The Yummy Fur - Kinky Cinema (1997)

The Yummy Fur was a scottish indie rock-group active in the 90s. Endlessly underrated, they never gained acclaim, and after keyboarder Mark Gibbons committed suicide in 1999, as well as massive line-up complications, they played their last gig in December, 1999.

I think this might be a compilation of the group's 92-96 recordings - everything before their masterpiece Night Club - but it anyway serves as their second album. Influenced by The Residents and their Commercial Album, as well as The Minutemen, The Yummy Fur would experiment further with short songs. Kinky Cinema is a mesh of 60 songs, lengths ranging from 8 seconds to 3 minutes and recording quality ranging from like-a-crappy-live-tape to fine. The song quality is not steady either, but although it is long between the great songs, it is at all times entertaining. Parodying themselves, Kinky Cinema features several takes on songs from Night Club; "Plastic Cowboy" becomes "Plastic Cowboy (New Wave)" and "I am Cosmetic Man" becomes "I am 'Consumer Man.' " A retake on "Theoretically Pink," "Theoretically Blue" sounds very true to the first version, while "Amphetamine Education Movie" is just a lo-fi version of "Rollerderby." (then again, all these songs may have been recorded before the versions on Night Club - I have no idea). A cover of The Fall's "Fiery Jack" is also included, and doesn't sound very alike the original. The Yummy Fur was often accused of ripping off The Fall; this was perhaps a statement. But the Fall influences is everywhere to be found, also on this album.

Yummy Fur was an art-band (they said so themselves), and heavily influenced with post-punk, their goal was to make something unique. They opposed music that was "fake-serious" - frontman John McKeown criticized bands he met that would be all laughing and joking around, happy people, that onstage would sing about their misery and despair. And so, The Yummy Fur sounded like one big joke. With songtitles like "Yummy Fur vs The Stooges," "Male Slut" and "The Walt Disney Murder Club," their texts were rarely serious, but that also wasn't their intentions. Their music are simple like The Fall's, but lighter, made up of mostly (really) catchy riffs and McKeown's silly vocals. They sometimes sounds like a circus.

John McKeown was a big fan of Alex Kapranos' band at the time, The Karelia, and in the latest line-ups, both him and future Franz Ferdinand drummer Paul Thomson was members of The Yummy Fur. John McKeown are also having success with his new band, 1990s. Yummy Fur got together for a short tour and a compilation-release in 2010, but I haven't heard anything about that - they may still be touring, and I don't think the record has been released yet.

Kinky Cinema