SUPER FURRY SUNDAYS (aka The Singular Adventures of Super Furry Animals)

A guest series by The Robster

#12: Ice Hockey Hair (1998, Creation Records, CRE288)

Brace yourselves – this is a biggie.

How could Super Furry Animals follow up two incredible years, during which they went from almost unknowns to critics’ darlings and Premier League Britpoppers spearheading the Cool Cymru scene? Well although 1998 was to be a relatively quiet year for the band, they did happen to put out of the best singles of the decade. Don’t just take my word for it:

“brilliant, predictably freakish weirdness” – Melody Maker
“[demonstrate’s SFA’s] placid casual grasp of the concept of genius” – Vox
“Single Of The Week” – NME
“could be the most perfect thing you’ll ever set ears upon” – Drowned In Sound

mp3: Ice Hockey Hair
mp3: Smokin’

The Ice Hockey Hair EP simply put any remaining doubters firmly in their place and nailed their feet to the floor. There are those who might still argue this was Super Furry Animals at their absolute peak and they never reached such heights again. I’d argue against that, but I can see where they’re coming from. The two lead tracks sound nothing alike, yet neither could be anyone other than Super Furry Animals.

The title track is utter madness. Imagine throwing Badfinger, Queen, ELO, Elton John, techno music and a huge barrel of LSD into a mixing pot to see/hear what happens. The answer, my friends, might sound a bit like Ice Hockey Hair. It’s 7 minutes of 70s-infused wonder, never knowing exactly where it’s going to take you next. It totally threw me the first time I heard it, but after a couple more plays I was devoted to it. To this day, it sounds like nothing else ever recorded.

Smokin’ takes us to a completely different place. It is rooted in dub reggae and samples the flute part of Black Uhuru’s I Love King Selassie. In fact the song was created by jamming along to that sample on loop. There’s no cryptic message to this one – it’s about smoking marajuana, pure and simple. It’s another example of a band who had so many strings to their bows, they could never decide which string to twang next.

The two songs which led the EP were felt to be a good fit for a stand-alone single as the band knew they didn’t belong on ‘Radiator’ while also feeling the direction they were heading towards for the next album wasn’t suitable either. They were both issued on 7” and cassette on 25th May 1998. Also released on that date were CD and 12” formats that contained two additonal songs.

mp3: Mu-Tron
mp3: Let’s Quit Smoking

Mu-Tron is a Cian Ciaran-penned instrumental (though there are some vocal sounds), named after the company who made music effects equipment in the 1970s. Let’s Quit Smoking is a short acoustic remix of Smokin’.

Ice Hockey Hair became the band’s highest charting single at the time, reaching #12 in the UK rundown, which is still ridiculously low considering Oasis were still having number ones with their tired, bloated dad-rock. SFA were taking pop music to another level, but the record buying public wanted their music to stay in the gutter.

Now – I said at the start this would be a biggie. I wasn’t joking – I haven’t finished yet. You see, while in the process of putting this post together and looking for a bonus track, I realised that I had enough versions of the songs from this EP to actually compile another EP altogether. So, a bonus EP this week – how does that sound?

mp3: Ice Hockey Hair [radio edit]

You might call this sacrilege, but at the end of the day, radio would never play the full version of the title track, so surely you’d prefer a 4-minute version over nothing at all? Besides, it’s actually not that bad. All the key elements are there, though there is a bit of a harsh edit at around the 2½ minute mark (where the dreamy Beach Boys-y bit should be) that jars a little. This version was issued on some CD promos.

mp3: Smokin’ [edit]

I don’t actually know where this edit comes from. I can’t find any reference of it, but here it is anyway. To be fair, the only thing that spoils Smokin’ for me is its length. It does go on a bit in its repeated “I just wanna smoke it” section, so this version actually puts that right for me.

mp3: Smoke
mp3: Dim Ysmygu (trans: No Smoking)

Two remixes of Smokin’. The latter starts off as a dub version, but quickly turns into a drum ‘n’ bass monster with an electric violin in it! I think someone let Cian run riot in the studio…

mp3: Naff Gan

Believe it or not, Ice Hockey Hair was demoed for ‘Radiator’, and this is it. It was called Naff Gan at the time as the band thought it had so many cheesy (naff) bits in it. It’s quite different to the final version, with different lyrics and melody, but the main guitar riff is already in place.

mp3: Smokin’ [Dave Clarke mix]

Not sure if this is an early take or a remix, but it doesn’t sound like the fully-fledged EP version, and even has some alternative lyrics. It was also first issued in 1997 on some magazine free CD, which hints that it was still a work-in-progress at the time.

And to finish off, if a bonus EP isn’t enough for you, then you‘re just spoilt and greedy. Nevertheless, I’m going to toss this one into the mixer as well – the song that was sampled and became the basis for Smokin’:

mp3: I Love King Selassie – Black Uhuru

Don’t ever accuse me of not being a generous old fool. Next week, we reach third album territory, and yet another new sound for the Furries.

 

The Robster