SSSBIOGRAFY
After reaching fame in the one-hit wonder acoustic rap band, “2 Bum Leg and The No Show Crew” in 1998(1), Self Fantasy disappeared into obscurity, playing acoustic guitar sets in empty bars. (That hit, “Pickin’ Potatoes on Martha’s Vineyard,” still has a place in music history)
Self reemerged some years later, playing slide guitar for “Cheaters,” the dynamic duo of space blues, in 2002. As intense as it was short, Cheaters’ career consisted of two sold-out shows at “Cheaters,” the night club. (“Live at Cheaters,” the record, is available through Self Fantasy Music, Inc.). Cheaters suffered the same fate as 2 Bum Leg, and Self was left alone to contemplate the past. (2)
A mere two months later, in December 2002, Self Fantasy began the self-titled solo project. Recorded and mixed in one week, “Just Me & My Dog,” Self’s twenty song demo, was secretly released in a limited edition of 2 copies. It was a stroke of marketing genius, and the album became, even in duplicate, the most sought-after album of (what was left of ) the year. Within weeks, another album emerged, “Ghost Songs.” It consisted of a second demo, originally titled “Something we can do together,” and selections from “Just Me and My Dog.” The two albums differ slightly musically, “Just me…” uses more complex jazz instrumentation and a variety of instruments, while “Something…” concentrates on the (out-of-tune) voice, sparse instrumentation, and the 12-string guitar. The albums are, however, very similar thematically, and “Ghost Songs,” the compilation, is a beautiful synthesis of voices, sounds, and background noise. All the songs are based on the poems, “The Ghost Songs,” by the Chinese Aztec poet Mail Liw Tittep. (The book, “The Ghost Songs, Collected Poems…” is available through SelfFantasy Words, Inc.). The songs of Self Fantasy maintain the ghostly mood the poems evoke, the fog-and-night-dependent landscapes, the distant loves, and the imperfections created in the act of making. The core of the music is the twilight atmosphere of seasonal (and sensual) longing and waiting. There is pain in the music as each instrument struggles to be precisely itself: acoustic guitars sound dangerously electric then absurdly delicate, through depth and mutations strings become voices and voices become flutes. It follows a spatial or celestial inspiration that, while maintaining a technical naivitè, is able to travel, flying or floating, through the night, the mountains, the land and body itself. The entire album was recorded while wearing pajamas (white wool longjohns) from morning to night in the months of December and January (2003). Self’s only company was a white short-haired German Shepard named Luna. In many cases, a girl was sleeping on a bed a few feet away. The entire cost of the project was about 200 dollars(of which: 60 USD, one shitty microphone(for “Just me…,” a set of free headphones were used as a microphone, courtesy Delta Airlines); 30 USD; one cable for shitty mic; 80 USD, one cd burner; 8 USD several blank cds; 40 USD, misc. adaptors). The four-track program was free (SF thanks MultiStudio Lite). The keyboard-drum set was found in the garage (Yahama PortaSound 400, a 20 dollar value) for free.
In 2004 2 Old 4 Midnite rocked sold-out venues in Hell's Kitchen and on Long Island with the hardcore single "Dick Cheney's Dead".
More recent Self projects include TranAm77, schoolhouse rock; Selfvis, a country duo; Solida Rosa, and various fractions of 4 Vegas.
More to come about all this.
(1)“2 Bum Leg and The No Show crew would never have been a one-hit-wonder band if the Crew had actually shown up.” –SF, Interview
(2) Actually, there were several relatively “unsuccessful” side-projects dating prior to 2Bum Leg and up to Ghost Songs. Self can be found already in 1988 with the Bambi Posse, the little-known revolutionary punk/hip-hop blues power trio, in 1989 with HumbleFish, the East Coast punk band, known for “Sunday Afternoon” and their cover of Tiffany’s cover of “I Think We’re Alone Now”(available by SelfFantasy Music, Inc.); in 1990 with Scaring Peggy, Iron City’s Band of Gypsies, and Freedom, Iron City’s band of hippsies; in 1991 with Andrew and Paris, the Wynnewood Rock Funkadelics; there was also some rock going on up in Burlington, in 1992 there was Rocco Rocco, who became famous after Self’s resignation; “Lost in Space,” a 1993 country solo project which was in many ways an early Ghost Songs, (analog lo-fi, with guitar, banjo, and trumpet). The legacy of Cheaters was here formed in collaborations in the mid-ninties with the likes of Bolsovon Linctus, MaurX and the now-popular Air Castle. The Germantown Tapes document collaborations with the Danish Mikes and Clablev, the drunk soul and the hiphop sweetheart (of Bambi Posse fame), back in 1996.
Narb Town in the house! Good to hear from you, brother. Do you ever come back to the states?...the holidays, maybe? Obviously, there is much to catch up on.
Martedì 30 settembre 2008 GATTI&SMORGATTI IN CONCERTO Aspettando “I GIORNI DI FRANCESCO” Speciale Valle Santa Serata in onore di Pier Luigi Mariani e Giovanni Marconicchio h 21.00 Auditorium Varrone Via Terenzio Varrone 57 - Rieti Proiezione del film “ALI DI SETA” Regia di Folco Quilici h. 22.00 - Concerto dei “GATTI E SMORGATTI” Rock e ska in vernacolo reatino Baci e abbracci dai GATTI&SMORGATTI
