Figures of Light
Encyclopedia
Figures of Light is an American proto-punk band formed in 1970 by Wheeler Winston Dixon
and Michael Downey. Their latest project, the CD "Drop Dead," was recorded in Brooklyn, New York at Mitro's Studios, June, 2011, and produced by Mick Collins
of The Dirtbombs
, featuring fifteen new tracks from the group. It was released on Norton Records on November 13, 2011. To celebrate the release, they appeared live with The Sonics
, The A-Bones
and others as part of the Norton Records 25th Anniversary All Star Spectacular at The Bell House, in Brooklyn, on November 13, 2011. You can read Jackie Roman's photo essay on the recording session here.
David Solomons, the British rock critic, was present for the Bell House show and reported in the journal Freq that "kicking off with the brilliant “Gimme, Gimme, Gimme," it’s apparent that [. . .] these are still the same men that were spitting out punk rock two years before The Ramones had even formed and when CBGB’s was still a dingy country music club [. . .] with dancing and pointing and shouting breaking out sporadically in the audience, the band rip through other cuts from their new album, "Drop Dead": “World of Pain,” “My Box Rocks” and the superb “15 Minutes of Fame.” The final [cut] is “It’s Lame,” now chromium polished [. . .] Dixon spits it out with venom, as Downey is all over his guitar like a spider, and the band pump out some serious attitude. By the time the band walk off stage, sweating and delighted, the audience are cheering “One more!”, it seems like a vindication of all those years ago when Figures of Light fought so valiantly in the punk trenches but, in the end, had to reconcile themselves to seeing the medals given out to those who came considerably later. It’s been a strange journey over many decades for Figures of Light to get here from there, but tonight anyone who’s anyone in New York in 2011 knows exactly who was keeping the punk spirit alive in the city in the early 1970s."
Figures of Light's first album,"Smash Hits," was released in late July, 2008 by Norton Records
, containing new studio material recorded on July 7, 2007 in New York, live material from the December 15, 2007 Southpaw "comeback" concert, a chunk of their infamous 1970 TV smashing concert, plus some early, rare demos. The CD is also available as a download on iTunes
, Amazon
, Juno Records
and other sites.
Writing in The Los Angeles Times
on July 30, 2008, critic Jason Gelt wrote a rave review of the "Smash Hits" CD, titled "Figures of Light Reunite and Reignite," which chronicled the band's long history, noting that "with a catalog of stripped-down two-chord songs inspired by the likes of the Stooges
, The Who
, Blue Cheer
and the Pretty Things
[ . . .] Figures of Light – a frenzied four-piece that embodied punk rock
before the phrase existed – played its inaugural concert in the summer of 1970," praising the band's new CD as "long overdue," and noting that "thirty-six years after the band tore apart the stage [during their first gig], their edge remains as sharp as a hatchet" (see link to full review below).
Steve Terrell, writing in the Santa Fe New Mexican on October 23, 2008, agreed that "this is primitive rock 'n' roll at its most stripped-down. Even the new recordings capture the lo-fi spirit. Like the punk rock that would erupt after the original FOL folded, the songs are full of a certain nihilism and angst leavened with wicked humor . . .my favorite cut has to be 'Seething Psychosexual Conflict Blues.' Dixon sings, 'Sometimes I feel like a woman; sometimes I feel like a man/I got these seething psychosexual conflicts I just don't understand, oh no!' . . . also worthy is 'I Got Spies Watching You,' a reckless rocker with a cool tremolo guitar that was recorded as a demo at a Lincoln, Nebraska, studio in 2007. It's all raw, crazy, and irresistible to those of us who like it that way."
Critic Doug Sheppard, in issue 28 of the pop journal Ugly Things
, described Smash Hits
as "a full-length [CD] oozing raunchy rock ’n’ roll vibes like blue cheese dripping from the sides of a black-and-blue burger. If anything, the newer recordings like 'Gimme Gimme Gimme' and 'Seething Psychosexual Conflict Blues' are even punkier than the old, and if they don’t convince you, then a crazed 1970 live track called 'Ritual TV Smashing Finale' —literally smashing 15 television sets over full-throttle screams and primitive rock ’n’ roll—will."
Ed Post-Mortem, writing on the GaragePunk Hideout
website on August 28, 2008, also waxed ecstatic, stating that "Smash Hits" "has to be one of the best rock 'n' roll releases of the year. When 'Gimme Gimme Gimme' and it's snotty delivery came through the speakers I felt like I was socked hard in the gut, left gasping for breath and stunned . . . whether it's me, you, or some Hives / Strokes
hipster wannabes getting the beating, this record [is] punk, half a decade before Punk, covered in sharp two-chord fuzz, seething with angst and frustration, and rooted in garage trash . . . [the band] sounds like they could hold their own face to face with any of the garage punk outfits around today."
As Christopher Hermitage enthused on the Blog to Comm website on August 9, 2008, "I have been waiting for this particular release to come out ever since I got hold of the Figures' reissued single that Norton put out two years back (in fact, I was waiting for it even before Norton announced it was going to be released, psychic that I am!), and now that the thing's here and safely nestled within a stack of digital wares begging to be reviewed this weekend all I gotta say is...BOSS JOB, NORTON!!!"
Savage Magazine, from Stockholm, Sweden wrote that "Smash Hits" is "unbelievably great! cool pre-punk from around 1970 to ’72, returned to life in 2007 with a live show and some new recordings of old songs – and still sounding great! This truly is a find! For fans of the Pagans, Aussie punk, DMZ...you’ll love this!" And in Shindig!
, Lenny Helsing added, "personal highlights are the original ‘It’s Lame’ and the no-nonsense genius flipside ‘I Jes Wanna Go To Bed’. Of the fresh offerings, ‘Seething Psychosexual Conflict Blues’ is cool trash, but it’s ‘Black Cadillac’ and the desperate-sounding edge of ‘Angeline’ that do it best. ‘Ritual TV Smashing Finale,' cut live in ’70, is mayhem, and has to be heard to be believed."
The band's first single, "It's Lame," was released in 1972, and re-released on Norton Records
in 2006. With a style of two chord rock prefiguring The Ramones by several years, the band performed gigs for two years in and around Rutgers University
before disbanding in 1972.
"It's Lame," has been described as " . . . one of the ultimate proto-punk basement rock singles of all time . . . [l]ike the dinosaur etched into relief at Angkor Wat, it shouldn't be there. It's either 6 years behind its time or 27 years ahead . . . They cite the Stooges
and the Velvet Underground as influences . . . During their first gig, where they played such unreleased material as 'Why Not Knock Yourself Off?', 'Seething Psychosexual Conflict Blues' and 'Black Plague Blues,' they rode up to the stage on a motorcycle, played their songs and destroyed 15 television sets . . . They sound nothing like the 1st Captain Beefheart
LP, Debris
, The Electric Eels or Memphis Goons, but if any of that appeals to you, you shouldn't be caught dead without this . . ." by Mike Sniper of the Terminal Boredom website.
Shortly after the re-release of the single, in an article on protopunk bands in issue 26 of the pop journal Ugly Things
, critic Johan Kugelberg cited “It’s Lame” as “the K-2” of pre-punk records, calling it “a new holy grail [. . .] this masterpiece [takes] its rightful place alongside DMZ and The Electric Eels in the macro- and micro-cosmos of extended adolescent osmosis. Barrage Norton with emails demanding the release of the live tapes!”
In the British magazine The Wire
, Bryon Coley also wrote a rave review of the single in February, 2007, calling "It's Lame" "an amazing lost single from [a] 1972 New Jersey duo who sole admitted influences were The Stooges and the The Velvets . . . an astounding piece of proto-punk attitudinalism, making contemporaries like the vaunted Hackamore Brick sound like The Beatles. File this somewhere between early Modern Lovers demos and Half Japanese
's first recordings as a trio. It's that good."
The first concert of July 23, 1970 was recorded in stereo, complete with the television smashing finale. Listening to tapes of their first concert, Norton Records
producer Billy Miller commented, "you guys make [the Velvet Underground's epic 17 minute song] Sister Ray
sound like Richard Harris
's [60s pop hit] MacArthur Park
!"
In March 2007 critic Jill Hubley wrote that the band's first single "was raw, loud, and nothing like the prevailing music of the time. Dixon and his band had their own vision and interpretation of the times, and they’d be damned if they weren’t going to make it heard . . . Without the snarling closeness of the vocals, the music might sound aloof—merely sloppy rather than out of control. As the song progresses, there are many mixed metaphors, a rhyme scheme that would make Shakespeare cry, and an overabundant use of reverb . . . It’s also incredibly catchy, the instrumentation serving as a glorified metronome to which you can keep your head bobbing steadily . . ." (see full review below as link).
In the February 2007 issue of Mojo
, the British pop monthly, Figures of Light's first single was described by Ian Harrison as "a treat . . .throbbing with real 1972 mockery and boredom . . . 'It's Lame' casually dimisses everything with Holden Caulfield
sang-froid, sounding like a surly cousin of The Electric Eels' "Agitated" and rejoicing in two false endings. A whiny B-side does much the same job with Bo Diddley
chugging and lots of guitar distortion."
In the 2006 Pazz and Jop year end poll in the Village Voice, David Sprague, rock critic for Variety
, voted "It's Lame" the number one pop single of 2006, beating out Kelly Clarkson
and Gnarls Barkley
.
On July 7, 2007, the core members of the band reunited in the N.Y. Hed studio under producer Billy Miller of Norton Records
to record a batch of new and old songs, including "Gimme Gimme Gimme," "Nothing to Do," "Seething Psychosexual Conflict Blues," "I'm So Sick of Everything," and "Angeline," backed up by Miriam Linna
on drums, Marcus "The Carcass" Natale on bass, and Matt Verta-Ray on lead guitar.
On December 15, 2007, Figures of Light performed live for the first time in 35 years at the Brooklyn, New York club Southpaw, as part of the Norton Records Holiday Spectacular.
Their work was featured on the The Daily Rind Podcast for the week of August 4, 2009, and on October 4, 2009, the Spanish-language website Wateke Salvaje! offered another rave review of Smash Hits, commenting that "one of the most infamous [examples] of American proto-punk, [Figures of Light] picked up the baton from those who planted the seed and in essence projected the future of rock. Rescued from oblivion by Norton Records
, [their first] CD Smash Hits combines live recordings of the band’s first concert in 1970, with tracks recently recorded by two of the original members of Figures of Light, accompanied by the ever-popular A-Bones. A succulent collection recommended for diehard fans of primal American punk."
The Turkish website United Valley Music Crisis also praised the CD in a review posted on November 9, 2009, noting that when the band was founded in 1970, "they didn't know that they were proto-punk, needless to say" and commented that the CD was well "worth the wait."
In December 2009, Savage magazine, in Sweden, conducted an interview with the band; see the link below. In May 2010, their song "Seething Psychosexual Conflict Blues" was featured in a special CD as part of issue 156 of the British music magazine Uncut
. An essay on the band's history is forthcoming in British musicologist David Solomons
' book, "Ain't It Fun?" (see link below).
Wheeler Winston Dixon
Wheeler Winston Dixon is best known as a writer of film history, theory and criticism. He is the author of numerous books on film, as well as a professor who has taught at Rutgers University, New Brunswick; The New School in New York; and the University of Amsterdam, Holland. He received his Ph.D....
and Michael Downey. Their latest project, the CD "Drop Dead," was recorded in Brooklyn, New York at Mitro's Studios, June, 2011, and produced by Mick Collins
Mick Collins
Mick Collins is a musician from Detroit, Michigan.- Biography :Collins first played in a band called the U-Boats in 1981 and then in the Floor Tasters from 1984 to 1985. In 1986, the 20-year old Collins helped form the seminal garage punk band, The Gories...
of The Dirtbombs
The Dirtbombs
The Dirtbombs are an American garage rock band based in Detroit, Michigan, notable for blending diverse influences such as punk rock and soul while featuring a dual bass guitar, dual drum and guitar lineup...
, featuring fifteen new tracks from the group. It was released on Norton Records on November 13, 2011. To celebrate the release, they appeared live with The Sonics
The Sonics
The Sonics are an American garage rock band from Tacoma, Washington, originating from the early and mid-1960s. Among The Sonics' contemporaries were The Kingsmen, The Wailers, The Dynamics, The Regents, and Paul Revere & the Raiders...
, The A-Bones
The A-Bones
The A-Bones is a garage rock band from Brooklyn, New York. Their name was derived from a song by The Trashmen. The band was formed in 1984 by vocalist Billy Miller and his wife, drummer Miriam Linna; the couple had previously been the editors of the pop culture journal Kicks and later launched...
and others as part of the Norton Records 25th Anniversary All Star Spectacular at The Bell House, in Brooklyn, on November 13, 2011. You can read Jackie Roman's photo essay on the recording session here.
David Solomons, the British rock critic, was present for the Bell House show and reported in the journal Freq that "kicking off with the brilliant “Gimme, Gimme, Gimme," it’s apparent that [. . .] these are still the same men that were spitting out punk rock two years before The Ramones had even formed and when CBGB’s was still a dingy country music club [. . .] with dancing and pointing and shouting breaking out sporadically in the audience, the band rip through other cuts from their new album, "Drop Dead": “World of Pain,” “My Box Rocks” and the superb “15 Minutes of Fame.” The final [cut] is “It’s Lame,” now chromium polished [. . .] Dixon spits it out with venom, as Downey is all over his guitar like a spider, and the band pump out some serious attitude. By the time the band walk off stage, sweating and delighted, the audience are cheering “One more!”, it seems like a vindication of all those years ago when Figures of Light fought so valiantly in the punk trenches but, in the end, had to reconcile themselves to seeing the medals given out to those who came considerably later. It’s been a strange journey over many decades for Figures of Light to get here from there, but tonight anyone who’s anyone in New York in 2011 knows exactly who was keeping the punk spirit alive in the city in the early 1970s."
Figures of Light's first album,"Smash Hits," was released in late July, 2008 by Norton Records
Norton Records
For the Canadian independent record label of the same name, see Matt Minglewood.Norton Records, a New York City based independent record label founded by musicians Miriam Linna and Billy Miller, maintains a focus on primitive, retro rock'n'roll, rockabilly, garage punk, garage rock, lounge music...
, containing new studio material recorded on July 7, 2007 in New York, live material from the December 15, 2007 Southpaw "comeback" concert, a chunk of their infamous 1970 TV smashing concert, plus some early, rare demos. The CD is also available as a download on iTunes
ITunes
iTunes is a media player computer program, used for playing, downloading, and organizing digital music and video files on desktop computers. It can also manage contents on iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad....
, Amazon
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...
, Juno Records
Juno Records
Juno Records is a UK-based online dance music retail store, selling vinyl records, CDs, music downloads and music accessories, founded by Richard Atherton and Sharon Boyd. The website was created in 1996 as an information-only site called The Dance Music Resource Pages, listing new dance music...
and other sites.
Writing in The Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
on July 30, 2008, critic Jason Gelt wrote a rave review of the "Smash Hits" CD, titled "Figures of Light Reunite and Reignite," which chronicled the band's long history, noting that "with a catalog of stripped-down two-chord songs inspired by the likes of the Stooges
The Stooges
The Stooges are an American rock band from Ann Arbor, Michigan first active from 1967 to 1974, and later reformed in 2003...
, The Who
The Who
The Who are an English rock band formed in 1964 by Roger Daltrey , Pete Townshend , John Entwistle and Keith Moon . They became known for energetic live performances which often included instrument destruction...
, Blue Cheer
Blue Cheer
Blue Cheer was an American psychedelic blues-rock band that initially performed and recorded in the late 1960s and early 1970s and was sporadically active until 2009...
and the Pretty Things
Pretty Things
The Pretty Things are an English rock and roll band from London, who originally formed in 1963. They took their name from Bo Diddley's 1955 song "Pretty Thing" and, in their early days, were dubbed by the British press the "uglier cousins of the Rolling Stones". Their most commercially successful...
[ . . .] Figures of Light – a frenzied four-piece that embodied punk rock
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
before the phrase existed – played its inaugural concert in the summer of 1970," praising the band's new CD as "long overdue," and noting that "thirty-six years after the band tore apart the stage [during their first gig], their edge remains as sharp as a hatchet" (see link to full review below).
Steve Terrell, writing in the Santa Fe New Mexican on October 23, 2008, agreed that "this is primitive rock 'n' roll at its most stripped-down. Even the new recordings capture the lo-fi spirit. Like the punk rock that would erupt after the original FOL folded, the songs are full of a certain nihilism and angst leavened with wicked humor . . .my favorite cut has to be 'Seething Psychosexual Conflict Blues.' Dixon sings, 'Sometimes I feel like a woman; sometimes I feel like a man/I got these seething psychosexual conflicts I just don't understand, oh no!' . . . also worthy is 'I Got Spies Watching You,' a reckless rocker with a cool tremolo guitar that was recorded as a demo at a Lincoln, Nebraska, studio in 2007. It's all raw, crazy, and irresistible to those of us who like it that way."
Critic Doug Sheppard, in issue 28 of the pop journal Ugly Things
Ugly Things
Ugly Things is a music magazine established in 1983, based in La Mesa, CA. Editor is Mike Stax, born 1962, England. It covers mainly 1960s Beat, Garage rock, and Psychedelic music...
, described Smash Hits
Smash Hits
Smash Hits was a pop music based magazine, aimed at teenagers and young adults and originally published in the United Kingdom by EMAP. It ran from 1978 to 2006 and was issued fortnightly for most of that time...
as "a full-length [CD] oozing raunchy rock ’n’ roll vibes like blue cheese dripping from the sides of a black-and-blue burger. If anything, the newer recordings like 'Gimme Gimme Gimme' and 'Seething Psychosexual Conflict Blues' are even punkier than the old, and if they don’t convince you, then a crazed 1970 live track called 'Ritual TV Smashing Finale' —literally smashing 15 television sets over full-throttle screams and primitive rock ’n’ roll—will."
Ed Post-Mortem, writing on the GaragePunk Hideout
GaragePunk Podcast Network
The GaragePunk Podcast Network is a leading social network, media center and blog portal for the garage punk, garage rock and primitive rock n roll musical genres. With a strong international following the site receives an average of 18,500 hits per day and the associated Ning social network has...
website on August 28, 2008, also waxed ecstatic, stating that "Smash Hits" "has to be one of the best rock 'n' roll releases of the year. When 'Gimme Gimme Gimme' and it's snotty delivery came through the speakers I felt like I was socked hard in the gut, left gasping for breath and stunned . . . whether it's me, you, or some Hives / Strokes
The Strokes
The Strokes are an American indie rock band formed in 1999 in New York City. Consisting of Julian Casablancas , Nick Valensi , Albert Hammond, Jr. , Nikolai Fraiture and Fabrizio Moretti ....
hipster wannabes getting the beating, this record [is] punk, half a decade before Punk, covered in sharp two-chord fuzz, seething with angst and frustration, and rooted in garage trash . . . [the band] sounds like they could hold their own face to face with any of the garage punk outfits around today."
As Christopher Hermitage enthused on the Blog to Comm website on August 9, 2008, "I have been waiting for this particular release to come out ever since I got hold of the Figures' reissued single that Norton put out two years back (in fact, I was waiting for it even before Norton announced it was going to be released, psychic that I am!), and now that the thing's here and safely nestled within a stack of digital wares begging to be reviewed this weekend all I gotta say is...BOSS JOB, NORTON!!!"
Savage Magazine, from Stockholm, Sweden wrote that "Smash Hits" is "unbelievably great! cool pre-punk from around 1970 to ’72, returned to life in 2007 with a live show and some new recordings of old songs – and still sounding great! This truly is a find! For fans of the Pagans, Aussie punk, DMZ...you’ll love this!" And in Shindig!
Shindig!
Shindig! was an American musical variety series which aired on ABC from September 16, 1964 to January 8, 1966. The show was hosted by Jimmy O'Neill, a disc jockey in Los Angeles at the time who also created the show along with his wife Sharon Sheeley and production executive Art Stolnitz....
, Lenny Helsing added, "personal highlights are the original ‘It’s Lame’ and the no-nonsense genius flipside ‘I Jes Wanna Go To Bed’. Of the fresh offerings, ‘Seething Psychosexual Conflict Blues’ is cool trash, but it’s ‘Black Cadillac’ and the desperate-sounding edge of ‘Angeline’ that do it best. ‘Ritual TV Smashing Finale,' cut live in ’70, is mayhem, and has to be heard to be believed."
The band's first single, "It's Lame," was released in 1972, and re-released on Norton Records
Norton Records
For the Canadian independent record label of the same name, see Matt Minglewood.Norton Records, a New York City based independent record label founded by musicians Miriam Linna and Billy Miller, maintains a focus on primitive, retro rock'n'roll, rockabilly, garage punk, garage rock, lounge music...
in 2006. With a style of two chord rock prefiguring The Ramones by several years, the band performed gigs for two years in and around Rutgers University
Rutgers University
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey , is the largest institution for higher education in New Jersey, United States. It was originally chartered as Queen's College in 1766. It is the eighth-oldest college in the United States and one of the nine Colonial colleges founded before the American...
before disbanding in 1972.
The Stooges
The Stooges are an American rock band from Ann Arbor, Michigan first active from 1967 to 1974, and later reformed in 2003...
and the Velvet Underground as influences . . . During their first gig, where they played such unreleased material as 'Why Not Knock Yourself Off?', 'Seething Psychosexual Conflict Blues' and 'Black Plague Blues,' they rode up to the stage on a motorcycle, played their songs and destroyed 15 television sets . . . They sound nothing like the 1st Captain Beefheart
Captain Beefheart
Don Van Vliet January 15, 1941 December 17, 2010) was an American musician, singer-songwriter and artist best known by the stage name Captain Beefheart. His musical work was conducted with a rotating ensemble of musicians called The Magic Band, active between 1965 and 1982, with whom he recorded 12...
LP, Debris
Debris
Debris is rubble, wreckage, ruins, litter and discarded garbage/refuse/trash, scattered remains of something destroyed, or, in geology, large rock fragments left by a melting glacier etc. The singular form of debris is debris...
, The Electric Eels or Memphis Goons, but if any of that appeals to you, you shouldn't be caught dead without this . . ." by Mike Sniper of the Terminal Boredom website.
Shortly after the re-release of the single, in an article on protopunk bands in issue 26 of the pop journal Ugly Things
Ugly Things
Ugly Things is a music magazine established in 1983, based in La Mesa, CA. Editor is Mike Stax, born 1962, England. It covers mainly 1960s Beat, Garage rock, and Psychedelic music...
, critic Johan Kugelberg cited “It’s Lame” as “the K-2” of pre-punk records, calling it “a new holy grail [. . .] this masterpiece [takes] its rightful place alongside DMZ and The Electric Eels in the macro- and micro-cosmos of extended adolescent osmosis. Barrage Norton with emails demanding the release of the live tapes!”
In the British magazine The Wire
The WIRE
the WIRE is the student-run College radio station at the University of Oklahoma, broadcasting in a freeform format. The WIRE serves the University of Oklahoma and surrounding communities, and is staffed by student DJs. The WIRE broadcasts at 1710 kHz AM in Norman, Oklahoma...
, Bryon Coley also wrote a rave review of the single in February, 2007, calling "It's Lame" "an amazing lost single from [a] 1972 New Jersey duo who sole admitted influences were The Stooges and the The Velvets . . . an astounding piece of proto-punk attitudinalism, making contemporaries like the vaunted Hackamore Brick sound like The Beatles. File this somewhere between early Modern Lovers demos and Half Japanese
Half Japanese
Half Japanese is a punk rock band formed by brothers Jad and David Fair in their Coldwater, Michigan bedroom around 1975. Their original instrumentation included a small drum set, which they took turns playing; vocals; and an out of tune guitar...
's first recordings as a trio. It's that good."
The first concert of July 23, 1970 was recorded in stereo, complete with the television smashing finale. Listening to tapes of their first concert, Norton Records
Norton Records
For the Canadian independent record label of the same name, see Matt Minglewood.Norton Records, a New York City based independent record label founded by musicians Miriam Linna and Billy Miller, maintains a focus on primitive, retro rock'n'roll, rockabilly, garage punk, garage rock, lounge music...
producer Billy Miller commented, "you guys make [the Velvet Underground's epic 17 minute song] Sister Ray
Sister Ray
Sister Ray may mean one of the following:* "Sister Ray", 1968 song by The Velvet Underground* A fictional enormous laser cannon in the video game Final Fantasy VII* Sister Ray , a punk rock band from Youngstown, Ohio...
sound like Richard Harris
Richard Harris
Richard St John Harris was an Irish actor, singer-songwriter, theatrical producer, film director and writer....
's [60s pop hit] MacArthur Park
MacArthur Park
MacArthur Park is a park in the Westlake neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, named after General Douglas MacArthur and designated city of Los Angeles Historic Cultural Monument #100.- Geography :...
!"
In the February 2007 issue of Mojo
Mojo (magazine)
MOJO is a popular music magazine published initially by Emap, and since January 2008 by Bauer, monthly in the United Kingdom. Following the success of the magazine Q, publishers Emap were looking for a title which would cater for the burgeoning interest in classic rock music...
, the British pop monthly, Figures of Light's first single was described by Ian Harrison as "a treat . . .throbbing with real 1972 mockery and boredom . . . 'It's Lame' casually dimisses everything with Holden Caulfield
Holden Caulfield
Holden Caulfield is the 16-to-17 years old protagonist of author J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye. He is universally recognized for his resistance to growing older and desire to protect childhood innocence...
sang-froid, sounding like a surly cousin of The Electric Eels' "Agitated" and rejoicing in two false endings. A whiny B-side does much the same job with Bo Diddley
Bo Diddley
Ellas Otha Bates , known by his stage name Bo Diddley, was an American rhythm and blues vocalist, guitarist, songwriter , and inventor...
chugging and lots of guitar distortion."
In the 2006 Pazz and Jop year end poll in the Village Voice, David Sprague, rock critic for Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
, voted "It's Lame" the number one pop single of 2006, beating out Kelly Clarkson
Kelly Clarkson
Kelly Brianne Clarkson is an American pop rock singer-songwriter and actress. Clarkson came into prominence after becoming the winner of the inaugural season of the television series American Idol in 2002 and would later become the runner-up in the television special World Idol in 2003.In 2003,...
and Gnarls Barkley
Gnarls Barkley
Gnarls Barkley is an American soul duo comprising Danger Mouse and Cee Lo Green. Their first studio album St. Elsewhere was released in 2006; along with its first single "Crazy". Both single and album were a major commercial success and have been noted for their large sales by download...
.
On July 7, 2007, the core members of the band reunited in the N.Y. Hed studio under producer Billy Miller of Norton Records
Norton Records
For the Canadian independent record label of the same name, see Matt Minglewood.Norton Records, a New York City based independent record label founded by musicians Miriam Linna and Billy Miller, maintains a focus on primitive, retro rock'n'roll, rockabilly, garage punk, garage rock, lounge music...
to record a batch of new and old songs, including "Gimme Gimme Gimme," "Nothing to Do," "Seething Psychosexual Conflict Blues," "I'm So Sick of Everything," and "Angeline," backed up by Miriam Linna
Miriam Linna
Miriam Linna has run the Brooklyn-based independent record label Norton Records since 1986 with her husband—the producer and singer-songwriter Billy Miller...
on drums, Marcus "The Carcass" Natale on bass, and Matt Verta-Ray on lead guitar.
On December 15, 2007, Figures of Light performed live for the first time in 35 years at the Brooklyn, New York club Southpaw, as part of the Norton Records Holiday Spectacular.
Their work was featured on the The Daily Rind Podcast for the week of August 4, 2009, and on October 4, 2009, the Spanish-language website Wateke Salvaje! offered another rave review of Smash Hits, commenting that "one of the most infamous [examples] of American proto-punk, [Figures of Light] picked up the baton from those who planted the seed and in essence projected the future of rock. Rescued from oblivion by Norton Records
Norton Records
For the Canadian independent record label of the same name, see Matt Minglewood.Norton Records, a New York City based independent record label founded by musicians Miriam Linna and Billy Miller, maintains a focus on primitive, retro rock'n'roll, rockabilly, garage punk, garage rock, lounge music...
, [their first] CD Smash Hits combines live recordings of the band’s first concert in 1970, with tracks recently recorded by two of the original members of Figures of Light, accompanied by the ever-popular A-Bones. A succulent collection recommended for diehard fans of primal American punk."
The Turkish website United Valley Music Crisis also praised the CD in a review posted on November 9, 2009, noting that when the band was founded in 1970, "they didn't know that they were proto-punk, needless to say" and commented that the CD was well "worth the wait."
In December 2009, Savage magazine, in Sweden, conducted an interview with the band; see the link below. In May 2010, their song "Seething Psychosexual Conflict Blues" was featured in a special CD as part of issue 156 of the British music magazine Uncut
UNCUT (magazine)
Uncut magazine, trademarked as UNCUT, is a monthly publication based in London. It is available across the English-speaking world, and focuses on music, but also includes film and books sections...
. An essay on the band's history is forthcoming in British musicologist David Solomons
David Solomons
David Solomons presented the Crossing Cultures segment on BBC World's Fast Track programme.- External links :*...
' book, "Ain't It Fun?" (see link below).