Jonathan Fire*Eater

[C-Man 27777]

My wife and I are headed to The Walkmen show at Longhorn Ballroom tonight. I've been looking at setlists and what-not this afternoon and got sent down a rabbit hole that led me to Jonathan Fire*Eater as it appears The Walkmen *might* cover one of their songs at the show. I'd never heard of these guys and had no idea that 3/5 of JF joined Hamilton Leithauser and another dude to form The Walkmen until this afternoon. Anyway, Jonathan Fire*Eater was all the rage in NYC back in the mid-90's, signed a million-dollar record deal, released one fantastic album and poof, they were gone by 1997 or 1998.

Lead singer Stewart Lupton disappeared, came back briefly in the mid-2000's with a new project and then died at the age of 43 in 2018. Lupton had a healthy obsession with heroin back in the Jonathan Fire*Eater days and, presumably, later. Not sure exactly how he died but looks like it was either suicide (or perhaps drugs).

At any rate, I always love "finding" shit like this and I've been spinning through JF tunes this afternoon on Spotify. They're wonderfully messy you can tell they heavily influenced The Strokes, Interpol,  Yeah Yeah Yeahs, etc. Lupton was described as a mashup of Jagger, Malkmus, Dylan and Ian Curtis.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/06/the-genius-and-the-sorrow-of-stewart-lupton

 

Am I way behind the curve on this?

[NOMAAA 1700]

Some folks loved them. I didn’t get it. Ham is a better front man. 

[C-Man 27777]

Some folks loved them. I didn’t get it. Ham is a better front man. 

Probably right. But I’ve liked quite a bit of the stuff that’s on Spotify. It’s definitely weird and would never have gained a wide audience.

The Walkmen show was great tonight and the renovated Longhorn Ballroom is a good room.

[Stringer 1487]

They were a big player early in Meet Me In the Bathroom, Lizzy Goodman’s oral history of the early 2000’s NY music scene. I looked them up then and couldn’t get into it. Like you said, though, could see how they could have been influential.

Anyway, read that book. It’s a great look into that time/place and covers a lot of the bands we all loved during that time (Strokes, YYY’s, Walkmen, Interpol, etc).

[NOMAAA 1700]

19 hours ago, Stringer said:

They were a big player early in Meet Me In the Bathroom, Lizzy Goodman’s oral history of the early 2000’s NY music scene. I looked them up then and couldn’t get into it. Like you said, though, could see how they could have been influential.

Anyway, read that book. It’s a great look into that time/place and covers a lot of the bands we all loved during that time (Strokes, YYY’s, Walkmen, Interpol, etc).

ive gotten through about 1/3 of it on audible.  pretty solid.