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Flaming Fire is the twisted creation of Patrick Hambrecht, Midwestern son of a Baptist preacher. He imagined the group as an eerily masked Greek chorus, inspired not only by his religious upbringing, but his avid passion for comic books and creepy things that go bump in the night. Flaming Fire's weird and catchy songs, lively stage show, and unique costumes have helped gain them a strong fanbase at home in New York, and a growing fanbase throughout the nation. They've shared the stage with such acts as Services, The Blow, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, Faun Fables, Peaches and Psychic TV.
Flaming Fire's new album, "Holy, Holy, Holy - a converts guide to Flaming Fire" will be released on U.K. label Ex-Gratia Recordings, with a spring European tour in 2010. They have gained much press (NY Times, Chicago Tribune, The New Yorker) for their Illustrated Bible Project, a live salon and website project wherein they invite professional artists and laypeople to illustrate a verse of the Bible in whatever manner the artist sees fit. A night with Flaming Fire is a raucous, whiskey swilling, crowd pleasing blend of the wacky and the profound!
If you’d like to be on our email list, drop Patrick a line: patrickhambrecht[at]hotmail.com.
FOR BOOKING, CONTACT: Justina Flash at justinaflashfire[at]gmail.com or 425.443.9729
The songs, "Natural Light Catastrophe" and "Golden Skull," are from our most recent album, "Kentucky Shroud"! Buy the songs on iTunes or get the CD from http://www.flamingfire.com
See nice photos by super rock photographer Owen Fegan of our Aug. 4, 2007, show at PS1! http://www.flickr.com/photos/vemo/sets/72157601293936050
Oh boy, we got interviewed for Vice magazine's website:
http://vice.typepad.com/vice_magazine/2007/01/new_york_flamin.html
Look at our YouTube videos! Here's a link to a live video of "Kill the Right People," shot by Richard O'Connor, Feb. 2007 at NYC's Cakeshop: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4hYwvTtxfU; here we are doing "I Love the Way You Kill Me (Blood Does Shine)" at Brooklyn's Union Pool http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ks94LcFCs1M; here's "Farmer Wolf" from our show at the Spigeltent, fall 2006 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q90gjrDovyY
Here's our animated video to "The Sun Is a Snake," hand-drawn by Cynthia Mitchell: http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=17990721
Buy our CDs ("Kentucky Shroud," "When the High Bell Rings," "Songs From the Shining Temple," "Get Old and Die With Flaming Fire," and "Die, Grizzly! Die!!" [with Dame Darcy]) and T-shirts, all a mere $10 each, at http://www.flamingfire.com
REVIEWS OF "WHEN THE HIGH BELL RINGS," OUR JANUARY 2007 ALBUM
"The Brooklyn-based collective Flaming Fire is more like an evangelical church congregation than like a conventional rock group, with its leader, Patrick Hambrecht, in the role of preacher and the other members (including his wife, Kate) as his loyal followers. The group’s songs pair deceptively simple Residents-like riffs and occasional bursts of noise with fearsome, Biblical-sounding group chants and call-and-response singing. Most refreshing are Hambrecht’s seriousness and fervor. (The band’s sense of irony is limited to the darker variety--'Kill the Right People,' one refrain goes.)"
-The New Yorker
“Well, at least some of the kooks have stuck it out in New York City and they are in Flaming Fire, an awesomely kooky, theatrical band singing songs of biblical plagues and Egyptian sexual practices. Picture the Butthole Surfers, the Residents, the Manson Family, and the B-52s all running amok in a Kenneth Anger film.”
-Meg Sneed, Vice
"The apocalyptic freak-rock combo Flaming Fire exudes a cultlike aura, with lead singer Patrick Hambrecht howling in a spot-on Charlie Manson imitation, the entire band garbed in blood red, and 20 or so toga-sporting minions in front of the band standing stock-still (when they aren’t banging on pots and pans). Brilliant." - Bruce Tantum, Time Out New York
“Flaming Fire intonates like a rock band ravaging churchgoers inside of Heaven's Gate's collective mind, and it's oddly awesome. That there’s no irony to Patrick Hambrecht's vision surprises at first; after all, so many bands use religion as a whipping boy. Instead, he looks at the Bible (and the past in general) the same way a comic book nerd pours over Watchmen, that is, with thrill and reverence. The result sounds like Butthole Surfers if Butthole Surfers was Ike & Tina Turner was DC Talk was Marilyn Manson.
Flaming Fire succeeds because there's nothing forced about Mr. Hambrecht's religious fervor; you really get the feeling this guy is on a mission from God. There’s no wink or smirk at the camera, just passion and drive (and maybe half a wink). But this freak show is something quite real, the same kind of stuff big tent revivals and mega churches are made of (except those people would probably see When the High Bell Rings as the devil's work); the odd elements comprise but some of the album's highlights. Flaming Fire's clusterfuck becomes a wonderful conglomeration of genres tied together by a loose theme, much like a church potluck. Flaming Fire stirs bland flavors together and mashes them into divine comfort food.”
-Mark Karges, Delusions of Adequacy
“With their massed girl-group exuberance and dark, maniacal undertones, they sound like the B-52s locked in a death struggle with Sleepytime Gorilla Museum. You don't know exactly how seriously to take any of this; it's a drunken conga-line that might be snaking its way toward human sacrifice.”
- Jennifer Kelly, Dusted Magazine
“'The Stars That Burn’ sounds like the Brady Bunch tune handled by a drunken, corrupted Nancy Sinatra. Yes, it’s good. Prolonged exposure may well turn you into them but that’s hardly a crime.”
- Mick Mercer, The Mick
"'Satellite,' my favorite track on the set, is a Matty Charles number, 'Astral Traveller' is a very smart choice of Yes cover, and 'Khar Shabi' is a traditional Tajik folk song. Just as Bongwater once did, they haul in obscure material, dip it in acid, and tie-dye it in their own colors. But it's Weinstein, a cartoonist by day, who steals the show; her deadpan performances are simultaneously hilarious and upsetting. If they ever shoot Jonestown: The Movie and they need to fill the role of a wide-eyed ingénue who hits the Kool-Aid with cultic zeal, they ought to look here first."
- Tris McCall, City Belt
“Comparable to something like Gong or Amon Duul II, definitely lots of space/kraut-rock elements, but lots of prog and indie-tinting, too, rustic and spacious, brilliantly amalgamating their diversities into a refreshingly inspired and original sound. All that and these tunes are just plain unusual, inspired, engaging, adept. ...Cosmic chaotic synth soundscapes ala Hawkwind or Acid Mothers Temple. Choice stuff for Space/Kraut/Psyche/Prog/Indie-Rock people, or any combination thereof." - Chuck, Aural Innovations 36
“If you are interested in a band willing to go to the edge and present music that outside the norm, then you should give this one a try.”
- Mite Mutant, The Chickenfish Speaks
“Not sure what to make of this slice of weirdness. On one hand, When the High Bell Rings, the third album from New Jersey's Flaming Fire, plays like a theatrical, avant-garde rock opera, complete with a multitude of vocalists (male and female) and musicians. Upon repeated spins it comes across simply as an adventurous trip into 60's psychedelia, sort of like a bastard offspring of Arthur Brown, The Go-Go's, Meat Loaf, and Aphrodite's Child.”
- Pete Pardo, Sea of Tranquility
REVIEWS OF "SONGS FROM THE SHINING TEMPLE":
“It's like experiencing your purest visions of heaven and hell while attending Sunday school wasted on glue...Like a lost synth-prog opera, a forgotten cosmology laced in rock and roll, this extremely theatrical second album from Brooklyn's Flaming Fire very nearly defies description, let alone those facile 'sounds like X crossed with Y' comparisons. 'Songs from the Shining Temple' is like watching Billy Graham with the sound off, Black Sabbath blasting in the background.”
-Jennifer Kelly, Splendid
“Can't accuse Flaming Fire of having a dull stage show--they've got the costumes, the bombast, the eye-grabbing frontpeople, the general sense of performance spectacle. They've also got the songs: unnerving, arty, freaky anthems about mortality, divinity, and leopard ninja people with plastic wings, sort of the avant-garde 'Bat out of Hell.'”
-Douglas Wolk, Village Voice
“Excellent New York-area weirdness...Flaming Fire delivers bent cabaret chaos.”
-Thurston Moore and Byron Coley, Arthur magazine
“ ’There is a Sky’ is genius. The multi-vocal tribal, reverso freak out is overwhelmingly great. It's simplistic, yet clever, yet strange themo just pumps it forward. One of the top 50 great halloween psych tracks EVER.”
-MSP, Pataphysics Research Laboratory
“Brooklyn's Flaming Fire is a theatrical rock combo halfway between the Residents and an off-Broadway show, balancing horror-film-creepy singing and keyboard manipulations....One of the cooler, more inventive bands in town.”
-Time Out New York
“Best Greek Choir of 2003”
-Venus magazine
“I think that we are in the presence of a new religion. The main goddess apparently goes by the name of Lauren Weinstein… Flaming Fire is a band that rivals both the Slits and Crawling Chaos in the utterly weird, totally odd, and disturbingly interesting music… From loud chants to cacophonous percussion and noises I'm too afraid to attempt to figure out, there's a whole lot of weirdness going on here. And, you know what? I LOVE IT… One of the most lovingly confounding records I've heard all year, if not ever. ”
-Joseph Kyle, mundanesounds.com
“Flaming Fire is a higgledy-piggledy mash-up of electronica, banjos, and 1980s pop. Art school never sounded so good.”
-Boston Globe
“One thing that sets Brooklyn's Flaming Fire apart from similarly theatrical live acts is that its records actually bear repeated listening and reveal something new every time--unlike, say, Fischerspooner, whose albums are about as much fun as watching The Rocky Horror Picture Show at home by yourself. Its second album, Songs From the Shining Temple (Perhaps Transparent Recordings), creates a feel of high-tech, happy heathenism in even the dourest apartment: the beat and chant and joyous, playful violence has a sincere quality of myth. ”
-Monica Kendrick, Chicago Reader
“[Four out of four stars] Bizarro apocalyptic band, but we love them anyway.”
-JANE magazine
“Art-music collectives too often produce music with all the vibrancy of beige wallpaper, but Flaming Fire, led by the husband-wife team of Patrick and Kate Hambrecht and the vocals of comics artist Lauren Weinstein, manage to create cerebral upbeat songs that hang onto their avant style but do so with poppy harmonies and dramatic lyrical buildups that work even if you're not in the 'in crowd.' Even stranger, these guys make bizarro Christian music, although it's hard to imagine Amy Grant singing lines like 'I like to party with Jesuits' or 'It's hard fucking work killing the damned.' Lest you think it's all ironic, consider this side project led by son-of-a-preacher Patrick: an illustrated Bible, in which artists are trying to draw a picture to go with every single verse. Irony don't work that hard.”
- Brian Hieggelke, New City, Chicago
“Suited to some heavy drinking and dancing...kind of a B-52s with an anger management problem.”
-Amy, Collected Sounds
“Flaming Fire is one f***ed up band. If you like twisted, mental pop music you need to seek out this album. They are indeed strange and innovative and at times, completely insane. There are times when you think you are going to go nuts listening to Songs From the Shining Temple but you keep going, afraid that you might miss something. Somehow they have figured out how to mix punk, post-rock, avant-garde and even pop to create some of the most outrageous songs I have ever heard. I found this a very enjoyable release and feel that others may benefit from this album.”
-MusicEmissions.com
“NYC concertgoers have been lucky enough to have the chance to witness the live spectacle of Brooklyn's FF for the last few years and they're a hard image to forget: cloaked in red togas they turn the stage into a scene out of a Greco-Roman ritual or bizarro Kenneth Anger flick. Despite the weird pagan vibe, it's not as foreboding as you would think; there's pounding rhythms, chanting, noisy electronics, but there's also a great playful air about Flaming Fire and extremely catchy and hummable guy/gal interplay between Patrick Hambrecht, his missus Kate, and third vocalist Lauren Weinstein. The songs are completely inventive, fun 'n dark, as if Beelzebub was about to take over, but decided to sit in and play the moog for a while. Damn, I would even kinda say FF are sometimes a cross between Psychic TV and Haysi Fantaysee (that's not an insult, honest). Great layers and textures, total theatrics both visually and musically, and it all carries onto their records (this is the second) wonderfully.”
-Brian Turner, program director, WFMU
“Combines Devo's deadpan irony and outrage with pounding tribal drums, electronica, pop, noise, pastoral folk guitars, and a wild variety of singing styles that encompass everything from medieval chanting to straight pop stylings to crazed shouting (and a lot of other stuff in between). The next thing you should hear is the wind in your wake as you rush to find yourself a copy of this. Trust me. It's burnin', burnin', burnin'....”
-The Moon Unit, Dead Angel
“Flaming Fire's ceremonial entrance and placement on stage caused the entire crowd to flock toward the stage, many in what seemed to be a mix of wide-eyed wonder and restrained curiosity. It would be a safe bet that what would commence would be unlike anything anyone was expecting. The show began with ferocity, the seven-foot gap between the crowd and the stage felt necessary, much like the distance one would keep from an actual fire. The trio of husband and wife Patrick and Kate Hambrecht and Lauren Weinstein stood in front, trading rhythmic vocal harmonies and lead howlings, each commanding the group with their hypnotic stage presence. Patrick Hambrecht engaged in such an overwhelming frenzy of movement coupled with his guttural, primal growling that you couldn't help but wonder what long-forgotten ancient deities he was channeling through his rock star persona. At times, he would drop to his knees in such furious, cacophonic rage, he would seem to be speaking in tongues. Even the group's calmer numbers, often backed by trance-like electronic rhythms, remained all at once engaging, exciting and subduing. As Flaming Fire performed, the crowd stood fully engaged and unaware of anything else around them, except for the six figures performing before them. That was what made Flaming Fire so unforgettable. It was a deeply primal, cathartic, uplifting, frightening and wholly religious experience.”
-Christian Long, Daily Nebraskan
REVIEWS OF "GET OLD AND DIE WITH FLAMING FIRE":
“It's mental, fun and absolutely essential if you're into good weird music.”
-Girl the Bourgeois Individualist, Sordid magazine
“Flaming Fire bills itself as an Expressionist, Greco-Roman, Fellini-esque performance outfit, but all those adjectives are vain attempts to categorize the uncategorizable. The songs on the group’s ‘Get Old and Die’ randomly mix pop camp, goth over-earnestness, folk tunefulness, electro noise, choral chanting, and some old-fashioned hollering into a chaotic stew. Singer Lauren Weinstein is also a comic artist—check out her work in the book ‘Inside Vineyland’—so don’t be surprised if the theatrical live show comes with some visuals, too.”
-The Onion
“Flaming Fire manages to be psychotic, deliriously giddy, bizarrely sensual, and oddly sinister all at the same time. Maybe it's island music or exotica as made by pagans with modern tools and ancient sensibilities."
-The Moon Unit, Dead Angel
“This band from Brooklyn possesses all the attributes of fire, its warmth, its brightness, its untamed mobility, its magic. One could find them accompanying Fellini sequences. An intelligent mix of pagan folk and no0ise, brilliant!”
-Stephane Fivaz,Heimdallr Music and Culture
“The easy referents for this Brooklyn quartet would be Devo, the Residents, Current 93, and assorted vintage weirdo hippie folk—but note that the only thing those folks all have in common is that above all they did their own thing. Flaming Fire’s new Get Old and Die is one of the most engaged and alive-sounding records I’ve heard in a long time.”
-Monica Kendrick, Chicago Reader
“Flaming Fire combines rudimentary Casio grooves and beats, fuzzadelic guitar riffs, and 40 to 50 minutes of vocals which can only be compared to an off-Broadway performance of 'Dante's Inferno, The Musical' --plus elements of Gregorian chant, the Andrews Sisters' Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy, Mark Mothersbaugh, Sweeney Todd, and just about any Satanic ceremony featuring Don Henley, Sammy Davis Jr., and Linda Lovelace in the early '70s.”
-Dan Century, Legends Magazine
“Like Syd Barrett joined a circus of like-minded souls, or The Residents tried to stand still, or Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV went simultaneously wonkier and straighter."”
- Jimmy Possession Robots And Electronic Brains ZineCambridge, England
“So distinctive and homemade idiosyncratic that it's become a recent favorite. Lo-fi murky emerging into fuzzy throbbing twilight. Mixing male and female vocals, ranging from songlike to abstract. Overtly Residents influenced, with elements of mentally retarded funk, transistor radio '60s pop, a genre hopping schizophrenia, stoned inventiveness; sketching out new worlds out of tin cans and chalk. ”
-George Parsons Dream Magazine, Nevada
“Brooklyn-based Flaming Fire is all about the noisy pagan folk-goth, dark & red - sorta like a young urban person's guide to Current 93, Jackie-O Motherfucker and The Wicker Man. ”
-Scott Williams, DJ & Director, New York City's WFMU, 91.1 FM
“I love the new Flaming Fire! Brilliant madness! ”
-Carl "Ratso" Russo KUSF Radio 90.3, San Francisco
“This cd gets the highest rating. I would buy it with my last dollar.”
-Sally Bishai Privy Magazine
“Hysterical chanting with eerie psychedelic tape loops and digital noise are combined to experimental psychedelia that is unabashedly bizarre.”
- Peter Jan Van Damme, Darker Than the Bat (Belgium)
“ ...they, in a manner of a traditional Greek choir perform some of the strangest folk-Goth on both sides of the Atlantic and beyond. Einstürzende Neubauten, beware!”
-Kalle Malmstedt Re0lease Magazine, Sweden
“Best described as sixties-influenced pagan-meets-hippie gothic noise-rock...a fun and adventurous disc.”
- Peter Thelen Exposé (..24)
“I did not locate their planet of origin yet, but that of the "Residents" must be in the same galaxy, for sure! ”
-OPPOSITION DE PHASE (in French)
“The entire CD is filled with unexpected pleasures like demented background vocals and weird lyrics.”
-Don Campau 91.5 FM KKUP in Cupertino California
“The first time you listen to Get Old and Die with Flaming Fire, you may feel as if you're a diabetic suffering hypoglycemia as the world begins to come apart at the seams. ”
-Josh Kazman Splendid
REVIEWS OF ROCK ROCK CHICKEN POX: "DIE, GRIZZLY! DIE!!":
"Carefully disguised folk-noise brilliance"
-Will York, Listen.com
" I Win, God Kills, You Die , is an extreme track, perfect for fans of the Residents. For those yearning for a listen to something truly unique and unabashedly bizarre, this work’s not to be missed!”
-Madeline Virbasius-Walsh, Editor, The Sentimentalist
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