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FIGURES OF LIGHT Album

On Norton Records

NOW AVAILABLE ON iTunes

 
In July of 2008, Figures of Light, the band behind the nihilist anthem “It’s Lame,” released their long-awaited first album on Norton (who else?). This album is now available for downloading on iTunes.  It includes both new and old material, plus never before released live recordings of their first infamous TV smashing concert on July 23, 1970, and their live “comeback” gig at Southpaw on December 15, 2007; thirty five years after their last gig! The recording sessions for the album reunited the band’s two key members, Wheeler Winston Dixon and Michael Downey who were brilliantly supported by the cream of Norton’s talent roster, Miriam Linna and Marcus the Carcass Natale of the A-Bones and Matt Verta-Ray of Heavy Trash fame.  The result is a stack of sizzling tracks you’ll never forget – we guarantee it!  The album was superbly produced by Norton’s co-head honcho and A-Bones lead singer Billy Miller.  To quote Billy, "Check it out… if you dare!"

Writing in The Los Angeles Times on July 30, 2008, critic Jason Gelt wrote a rave review of the new CD, titled "Figures of Light Reunite and Reignite," which chronicled the band's long history, noting that "with a catalog of stripped-down two-chord songs inspired by the likes of the Stooges, the Who, Blue Cheer and the Pretty Things [ . . .] Figures of Light – a frenzied four-piece that embodied punk rock before the phrase existed – played its inaugural concert in the summer of 1970," praising the band's new CD as "long overdue," and noting that "thirty-six years after the band tore apart the stage [during the first gig], their edge remains as sharp as a hatchet." 

                          

Figures of Light Return to Live Performing!

    On December 15, 2007, Figures of Light performed live for the first time in 35 years at the Brooklyn, New York club Southpaw, as part of the Norton Records Holiday Spectacular.  They performed 3 new songs: Black Cadillac, Nothing To Do, and

     The group’s signature tune, "It’s Lame," has been described as " . . . one of the ultimate proto-punk basement rock singles of all time . . . [l]ike the dinosaur etched into relief at Angkor Wat, it shouldn’t be there. It’s either 6 years behind it’s time or 27 years ahead . . . They cite the Stooges and the Velvet Underground as influences . . . During their first gig, where they played such unreleased material as "Why Not Knock Yourself Off?", "Seething Psychosexual Conflict Blues" and "Black Plague Blues," they rode up to the stage on a motorcycle, played their songs and destroyed 15 television sets . . . They sound nothing like the 1st Captain Beefheart LP, Debris, The Electric Eels or Memphis Goons, but if any of that appeals to you, you shouldn’t be caught dead without this . . ." by Mike Sniper of the Terminal Boredom website.

     The first concert of July 23, 1970 was recorded in stereo, complete with the television smashing finale. Listening to tapes of their first concert, Norton Records producer Billy Miller commented, "you guys make [the Velvet Underground’s epic 17 minute song] Sister Ray sound like [ Richard Harris’s 60s pop hit] MacArthur Park!"

     In March 2007 critic Jill Hubley wrote that the band’s first single "was raw, loud, and nothing like the prevailing music of the time. Dixon and his band had their own vision and interpretation of the times, and they’d be damned if they weren’t going to make it heard . . . Without the snarling closeness of the vocals, the music might sound aloof—merely sloppy rather than out of control. As the song progresses, there are many mixed metaphors, a rhyme scheme that would make Shakespeare cry, and an overabundant use of reverb . . . It’s also incredibly catchy, the instrumentation serving as a glorified metronome to which you can keep your head bobbing steadily . . ." (see full review below as link).

     In the February 2007 issue of Mojo, the British pop monthly, Figures of Light’s first single was described by Ian Harrison as "a treat . . .throbbing with real 1972 mockery and boredom . . . "It’s Lame" casually dimisses everything with Holden Caulfield sang-froid, sounding like a surly cousin of The Electric Eels’ "Agitated" and rejoicing in two false endings. A whiny B-side does much the same job with Bo Diddley chugging and lots of guitar distortion."

     In the 2006 Pazz and Jop year end poll in the Village Voice, David Sprague, rock critic for Variety, voted "It’s Lame" the number one pop single of 2006.