Biography To learn to write a tight, unique, affecting
song, Bart Cameron convinced a fellow American to beat a large bucket and
travel with him throughout Iceland. They sang about lost love, attempted
suicide, and discovering a girlfriend’s collection of wedding dress cut-outs
to the hippest of artist communes and the most brutal of fisherman bars, and
at the end of the year, they had an album, a following, and a surprising
number of electrocution stories.
This wasn’t the beginning of the Foghorns, the name Bart uses for music he
writes with mathematician Steve Firchow. Bart played the Foghorns in the New
York bluegrass community from 2002-2003. Then came the Iceland bucket
experiment. The success of the bucket experiment, and the limited release
album, So Sober, led to the new Foghorns four-piece band. That band recorded
a double album throughout the United States and Iceland, and released it in
October 2006 in Iceland after a series of performances at the Iceland
Airwaves festival.
The songs themselves are the focus with the Foghorns, from a country number
that reminds the listener “If you love what is alive, it will go ahead and
die, so I will only love you when you’re dead,” to a song nominated by fans
as the backup Icelandic national anthem, “This is a bad place to be sober,
and awake,” to a modest pop tune in which the singer seduces his friend’s
wife, to an elegy for a friend who died of a drug overdose, remembering the
nights in September, 2001, looking out over Manhattan from a Brooklyn
apartment with Billy Idol karaoke in the background. And the songs have
taken on lives of their own: in 2006 in Iceland, a number of Foghorns covers
will be released, including a full brass band version of I Will Only Love
You When You’re Dead by Benni Hemm Hemm, and a melodic rock take on the
bucket song Beautiful Girl by popular local band Touch.
Still, when the Foghorns play, they capture the imagination, earning the
review of “at once the most frustrating and exciting show of opening night”
of the 2005 Iceland Airwaves showcase from LiveonStage (www.liveonstage.org.uk).
In November of 2006, the Foghorns moved to America and released NEW LOW-- a
double album with live and studio tracks. They toured extensively and
survived best they could.
With alternating
lineups, The Foghorns played the Seattle scene regularly, being featured in
a Three Imaginary Girls podcast, and in the Ball of Wax compilation CDs, and
playing an in-studio concert that turned into an impromptu EP at Hollow
Earth Radio in Seattle.
In Fall of 2009, The Foghorns will release their
first album in three years, Diamond as Big as the Motel 6. It is their most
ambitious album to date.
The Foghorns, a band from Seattle with midwestern roots
and an Icelandic influence, will be playing Bob’s Java Jive again tonight.
We
mentioned these guys before and we heard good things about the show from
you. Plus, we like the poster.
From Spew, The Weekly Volcano's blog, Tacoma Washington
5 Things To Do: Wednesday
MICHAEL SWAN:
WEDNESDAY, MAY 20, 2009 >>>
1. The
Foghorns’ music is a lot like their story: messy, weird and utterly
captivating. Their songs rattle and ramble like good tavern tales. They
beget more questions than answers. And you always want another round.
Check them out tonight at
Bob’s Java
Jive with Vacant Stairs and The Upperhand.
Wednesday, May 20
The more I learn about Seattle’s self-described “mavericks of anti-folk,”
The Foghorns, the less I seem to know. And the more I want to learn. And the
harder this article becomes to write.
I should have never interviewed Foghorns frontman and founder Bart Cameron.
Everything I needed for a boilerplate riff was right there on their MySpace
page: good tunes, a fun bio, even some tasty quotes. (My favorite: “If Bob
Dylan recorded a Philip Roth novel with Crazy Horse as a backup band, that
would be an enormous influence.”) But no, I had to peer into the soul of The
Foghorns. I had to know: What-makes-you-tick?
So I met Bart Cameron at The Red Hot for beers, and now I’m just confused.
How do you tell the story, in 325 words, of a band that started in
Wisconsin, and then shifted to Brooklyn, and then Iceland (Cameron scored a
Fulbright to study there), and then back to Wisconsin, and finally to
Seattle? Oh, and then there’s the part about how Cameron was underground on
the subway — under Ground Zero, that is — when the World Trade Center fell.
And don’t forget the time he was electrocuted onstage at a festival because
the third-place contestant from Icelandic Idol had spilled a bunch of water
and Cameron’s shoes had holes in them because he was poor as hell, so when
he stepped up to the microphone … bzzzzzzzzz! And was that in Reykjavik or
Keflavik? And which one did you call “The Detroit of Iceland?” And was that
with the full lineup, or just you and the bucket player? And what kind of
bucket are we talking? Plastic? Metal? About how big?
The Foghorns’ music is a lot like their story: messy, weird and utterly
captivating. Whether it’s just Cameron and a bucket man or the current
ensemble of five, their songs rattle and ramble like good tavern tales. They
beget more questions than answers. And you always want another round. — Mark
Thomas Deming
[Bob’s Java Jive, with Vacant Stairs, The Upperhand,
Wednesday, May 20, 8 p.m.. $3, 2102 S. Tacoma Way, Tacoma, 253.475.9843]
In
the middle of some frozen nowhere, a man is warming up his poor
raggedy ass in a cabin, sipping whiskey and dreaming of home. He'd
probably feel a lot better if he could hear
The Foghorns, a band
that recorded much of its album
New Low after a wearying
trip from its Reykjavik base to Brooklyn. Wisconsin native Bart
Cameron and his Icelandic pals play bluesy, folky tunes that make
reliable companions in the middle of this shitball winter. It's the
kind of music that tired people play best, and these folks were indeed
pretty worn out by the time they started their set Thursday night at
Cafe Zoma, a cozy coffee
shop/venue here in Madison. Australian violinist Marisa Allen, who has
a project called
Bremen Town Musician, brings yet another welcome layer of melody
and warmth to the band's current U.S.
tour.
Bart's got plenty of stories about his move overseas, and told some in
an
interview for our local edition of
The A.V. Club. However, the
song
"Golden Ghosts" (MP3) tells it much better. That version is from
Olympus, a free recording of the band's going-away show in
Reykjavik last year.
The Foghorns to blow sounds of ironic folk rock at the Reptile
Palace
by Megan Sheridan, of the Advance Titan
Issue: Thursday, February 08, 2007
Added: 2/7/2007 11:16:55 PM
The Foghorns are smart, talented and hard working, but they do not in any
way take themselves too seriously.
“People try to take us seriously, and it gets depressing quick,” said Bart
Cameron of The Foghorns. “I know serious. I’m a friggin Fulbright Scholar.
Serious is a waste of time and, most importantly, a waste of good music.”
“Just ‘cause you’re serious doesn’t mean you’re good,” said Marissa Allen,
violinist for The Foghorns.
The Foghorns formed in 2002 with Cameron and brothers Steven and Kevin
Firchow, and has had a rotating lineup ever since. Cameron and Steven
Firchow began recording Foghorn music in Wisconsin and, according to their
bio, Kevin Firchow joined once he found out they were using his drum set.
“The Foghorns was the name of my recording projects that I did with Racine,
Wisconsin friends. I always asked musician friends wherever I lived to
help,” Cameron said.
In 2003, Cameron moved to Iceland and began working for the Reykjavík
Grapevine, an English language newspaper that provides information for
visitors.
“I was in Iceland playing Foghorns music, and I toured with a band called
Touch that just started jumping on stage. And it suddenly made a lot more
sense,” Cameron said. “With Boddi and Kopur, I realized we actually had a
band, and then we asked Marisa to join in, and we were stunned that this
worked.”
The Foghorns currently consist of Cameron on guitar, vocals and harmonica;
Boduar “Boddi” Reynisson on bass and vocals; Kristjan “Kopur” Petursson on
drums; and Allen on violin. The Foghorns consider Iceland to be their home
base although Cameron now lives in Seattle and Allen resides in Australia.
“Iceland is our home, as a band. Reykjavik and especially Isafjordur in
Northern Iceland have been incredible to us,” Cameron said.
Since 2002, The Foghorns have released four albums on indie label Beefy Beef
Records.
“We made a Foghorns record and we thought we’d give it out, but we went
through 300 copies in a couple weeks and realized we could sell them. I
really hate selling things, and, at the time, I was teaching English and
selling short stories and it just seemed like a bad idea to get distracted,
so these friends from Wisconsin offered to help,” Cameron said of Beefy Beef
Records.
The Foghorns recently released “New Low” which was listed in the top 30
Icelandic albums of 2006 by the Reykjavik Grapevine. Their music is a
combination of folk, blues and rock and is described by them on MySpace as
“A Wisconsin pool hall. Or a Sunday morning Reykjavík hangover just after
your first piece of bacon.”
Playing live shows is one of the things that The Foghorns both enjoy and
pride themselves upon. At times, their live shows have consisted of a full
band, a single person or two people with a guitar and a bucket.
“We once toured Iceland on a bucket and acoustic guitar, and it worked
because we refused to stop practicing and playing until it was something
worth seeing,” Cameron said.
They admit, however, that playing in the United States is far easier than
Iceland because of the language barrier.
“Brooklyn and Madison, Wisconsin are great, and as a songwriter, it’s a
little easier performing for people who understand English easily—I didn’t
realize the songs were funny until I played in Madison and they wouldn’t
stop laughing and let me play the second verse of ‘So Sober,’” Cameron said.
Shows in Iceland end up with a little different response from the crowd.
“In Iceland, people don’t start laughing until half an hour after the show
is over,” Reynisson said.
Regardless of what they play, or where, The Foghorns promise a good show.
“You should expect to see a band playing their guts out. We’ll do it with
anything we have, everything we have,” Cameron said.
The Foghorns will play at The Reptile Palace Friday Feb. 9 at 10 p.m. with
Machine Gun Joe. The show in Oshkosh was booked not by chance because
Cameron enjoyed the venue and some of the bands that played there.
“I was in the Midwest interviewing Garrison Keillor, and I went to The
Reptile Palace and saw Machine Gun Joe, and I thought it was the goofiest,
most beautiful, most Wisconsin thing I’d ever seen. I knew if I ever had a
chance, I’d go to that bar, and play with that band. This Oshkosh gig is the
reward of the tour, it’s our chance to really have fun and enjoy ourselves,”
Cameron said.
The band urges UW-Oshkosh students to come out and see the show because not
only are they talented musicians, they’re good looking.
“We’re beautiful,” Reynisson said.
“It’s true. He’s Icelandic and beautiful. I’m from Wisconsin, so you can see
me cause I write songs that will get you through winter,” Cameron said.
“This album we’re touring on, it’s about life in a pretty difficult place,
and I think it reminds you of how beautiful and sad the struggle is.”
“Bart, you won’t make it on your music. It’s gonna be your looks,” Reynisson
replied.
The song performed in the video clip, "So Sober," can be found in
another live version on The Foghorns' 2006 release New Low. The album's liner
notes provide a brief history of the group:
Bart played the Foghorns in the New York bluegrass community from
2002-2003. Then came the Iceland bucket experiment. The success of the
bucket experiment, and the limited release album, So Sober, led
to the new Foghorns four-piece band. That band recorded a double album
throughout the United States and Iceland, and released it in October
2006 in Iceland after a series of performances at the Iceland Airwaves
festival.
There are also video clips for two other songs performed by The
Foghorns in town. One features the group
playing
"Lullaby," and the other focuses on the end of the concert when they
perform "Wake
Up."
More information about the band can be found in an
article published by the UW-Oshkosh Advance-Titan, and in a
profile provided by the Iceland Airwaves festival. More of the music
is available for listening on the band's
MySpace page.
If you're traveling to Iceland, one good place to see if The Foghorns
are playing is The Reykjavik
Grapevine, an English-language alternative-format magazine
published 18 times a year. Cameron edited the publication before turning
more of his attention to music.
Lineup: Bart Cameron,
vocals/guitar/harmonica; Bodvar Reynisson, bass/vocals; Kristjan Oli
Petersson, drums; Marisa Allen, violin.
Genre: Icelandic folk
rock.
Web site:
thefoghorns.com or myspace.com/thefoghorns.
Formed: Right after
the events of Sept. 11.
Signature sound: Hard
to nail down, but vocalist Cameron says the closest he can decipher is "if
Bob Dylan did punk." Then there is the incessant, driving beat of a drummer
who "keeps going and going," so fans know there's just no standing still.
"It's definitely not
something (where) you sit there and stare and go 'oh my God, that guy's
brilliant.' You have to move with the music," Cameron, 30, says.
Vision in the Fog:
When the band began, Racine-native Cameron (now based in Seattle) says it
served as an outlet for expression, wrapped around what happened on Sept.
11. After putting out some CDs, it suddenly became a success.
On the road now, "we
just try to present something as honest as possible. We sing in a way we're
not hiding anything," Cameron said. "We strip everything down to try to talk
to the audience."
Icelandic influence:
Going to school at UW-Madison years back, Cameron quips that a slip-up in
class schedules led him to take Icelandic Literature, and later, he applied
for an Albright Fellowship to finish a novel in Iceland. That's where he
started throwing parties with another musician, a guy who'd hit a bucket
while Cameron played guitar.
"I started getting
invited to go out. I was playing all over Iceland with this guy beating a
bucket," he remembered with a laugh. Soon he found a full band lineup, and
The Foghorns played bigger festivals, including a 13-hour concert where the
bucket resurfaced.
In their iPods: When
they've got down time on their American tour, The Foghorns posse plugs into
a vast spectrum of influential Icelandic, mainstream and indie artists.
Groups like The Black Keys, T Model Ford and Benni Hemm Hemm rock their
headphones. Then there are acts like Sigur Ros, Bjork, The Killers and Ben
Kweller.
See them: Friday at 10
p.m., at The Reptile Palace, 141 High Ave. in Oshkosh, with band Machine Gun
Joe. No cover. Fans also will be able to get a copy of the new album, "New
Low."
Why you better be
there: "The music's pretty (darn) good … it's actually, like, a band that
you can probably relate to," Cameron says. And, The Foghorns firmly believe
in earning their audience. "We try to play places where we will really
surprise a crowd, and get a 'oh, they're actually good' moment."
Published in:
Issue 18
on Friday, December 01, 2006
The Foghorns have been pretty active in the music scene the
past couple of years, playing numerous shows but never drawing a big crowd.
The brainchild of former Grapevine editor, Bart Cameron, this release was
partly recorded live in Reykjavík and partly in some (I imagine) seedy
locations in Brooklyn and Wisconsin. The sound is rough and lo-fi but
perfectly fitting the Bruce Springsteen folk-punk rock (think Nebraska, not
Born To Run). Lyrically it’s an album of sorrow, sadness and longing – the
bitterness shines through. It sounds honest and raw with a feeling of
intensity; as if the band has a point to make and really, really wants the
listener to get it; as if they care about their work, getting the music out
just to get it out and not because they think it will make them lots of
money. It won’t. So throw all the money you can spare at them because this
is a fucking great CD.
Some
news from Iceland now. Or from USA via Iceland. Bart Cameron and Paul
Nikolov are the prolific editors of an english language
newspaper in Iceland, about Iceland and Icelanders, the target
group being tourists, but equally read and enjoyed by locals as well. They
also happen to be
The Foghorns, an interesting, lo-fi duo consisting of Bart's
singing and guitaring, and Paul's appalling yet strangely enjoyable banging
on an enormous steel bucket, thus providing what might be called a beat of
some sorts. Now I haven't seen them play in a while, but I've heard they've
expanded their live set, indeed it seems the band has up to 8 members
currently.
Here's
what they have to say about themselves:
From
Brooklyn, Bart went home to Racine Wisconsin and put together the first
Foghorns album in summer 2002. Another one came along in 2003, with Bart
beginning to scrounge Brooklyn for live musicians. With his move to Iceland,
he found new sounds. The Foghorns now often feature a bucket, flat-picking
guitar and harmonica. In 2004, the Icelandic version of the Foghorns
released So Sober, and they have since played regularly throughout Iceland.
2006 will see the release of another Wisconsin album, New Low, a re-release
of So Sober with live tracks, and quite possibly, a new Iceland album. All
albums are limited in distribution. On sale at 12 Tonar, Smekkleysa or Naked
Ape or the live shows.
You
might wanna check out their
official home page, their
myspace page or begin by downloading a few tracks to have a
nibble. And read their
magazine while listening.
Airwaves / Grand Rokk, 19 October 2005:
While
they were setting up their equipment, I checked the festival guidebook to
find out where The Foghorns originated. Sadly, all the guidebook could tell
me was “Respect the bucket”. As it turned out, those three words spoke
volumes.
I’m not a fan of country music – it’s rare for me to enjoy a harmonica –
but something I was discovering was that Icelandic musicians have a habit of
twisting genres into their own Icelandic style.
As it turns out, although The Foghorns are based in Iceland, they are
also based in Minnesota, USA. Therefore, all I can suspect is that the music
is entertaining because it sounds like a humorous version of Bob Dylan.
Stand out lyrics are “This is a bad place to be sober … and awake”, and “I’m
a filthy old man you date ‘cause you got nothing better to do.”
What
is most important about The Foghorns is that I mention the performance given
by the drummer during their set at Airwaves. For the first song or two, we
watched the drummer slowly setting up his kit – the percussion meanwhile
being provided by “Das Bucket”, a man and a large washbucket. Then he looked
like he was about to do something. Close to the microphone, this enormous
viking of a man daintily held a triangle in his left hand. In his right hand
he brandished the beater while a look of concentration crossed his brow. The
air was thick with anticipation as the song being played at the front of
stage seemed to blur out of existence. All eyes focussed on the hairy man
about to make a sound so delicate it would seem to absurdly contrast against
his enormous frame. Then he put his triangle and beater away without doing
anything at all. We were puzzled. Then later in the song he lifted it to the
microphone again, waited, then returned it to its place on his lap. This
happened for the rest of the set. Our silent drummer lifting and lowering
his triangle while sitting behind his equally silent drum kit. I had another
act to race off and see, but if it wasn’t for this drummer, I’d have been
there on time. Instead I waited through three more songs waiting to see him
deny the tiny triangle its sole reason for existing. I’m told he did play
the drums for the last song in The Foghorns’ set but, for me, that could
ruin the spectacle.
In my personal opinion, The Foghorns at once provided the most
frustrating and yet exciting show of Airwaves’ opening night. Not because of
what they did but because of what they did not.
The Foghorns
It’s a long way from Wisconsin to Iceland, yet with frontman
Bart Cameron editing the Reykjavik Grapevine, The Foghorns have
been racking up the air miles points since they made the move to
Reykjavik in 2003. A dynamic band to say the least, The Foghorns
have repeatedly demonstrated their adaptability. Not for them a
cowardly fear of change. Nope, with origins in punk, melodic
rock and the Icelandic studio scene, The Foghorns have proven
their versatility in every atmosphere. Back when they played in
Brooklyn before moving to Iceland, The Foghorns used six-piece
bluegrass band The Cobble Hillbillies as an orchestra. In
Iceland, in more keeping with their surrounding they have used a
bucket player who goes by the stage name Das Bucket. As you do.
Innovative, witty and always fun, the Foghorns blast through all
the stormy change that comes their way.
[MM]
MUSIC PREVIEWSListen to BigTime
4Play tracks (up to four times each) via your Windows Media
Player. Just click on the track name below. For details on how
BigTime 4Play works and what you need to use it, click
here.
• 4Play: Foghorns -
Go My Number Zero
here • 4Play:
Foghorns - Puppies Crowd
here
On Wednesday (the opening night), only four of the six Festival venues
hosted shows, which made choosing bands ultra easy and allowed some extra
leeway to learn the ins and outs of Reykjavik's 101 area. I decided to spend
a majority of the night at a pub called Grand Rokk, where I was pleasantly
surprised by most of what I saw from an almost all-Icelandic lineup. The
opening act had a killer name, Vaginas, but their sloppy Rock and Roll sound
didn't do the name justice. The next act up was a group of young Icelanders
by the name of Benny Crespo's Gang that had the tight sound and drumming of
Demure-era Engine Down and combined that quite nicely with a dancy keyboard
riff or two and male/female trade-off vocals.
The Foghorns followed up next with an equally impressive set, although the
musical differences between the two acts couldn't have been greater. Where
the Gang went for noisy rock and aggression, the Foghorns were a Dylan-esque
singer/songwriter by the name of Bart Cameron being backed up by a
percussionist playing a steel bucket. The members of the Foghorns are
Americans that live in Reykjavik, and just happen to run the alternative
English weekly, Grapevine, but I didn't know these facts while watching them
and they were listed in the Airwaves magazine as an Icelandic band so the
singer's American accent was more than a little jarring.
...and so we shuffle along in the painful cold to host the opening night of
the festival, expecting a collection of delicate Icelandic singsong bands.
Grand Rokk is the venue for the evening, Iceland's answer to the Dublin
Castle in terms of lack of ventilation and space. Old men cower by the one
armed bandits in the downstairs, whilst the kids upstairs thaw out with a
few swift whiskeys. Climbing the stairs, we're greeted by a dose of Irish
Pogue skiffle delivered by 'The Foghorns', who with more pots, pans and
buckets they could make the Mystery Jets jealous. Following them are Vax
(pictured above), a band who's front man has vocal chords that have been
dragged down a cheese-grater. With this distinctly Irish start to the night,
it feels a million miles away from the preconceptions of Icelandic culture.
The queue goes round the block, and it quickly becomes apparent that it will
definitely not be a quiet Wednesday night.
TELL US A LITTLE BIT ABOUT YOURSELF/YOUR BAND? "A collective based around Bart Cameron, the Foghorns rock (that is
rockabilly mixed with country and folk). When Bart moved to Iceland,
the band got weirder, with a new lineup, including bucket players,
violinists, various oddballs. Lyrics are supposed to be a feature..Bart
wrote and taught fiction and poetry in Brooklyn before Iceland happened. But
the Icelanders in the band are good and have made the music genuinely
musical."
WHAT CAN WE EXPECT FROM YOU AT AIRWAVES? "We´re coming home to Iceland, we´re releasing our new album. You can
expect an end-of-the-world show: we´re playing for our friends one last time
before setting out on US tours."
WHAT DO YOU PLAN ON SEEING AT THIS YEARS FESTIVAL? ANY FAVORITES? "Absolute favorites are Icelanders Benni Hemm Hemm, Skakkamanage,
Reykjavik!, I Adapt, My Summer as a Salvation Soldier, Dyrdin, Mugison, Lay
Low and the Nine Elevens, all better bands than are playing anywhere in the
world. As The Foghorns are leaving Iceland
and we have to watch a bunch of hacks imitate their favourite lo-fi bands
off of Pitchfork, we´re looking forward to seeing real music. For foreign
bands, Brazilian Girls have an amazing lead singer, Walter Meego have a good
vibe, and I´d like to see Nico Muhly and The Cribs. Still, if you´re an
Icelandic band, this is a chance to support your friends, so I doubt I..ll
get out to the foreign shows."
ASSUMING YOU HAVE ATTENDED THE FESTIVAL, WHAT ARE YOUR FAVORITE AIRWAVES
MOMENTS? "I´ve attended often. Kira Kira and Eberg put on great shows a three
years ago, both were weird, charming, and not very well-attended, so you
lost the lame-ass festival feel and got instead a circus side show.. that´s
the best part of Airwaves, the organizers put great bands on at the same
time as they have the big name iPod draws. Two years ago, I Adapt and Æla
rocked out a small stage at Grand Rokk to absolute mayhem. I also enjoyed it
when we got to play an outdoor concert, last year, in 0 degree weather, for
our fans who couldn´t get into our show. A bunch of high school kids and
Lithuanian soldiers started dancing with us. It felt like the real
population of Reykjavik
was finally getting to have fun at their own festival."
DOES A COMPLETE AIRWAVES EXPERIENCE INVOLVE GENERAL DRINKING AND DEBAUCHERY? "Not for me. Why drink when pleasant things are going on? Drinking is for
funerals or growing up in the Midwest,
or interviewing actors (I´m a journalist by day). No, if I see drunks and
idiots trying to hump people..s legs, and they..re at the festival, and
they..re often Australian, I just leave and find a different stage. My
suggestion is find the drunk idiots, find the industry assholes, and walk
the other direction, and you..ll have a great time."
ANY FINAL WORDS? "Forget your iPod, forget the guide, forget the lines. Walk around
randomly, experience
Reykjavik, and go to the stages that aren´t crowded. See an amazing set by a
band you don´t know and will never be able to see again. You can either go
to a festival trying to find out what..s going to be in NME or on the radio,
or you can actually experience it. These people who only listen to what hack
journalists describe badly remind me of Midwestern jocks I knew who only
dated women that their friends had slept with and reviewed well. Oh crap,
that..s a weird sentence."
