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F4Fake founder and dictator Charlie Roadman is obsessed with three things: the Socratic Method, Thucydides, and Keith Richards. Roadman and his hoplites will debut "The History of the Peloponnesian War," fifteen songs contemplating Spartan discipline, Athenian ingenuity, and Persian opportunism in Fall/2008.
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Like Wilco, with a banjo and a sense of humor. — Austin Chronicle
Named after an Orson Welles movie, F For Fake is the brainchild of songwriter Charlie Roadman — former lead guitarist for the late, great San Antonio rock band Evergreen. Drawing from a gifted pool of San Antonio and Austin area friends (including fellow Evergreen vets singer Kevin Higginbotham and bassist Odie), a flair for organic, hauntingly off-kilter arrangements and D.I.Y. production savvy and most of all a singularly bizarre fascination with subjects as varied as bird watchers and, um, the ancient Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta (featured in two songs here, foreshadowing a proposed Peloponnesian concept album), Roadman has cooked up one hell of an intriguing debut. It crackles with wit, too — both on the sly (“Life in the Spartan Army,” “Police (They Get You)”), and on its sleeve (“Greyhound Bus”). Throw that last one to the Gourds or even Bob Schneider, and it’d be Austin’s song of the year — though it’s hard to imagine either act doing it better. — RICHARD SKANSE, Texas Music Magazine
The world is filled with competent songwriters, but how many of them know the difference between deductive and inductive reasoning? With his song “Greyhound Bus,” Charlie Roadman -leader of the Austin/San Antonio ensemble F For Fake — proves that his command of logic is every bit as sure as his serpentine songcraft.
Roadman notes that not all lunatics ride the bus and not all barroom drunks are violent, but when a lunatic needs transportation he’ll usually opt for the bus and when someone gets violent at a bar, it’s probably because they’re loaded. Ultimately, he applies this line of thinking to politics: “Not everyone who votes Republican is a fascist/But when a fascist votes, it’s for them/And even if you’re not mean-spirited to any degree/you might as well be.”
With F For Fake’s eponymously titled debut CD, Roadman consistently follows the songwriting road less taken. He gives Thucydides a backbeat with the Peloponnesian War saga “Life in the Spartan Army,” and with “Rome” he concocts a travelogue that finds “basement disco Czechs” in Prague burning up the same dance floor once favored by Hitler’s Gestapo. It’s fitting that when he devotes a song to auto racing (“Nascar”), he gives it a grindingly slow beat.
Roadman’s cleverness wouldn’t mean much if his music was nondescript, but he gives his tunes the kind of vivid, cinematic color you’d expect from someone who named his band after an Orson Welles film. With help from Buttercup’s rhythm section and a large cast of expert players, F For Fake features pedal-steel, accordion, and banjo bumping up against each other in an artsy mix that’s always smart but never coldly cerebral.
— GILBERT GARCIA, San Antonio Current
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