Bands I’ve Only Recently Heard About But Have Apparently Been Around For Quite A While – #6: Richmond Fontaine
The Band: Richmond Fontaine
rock!
Formed: 1994
First Release: 1996 (Safety)
What I Might Have Been Doing In 1996 To Make Me Unaware Of Their First Album:
Geez, I can barely remember 2006, much less 1996. Give me a second to think . . .
In 1996, I took my first-ever solo road trip, a 17 hour journey from Tampa to Philadelphia in order to see Pulp (I was a bit of fan). The first leg of the trip was broken up by an overnight stop somewhere in South Carolina. For the return trip, I left immediately after the (fucking amazing) show and drove the entire 17 hours with stops only for gas, pissing, eating, and splashing water on my face in order to stay awake. I have absolutely no recollection of the last 3 hours of that drive.
Thus began my long love affair with the road trip. Thirteen years and about 200,000 miles later, I still jump at any chance to hit the road, even for the ungodly-long drives (my record for non-stop solo driving is 21 hours from Denver to Nashville). And I had a pretty good streak going of driving without falling asleep until last year (special thanks to that guard rail in Ohio for saving my life).
Where was I?
How I Finally Ended Up Hearing Of Them:
Fuck it, now I feel like listening to Pulp. Let’s pause for a moment and savor some Different Class-era genius:
Yeah - I feel a lot better now. Let’s move on.
How I Finally Ended Up Hearing Of Them:
The consistently excellent Song, By Toad posted 6 of their songs about a week or two ago. I didn’t care for any of them.
However, yesterday they featured Richmond Fontaine in another post. This one featured 2 songs from their new album, We Used to Think the Freeway Sounded Like a River. The first song, “The Boyfriends”, with it’s lovely horn-driven melody, is the one that finally managed to keep my attention. And it features a shout-out to Winnipeg! As mentioned in part 4 of this series, I have an irrational love for Winnipeg, so any song that mentions The Peg is A-OK with me. And, really, that horn melody is fantastic.
Richmond Fontaine – The Boyfriends
How Would I Describe Them?
We’ll keep this brief (and lazy) and go with the alt-country label. In any case, they don’t sound like Pulp. Much like Pulp, though, they appear to have more of a following in the UK than in the States. So in the alt-country realm, they’re in a similar situation as Willard Grant Conspiracy. Because we like crap in America*.
So How Many Devendras Would I Give Them?
I am happy to say that they would receive zero Devendras.
Relevant Links:
Band Site
Myspace Page
Wikipedia Page
Buy Their Stuff On Amazon
Previously In The Series:
#1 – Trespassers William
#2 – Oh No Ono
#3 – Wild Beasts
#4 – The Weakerthans
#5 – The Castanets
*As anyone who has looked at a UK singles chart can tell you, they like crap in Britain too.
Related posts:
- Bands I’ve Only Recently Heard About But Have Apparently Been Around For Quite A While – #4: The Weakerthans
- Bands I’ve Only Recently Heard About But Have Apparently Been Around For Quite A While – #5: Castanets
- NEW FEATURE: Bands I’ve Only Recently Heard About But Have Apparently Been Around For Quite A While
- Bands I’ve Only Recently Heard About But Have Apparently Been Around For Quite A While – #3: Wild Beasts
- Bands I’ve Only Recently Heard About But Have Apparently Been Around For Quite A While – #2: Oh No Ono
