“Few groups have done the drunken, chaotic, ramshackle but insanely infectious Midwestern garage-pop thing better” — Jim Derogatis, Chicago Sun-Times
“A potent haze of slacker sloth and fierce rock assault.” — Greg Kot, Chicago Tribune
“I would walk through a sniper’s alley to see this band live.” — Illinois Entertainer
Nice praise, so how come nobody knows who the f*ck they were? It’s complicated.
Fig Dish (god, that name) were (are) 4 high school friends from a suburb of Chicago who made ‘That’s What Love Songs Often Do’ for Polydor Records 15 years ago. Laws being what they are, the rights to the album just reverted back to them. So what? A little background:
They had no experience, no connections and no fans. But they had good record collections and fake IDs and Chicago had to let them in because the music scene was thriving and somebody had to play the coveted opening slot on a 7 band bill on a Tuesday night in February. At first, even on their best nights, they were so sloppy that they made The Replacements look like Rush. They were frequently visibly intoxicated on stage. One night, after they started to improve a bit, four major labels came to town to see them play. The band thought it was good idea to play an entire side of Neil Diamond’s Hot August Nights instead of their own material. It wasn’t. Similar opportunities presented themselves but, and let’s not mince words here, the band majorly fucked them up. Veruca Salt and Local H and Smoking Popes and pretty much every other band in town got signed. Fig Dish soon realized that lies and deceit were the only route to a record deal for them. So they started to mail their demos to A&R people with a handwritten note that said:
“Hey, it’s been awhile. How you doing? Just saw these guys last night. They were amazing. Other labels are making offers. You need to grab this band immediately.”
The note was always signed Steve, because everyone knows a Steve. Polydor made them an offer a few weeks later asking, “was that Steve from San Francisco or Big Steve?”
So much followed for Fig Dish in the wake of this album’s release. Flipping a van over in an ice storm and nearly dying, a scandalous pornographic video shoot done in an unsuspecting Sony executive’s mansion while he was on vacation, getting busted at the Canadian border because they thought they had caught junkies when they found the diabetic drummer’s syringes, hitting Marilyn Mansion with a submarine sandwich from the 7th floor of the Hyatt on Sunset, getting chased by Marilyn Manson (he’s super slow), getting hit in the face by Courtney Love’s purse (her pills went everywhere), Alex Chilton approaching them after witnessing them perform a Big Star cover and saying “we used to defile that one too,” well, that’s a fraction of what occurred.
‘That’s What Love Songs Often Do’ shot Fig Dish from local obscurity all the way to national obscurity. Buy the record. They are old and need the money.
Did I miss a link? Can’t find the rerelease anywhere but in a few articles written by awesome people who care about Fig Dish.
“‘That’s What Love Songs Often Do’ shot Fig Dish from local obscurity all the way to national obscurity. Buy the record. They are old and need the money.”