Hi Figsters,

At the start if the 21st Century the Fig were busy recording demos for an album: Notes On A Fashion Dump. By the time all the recordings were done and artwork completed the live Fig sound had moved into a different direction (think… RAWK!). The recorded sound no longer represent the live sound, so the recordings and thoughts of releasing an album, were shelved. Shame really. In retrospect, the recording quality isn’t the greatest but the song arrangements are pretty good. In fact, these recordings are more like the Fig now than the live Fig of 2002.

So, rather than leaving them sitting on a shelf, we’ve put most of the tracks from the Fashion Dump sessions into a public Soundcloud set, which is available on our FIG MUSIC page and in this post. Take a listen.

If you’ve seen us live then you’ll recognise some of the tunes because they still turn up in our sets, though often quite different from the originals. Li’l Broken Brooch is still a live favourite, though now Keith sings the main vocal. As for Timebomb, well, that not only still gets played live but it’s on the new album Trouble At The Rubber Plant, though you’ll notice it has changed slightly!

Hey Figsters!

It’s been a long time in the making but Trouble At The Rubber Plant was released online on 31st March 2011! You can get it now from the iTunes Store, Amazon, Spotify and Tesco Entertainment. Take your pick and Get Figged!

Holdable, throwable, coffee-mattable CDs are in production and will be available in the early summer; again, watch this space for news.

Making this album has been a labour of love for us Figs. As Keith said yesterday in a Facebook post about the album: “This is what blood, sweat and tears sound like”.  It’s a big task to take on the writing, playing, engineering and production of an album of songs, with steep learning curves and rocky patches of self-doubt. On top of that, we’ve been interrupted by BIG SHIT… TWICE… no more of that, we hope.

We’ve made the kind of album we want to listen to and it really is an album not just a collection of individual songs. The tracks are not ordered by commercial viability, with the big hit first followed by ever decreasing quality as so many albums are today; they are in the order they need to be in to provide the ups, downs, peace and trauma we all experience in life. This is how albums should be. Hey, the ones with the most commercial tracks first might sell more but as albums, they’re shit.

So, some people will hate it. Some people will like some tracks and not others. Some people, who like an eclectic mix of songs which don’t allow you to quite settle into one pattern, will enjoy all of it… we hope!

It hasn’t been all Tim and Keith, of course: we’ve  had help from some great friends, so big Fig thanks go to the following:

• Ewan Beck (bass on Body | Soul, Tsunami Of Soul and Rusty Car), Owen Curtis Williams (drums on Body | Soul) & Harriet Bruce (cello on Sirens) for their figtacular playing.
• Paul Gilbody and Andy Mallarky whose double bass and cello work never made it onto the final master, sorry guys!
• Wing Commander Jimmy Hooverfish for his ears and expertise during track mixing.
• Admiral Colin Douglas Usher for his  testing regime and constant badgering (and for his drum banging during Fig live sets).
• Simon Kirby and Paul Gilbody (again!) for Acoustic Edinburgh: one of the best monthly acoustic music evenings there is; and for their unending encouragement and repeat invitations to perform.
• All who have played with the Fig over the years and helped shape what we are today.
• All our family and friends for their love and support through it all. Fig bless you all!

We have gigs coming up and will be organising an album launch event in Edinburgh during the summer, so keep your eyes on this blog for more news.

Thanks for your on-going support, we really appreciate it and we hope you enjoy Trouble At The Rubber Plant.

Cheers

Tim and Keith.

It’s been a while since we last posted here, so I thought it was time for an update…

New album coming along nicely

Our new album is progressing steadily. I built a little web app to let Tim and I track our progress, but I haven’t managed to get it online yet. I’ll post a link once I get it up somewhere useful! Also thinking about creating a “widget” for it so Mac users everywhere can keep tabs on us if they like!

No official release date yet, but we’ll post on that once we’re clearer what’s happening. We might do an EP as a teaser in June or July… again, we’ll post something about it when we know for sure.

Keith Fig flies solo
Had a great time on Tuesday 1st May at Acoustic Edinburgh doing a solo set. Tim would have been there, but he had other commitments and the short notice of the gig meant he had to miss it.

I took along a hilarious miniature cardboard cutout of the Timster and an audio clip of him singing on my phone. This meant he could make his presence felt without actually being there… got a few laughs and I think he’s now on somebody’s notice board. I think I am going to market it – the ultimate accessory, a MiniFigTM! Complete with one bar of Timebomb’s refrain built in!

Really enjoyed the set. It was 3 songs – ‘Angel Delight’, ‘My Boy Icarus’ and ‘Is There Something I Don’t Know?’ – the first and last of which were new songs, just finished that afternoon and so fresh that Tim hasn’t even heard them yet. They went down really well, which is great – it’s always nice to get to try out a new song or two on a willing audience… the good thing is that now they have garnered some positive feedback, Tim will get to hear them!

-.-

So that’s what’s been happening since our last post. This post will probably slip down the blog a bit as I have some “future” stuff to post, so I hope it get’s read!

K-Fig x