Ford & Fitzroy Album Release Show
Ford & Fitzroy
The Studio at Webster Hall
11.13.08
Thanks to the joy of Myspace, I became familiar with Ford & Fitzroy over a year ago. It was a long distance relationship (never seeing them live, only hearing them through the great Myspace music player). I liked the tracks, but never dug further, and never managed to be free on a night when they were playing. Then after a long time without them, I received a copy of their brand new record, "Canyons," and was immediately blown away. Why isn't anyone writing about this band? The record is solid from top to bottom, seeming to get better with each track, better with each listen.
While Vampire Weekend and MGMT rise further and further into glorious popularity, there is still an untapped nebulous of great bands left in this city, and Ford & Fitzroy is one of the best. For the unfamiliar listener at Thursday night's show, the first instinct would probably be to compare them to Modest Mouse, based on Jay Schneider's distinctive Isaac Brock-like warble. But musically, they don't sound all that similar to Modest Mouse. Instead, the songs have a style more like their local kin Hopewell and Stellastarr*.
Celebrating the release of "Canyons," Schneider struggled to hang onto his voice at times (a friend said he blew it out earlier in the week during rehearsals), but gave it his all and led the band through an outstanding set that peaked with the epic "Handbags & Handgrenades." The performance reinforced what I had already gathered from my many many listens of "Canyons," Ford & Fitzroy is one of the best bands this city has to offer, and they won't always be playing the small, crappy clubs.
