Headphone Highlights

Les Savy Fav

French Kiss, Wichita Recordings, NYC

Although the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) may be more famous as the meeting place for 1970s arty-punk and pop group the Talking Heads, it is also the creative hub in which the original members of angular agit-pop band Les Savy Fav came together in the early part of the 1990s. The band's unique approach to songwriting and releases, not to mention the often unpredictable live performances of vocalist Tim Harrington, is pure art school; one that has hoisted the band into the same adventurous category as hard rocking 1990s acts like the Jesus Lizard, Brainiac, Six Finger Satellite, and Jawbox. Two years of intensive gigging around the East Coast ensured Sub-Pop took a shine and released their appropriately titled 'SubPop7', in 1997, followed by their first full-length 3/5 that same year on Self Starter Foundation Records. Following the recruitment of drummer Harrison Haynes, DeSoto Records put out a 7" 'DeSoto' in '99 before issuing their second album 'The Cat and the Cobra' and third 'Rome Upside Down' in 2000. British band Jetplane Landing once released a track entitled 'Why Do They Never Play Les Savy Fav On The Radio?'... err, hello?