanish, did live albums in Montevideo, did the soundtrack for 'Zorro', then moved to East Germany and re-recorded them in German, starred in East German cowboy films, then went on a cheerful trip in 1979 through a befuddled Soviet Union, including a 19-day tour of the BAM train line -- the less-heralded train trip that runs to the north of the Trans-Siberian (a few years later, Gorbachev blamed the 'stagnation' of the entire USSR economy solely on this train line to nowhere).

(The FBO's recent symposium to Russia included several trips along the BAM, including its terminus at Soviet Harbor.)

The following link, from a 1979 Soviet film on Dean Reed, is for 'This Train,' about the BAM. It should be noted regarding his lyric 'this train don't carry no white an black, every body ride it is treated just alike' that Dean Reed, a foreigner, would have had to pay foreign prices to be on it:


Song titles include: 'BAM,' 'American Rebel,' 'Wake Up America,' 'Love Your Brothers, Hate Your Enemies,' a politically incorrect 'Wounded Knee 73' (with 'Native American chanting). As well as the following, unbelievable version 'Give Peace a Chance.'

WATCH THE BEST VIDEO OF ALL TIME:


An album featuring a cover of the pop song 'If You Go Away' (If you go away/On this summer's day/Then you might as well take the sun away') featured a painting of Vladimir Lenin. He recorded songs of Bulgarian folk songs.

At 47, a few years after the BAM tour, he was found drowned in East Germany. Many believe it was murder. Tom Hanks does too -- he bought the rights for a Dean Reed film a couple years ago.

More information, and free MP3s, is available from the all-time-great website www.deanreed.de.

The FBO acknowledges Dean Reed.


FBO Admin
Mobile/Semi-Permanent HQ -- Brooklyn, NY

FBO: 'A Demand for Virginia State'

CHANGE YOUR QUARTER!

North Carolina's insistence that Pasadena (not Green Bay) won Super Bowl I -- as proven by their license-plate and quarter claims of 'First in Flight' by Ohioans in Kitty Hawk -- now means that Virginia must change its commemorative quarter.

History likes to forget that the Wright Brothers, who took their Ohio-made aircraft to North Carolina for the world's first flight in 1903, kept going after their history making flight. Five years later, Orville -- who lost a coin toss at Kitty Hawk, so watched his brother Wilbur take the reins -- marked his own history: the first flight fatality (not including failed attempts at flight before 1903).



A New York Times article Sunday noted that the 100th anniversary of flying fatalities is coming this September 17. Orville flew a 26-year-old army officer for a show with 2000 spectators, promptly crashed the plane, killing the officer. Orville walked away.

--> It took place in Ft Myer, VIRGINIA.

Thus the FBO asks Virginia, whose quarter currently credits the death of Jamestown in 2007, to change its quarter to 'FIRST IN FLIGHT FATALITIES.'

FBO Admin
Mobile/Semi-Permanent HQ -- Brooklyn, NY

FBO: 'FBO Warning to OKC NBA Team'

Oklahoma has landed, aka stolen, its first major-league team of a major sport by buying and removing a once-champion Seattle Sonics. Most sports fans lament such moves when it happens -- Quebec City, Cleveland, Baltimore, Winnipeg -- but happily look the other way when their town benefits from it.

The FBO has reserved a neutral stance on whether the OKC NBA team should be supported or not, but cannot stand silent at some -- if not all -- of the names the franchise is considering.

As of this week, the team has registered six potential names:

OKLAHOMA CITY BARONS
OKLAHOMA CITY BISON
OKLAHOMA CITY ENERGY
OKLAHOMA CITY MARSHALLS (sic)
OKLAHOMA CITY THUNDER
OKLAHOMA CITY WIND

FBO Verdict: If Oklahoma City names itself for a noun that can't be counted -- ie Energy, Thunder or Wind -- the FBO will ban the team and actively campaign for sports fans to boycott games.

Preferred Name: Not a lot to work with on this list. Most feel a little like minor-league baseball team names. Probably Bison is best.


FBO Admin
Mobile/Semi-Permanent HQ -- Brooklyn, NY

FBO: 'Applauds Paul Westerberg/Amazon'

ALORS! FBO FRIENDS FOR FREE, ALBUMS FOR $0.49
The FBO -- stranded from its .Mac email account due to a change by the Mac during the FBO symposial trip to Russia -- has long started to doubt the worth of the iTunes download costs and has supported Amazon's recent emergence as a cheaper alternate. The FBO doesn't support unchecked free downloads, but feel the industry hasn't found the suitable middle ground of pricing now that we, the consumers, are just buying air and not CD cover prints outs and the like.

Presently the FBO partner Silver Jews has released its new single 'Strange Victory, Strange Defeat' for free at Amazon. See here for the FBO/Silver Jews collaboration a few months ago.

That's nothing compared by the latest tactic by Paul Westerberg, a once embittered leader of the Replacements who used his solo career to lash out at critics and record buyers who moved on to the Goo Goo Dolls and Nirvana instead of his catalog.

His latest album is the 43-minute 49:00, available as a single track for $0.49 at Amazon. The album is guilty over being overly cute at times as a proxy of a found cassette tape with songs cutting in/out, but we respect it as a statement towards the destruction of the album, where people pick and choose the songs they want by lumping all the songs on a single track. It's the equivalent of responding to the overblown bass-less rock group scene by adding a second bass player, or sharing the bill with your bass player, as Lou Reed did with his long-time bass player Fernando Saunders during a 2003 tour.



FBO Admin
Mobile/Semi-Permanent HQ -- Brooklyn, NY

FBO: 'Best Monument of All Time'

Leave it to London, little tiny London, to outdo everyone in terms of heroism in granite or stone. A new monument 'Animals in War' at Hyde Park tributes the animals who died alongside troops during 20th-century wars*.

FBO Admin
Mobile/Semi-Permanent HQ -- Brooklyn, NY

* The FBO looks forward to subsequent monuments for animals who perished during 19th-century, 18th-century, 17th-century, and so on, wars.

FBO: 'News to Observers'

THE FBO IS TALKING...
With fellow FBO members regarding the 'Reach the Panhandle' show, and it's looking as if the FBO will take a solid step towards that key date by staging a two-town 'Reach the Panhandle: Rehearsal: Tour' in a non-interstate Oklahoma town and Norman this November.

Apparently the Cinder Biscuits/The Cant have signed up to play, Tall Tales will play, and possibly there will be an appearance by failed magician Danny Fallis in between sets.

FBO Admin
Mobile HQ -- Blagoveshchensk, Russia

FBO: 'Favorite New Yakutsk Band: Infinity'

FBO ADOPTS TO-FAIL YAKUTSK METAL BAND
Whilst on a cultural symposiatic tour across Russia's least-developed and least-seen places in the Far East, FBO representative Robert Reid met with Yakutsk's most popular 16- and 17-year-old heavy metal band INFINITY.

All the buildings in Yakutsk, the world's coldest town over 200,000, stand on stilts due to the road-crunching, fence-crashing permafrost, but in June and July temperatures reach the 90s. What does a metal band sing about in such a place? 'This song is Chyorni Lubov,' the lead singer Shipik, said as his girlfriend hugged him. 'Black love -- it's about the pain of love, not having love, bad love.'

This July the Asia Children's Games - a mini Olympics of sorts - came to Yakutsk, and Infinity was invited to play a set near the statue of Vlad Lenin in Lenin Square. It will be their last. Just months old, the band is likely to break up soon, as its members are heading to different colleges and universities this fall.

Important things to take from INFINITY:

* the five-piece band plays all originals; they've made 10 so far, and three days before their likely last show they were working up a new one.
* the band practices in a second-floor room overlooking warehouses and a lake at Kosmos movie theater near the Yakutsk airport, a 20 to 30-minute ride from the center.
* the band wore Kiss-like face paint at a Halloween show. 'The first and last time ever,' said bass player Dima, the most vocal of the band during practice, and with a passing resemblance to Dylan if you look closely.
* Yes, in deepest Russia, when practice is 20 minutes from being done, and you don't know what to do, blues jams and (rather inventive) takes on 'Smoke on the Water' get rolled out.
* The band signed my notebook like a yearbook; singer Shipik signed a 10-ruble note as a souvenir.

The FBO will be compiling 'INFINITY IN YAKUTSK: A Documentary' in coming months.

Good luck to Infinity, even when it breaks apart.


FBO Admin
Mobile HQ -- Komsomolsk, Russia

FBO: 'The FBO Tour: In October'

CALLING ALL FAILED BANDS

Tall Tales has already firmed up plan to for a three-date tour of Oklahoma in support of the Failed Bands of Oklahoma this October. The FBO hopes that the other members -- The Cant/Cinder Biscuits, Soul Shaker and Asylum -- will agree to join soon. And other failed bands, including failed bands from outside Oklahoma, are now invited to apply to either support the tour (ie carry equipment, help with sound checks, film the FBO bands playing) or play in the tour.

A few notes:

1. Tall Tales has officially changed its name for the three-date tour to TALL TALES FEATURING MARK HARDIN. The non-FBO observer, who narrowly missed toppling FBO Top Fan Rich Trott, from his lofty role a couple months ago, will be the newly featured player in Tall Tales.

2. The FBO needs to secure at least one non-interstate date in Oklahoma to the tour. If you have suggestions of non-insterstate livehouses, such as in Pryor, please let us know.

3. We still hope to hear from For the Bands Who Tried to Rock, as we've invited them to coffee -- ie Vietnamese-style invite, WE pay -- and discuss potential collaborations.

FBO Admin
Mobile HQ -- Khabarovsk, Russia

FBO: 'FBO Induces New Failed Band Site!'

THE FBO WELCOME 'FOR THOSE WHO TRIED TO ROCK'!

FBO's successes over the past three years have been manifest:

* cultural symposia with Bulgaria, Romania, Russia, Myanmar, Vietnam and Chicago
* adopting places like the Oklahoma panhandle, East Delaware and Székelyudvarhely
* banning bio-pics, TV remakes and sequels in the quest for more original, less 'dumb-downed' past-time leisure activities
* creating FBO projects such as Member #001's EP 'A Place in Oklahoma (Live)' and the video premiere of 'The FBO Is Falling In Love'
* setting tentative plans for a failed bands show in Guymon, Oklahoma in October

Now the FBO have one-upped themselves, by inspiring and inducing a website collective of failed bands called For Those Who Tried to Rock.

Their mission reads:

"Our goal is to capture data about every band to have been formed by teens with that perfect mixture of big dreams and questionable talent in suburban garages, high school music rooms, and college dorms across America."

The FBO grants this a THREE-AND-A-HALF FBO PANHANDLE rating (out of five). While the documentative gesture towards the failures of the past warrants praise, we would have preferred to see some sort of 'forward direction' -- ie not solely for nostalgic purposes, or humor certainly -- and to draw the line with bands that played -- to quote the FBO mission statement -- a 51% ratio of original songs.


--> THE FBO WOULD LIKE TO INVITE 'FOR THOSE WHO TRIED TO ROCK' MEMBERS TO ATTEND THE FAILED BANDS OF OKLAHOMA PERFORMANCE IN GUYMON, OKLAHOMA, ON OCTOBER 20. Certain bands may be elgible TO PLAY. Please contact the FBO at oklahomazeppelin@yahoo.com if you have any questions.

FBO Admin
Mobile HQ -- Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Russia

** FTWTTR Finder's acknowledgment: Wendy Smith, of California**

FBO: 'Christian Rock Band, Invited to Attend (Not Perform)'

Vladivostok's main pedestrian crawl, named for an Admiral Fokina and usually just called the 'Arbat' here, is a grafitti-filled strip where cars parked on the ped-only road and the city chose gray for the color of brick. The other day I saw an old man, apparently quite drunk for the past 11 years, bleeding from his face, and some drugged-out people hang out on benches during the day. Perhaps one of them was featured in an album cover of a bloodied person shooting heroin I saw at a CD shop recently, a local band recommended by a tall clerk who hated me. It was called 'Masters of Defecation.'

It was in this relatively harmless place (actually), that a Christian Rock Band set up the other day. For a large crowd, they had mothers with children come and profess their faith before launching into a song 'God is Great' (I think). The bass player sang. A woman played a wooden flute that piped too loudly into a mic. A Korean guitar played sly guitar parts. The drummer gave those awkward laughs to the keyboard player bending over his instrument -- one of their first shows.

The FBO adopts KRISTYEN ROK GRUP: KHOROSHO ('good') to the FBO Guymon show on October 20. They cannot play.

In other news, Terry Waska may now attend FBO functions.

FBO Admin
Mobile HQ -- Vladivostok, Russia

FBO: 'Needing Guymon Performance Space'

 

CALLING GUYMON!
The Failed Bands of Oklahoma is now accepting applications for a venue site for the October 20 FBO show in Guymon. We're hoping for something with a raised stage, access to a PA, preferably quick-opening/closing curtains, and some sort of seating arrangement that allows for easy mixing.

Please note this sample shot, taken at the Nakhodka Museum, Russia, next to an exhibit that included a bullet-shot up Union Jack, a happy banner (untouched) from Oakland, and photos of a bearded local who biked across Siberia in winter.

FBO Admin
Mobile HQ -- Nakhodka, Russia

FBO: 'Tall Tales Offers Sample Setlist'

 

TALL TALES SUBMITS POSSIBLE SET LIST
The October show in the panhandle is starting to take shape now that Tall Tales has submitted a potential 10-song set list.

1. True
2. CEO
3. New Worry Day
4. Your Lake
5. Ed/This Song's Not About Love [medley]
6. Falkon Flies
7. Fiction
8. UFO
9. Hee Haw
10. Ways to Stay

Sample setlists may be changed, though two songs from the sample MUST be retained for the final setlist.

FBO Admin
Mobile HQ -- Vladivostok, Russia

FBO: 'There Will Be Russian Posts Here'

Over on this FBO-induced blog, there will be posts from FBO member Robert Reid during the FBO Symposium to Russia.

More things about Russian bands will appear here.

FBO Admin
Mobile HQ -- Vladivostok, Russia

FBO: 'Announcement! FBO Launches Biggest FBO Event of Its History'

FBO -- OPEN SYMPOSIUM TO RUSSIA

Good and less good news.

First of all the PANHANDLE SHOW -- presently scheduled for July 14 -- has to be delayed until October 20. Part of the reasons include some acts not having set lists submitted in time, and also a low showing at the FBO Event in Chicago last week. The FBO feels STRONGLY that the October 20 date WILL happen.

FBO members, please don't put off tabbing up your setlists till the last minute.

The better news is that all FBO OBSERVERS and FBO MEMBERS -- except Terry Waska, who cannot attend FBO Events for another week -- are invited to join the SEVEN-WEEK OPEN SYMPOSIUM to Russia's Far East. The trip, to spread awareness of failed bands and recruit failed bands for the show in October, will cover much of Russia's broad eastern areas -- from Petropavlovsk (near Alaska) and Vladivostok (near North Korea) to Yakutsk (toward the Arctic Circle) and Lake Baikal (not far from Mongolia).

You are welcome to come, all expenses paid.

Please show up at New York's JFK by 6.30pm tonight to go. Otherwise, read reports from the symposium here.

FBO Admin
Mobile/Semi-Permanent HQ -- Brooklyn, NY

FBO: 'Evidence of Chicago FBO Event'

For those who require proof: