That's unfair though because Straylight is amazing. I agree. I love Straylight, but anything outside of that I haven't really liked from John. Besides the Color Fred I haven't heard anything else from the past members. From what Fazzi brought to New Again, I should probably check out his other stuff.
Fazzi was definitely underutilized vocally on NA, but I can still hear him in some stuff if I listen close enough. I think he does more harmonies than anything else. The most I hear him is in Carpathia ("one hundred and fifty degrees in the shade," "no I was put in my place," "it would've been nice to say," "come rest your frame on me," and the "man that ages ago" harmony). Edit: Also, for me, that Happy Body Slow Brain album is easily the best thing any of the guitarists in TBS put out outside of the band. I probably like it more than every TBS album aside from WYWTB.
It is possible but other people more familiar with Fazzi would have to answer haha. If he's on there he's buried. I can't discern him really at all.
I almost did a rundown of every time I heard him on the album and then realized that would be reaaaaally boring lol
It's way better than his first solo album, plus it's got Shaun Cooper on Bass, Ben Homola (Dashboard Confessional) on drums, and Mike Strandberg (Kevin Devine) on lead guitar. Key tracks: American Nightclub 1999, Drinking Your Way to Confidence, Sad Strange Beautiful Dream, and How Much.
Damn, that's actually quite a line up. Speaking of dashboards drummer, to me it always seems like he wants to play a lot faster than the songs allow for. I'll never forget only hearing the acoustic version of Hands Down on an EP and then hearing the MTV unplugged where it seemed like he was rocking out waayyy to hard on the drums for the song. I love his passion
Yeah, I really like Sad Strange Beautiful Dream. A ton of great songs on that thang. "I Will be Released" is such a great closer. What a song. Also, it's not on the album, but if peeps didn't know, "Here Comes The Wolf" is quite the track.
I think the ending of Flicker, Fade sounds like older TBS for two reasons, the breakdown and the duel vocals at the end. I personally think Flicker, Fade is one of their better songs of the past 10 years. And yeah, I've heard them talk about El Paso too about how bummed they were when the fans didn't grab onto it as much as they liked it. I saw them perform it live once, they opened it and I remember at the end of the song Adam was telling 'motherfuckers to get out of your seats'.
Shame. I've seen the same for any song after Louder now though, the crowd is always sort of dead for anything newer. Flicker, Fade is top 10 for me as well.
Terrible Things self-titled record was such a GREAT album. Side note, I saw The Color Fred open up for Straylight Run in 2007...kind of crazy to think about. You'd think John and Fred wouldn't have gotten along well enough to tour together. Probably had a lot of great stories to tell each other.
It's not a complete quote, I'm paraphrasing, but Eddie Reyes said it in an AltPress interview (I believe their oral history) that he was sick of Fazzi's shit by the time he got booted or whatever, and I just thought it had a nice ring to it: "Fucking Fazzi"