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Where to begin with
Fly Ashtray? They’re the only band left practicing the sort of
guys-chasing-Roald-Dahl-through-an-airplane-hangar feel that’s
their unique domain; the overall sound is vaguely evocative of a bunch
of bands from the 1980s, some of them immortals, some of them vaguely
interesting half-remembered outposts of unrealized potential. Name
any one of these bands, though, and immediately you’re struck
by the size of the gulf between the named band and what Fly Ashtray
sounds like. They sound like Translator, they sound like pre-Murmur
R.E.M . in a room full of nitrous with an aide from the U of G library
improvising vocals while Stipe lies bound and gagged in front of a
TV showing reruns of Lost in Space; they sound like Television
with a vintage Danelectro and Verlaine’s guitar parts shipped
over to Jamaica for reworking by Scientist, they sound like Pere Ubu
minus the untenable ambition, they sound like the Ventures with nasty
head colds and visions of the Pulitzer Prize, they sound like a bunch
of guys using water bongs as musical instruments, they sound like
the Ohio Express and the Thirteenth Floor Elevators collaborating
on a never-issued collective response to Sergeant Pepper, Blonde
on Blonde, Their Satanic Majesties’ Request, and George
Shearing in Deep Velvet. No, they don’t. The don’t sound
like any of that.
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