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The Douglas Fir -
A Tree Grows in Boston
by Jonathan Perry
It's more than a little ironic that the Boston-area trio The Douglas Fir
named themselves after a tall evergreen tree that's
found in western North America. While it may be true that singer-guitarist
Jay Walsh is fairly tall, and though the dictionary
description of the species as "strong and durable" could be
applied to the band's muscular, melodic approach, the Fir appear
to have little else in common with their North American namesake. And
less still with North American rock and roll.
Instead. the outfit
(formed two years ago in a basement in Allston) evoke the spirit of '80's
UK pop groups such as the Church,
Echo and the Bunnymen,and the Smiths, and the slew of New Zealand bands
who appeared around the same time: the Clean,
the Chills...you get the idea. On "Unwelcome," the band's lovely
debut seven-inch single recently released on their own
Dark Years Records label, Walsh (who grew up in Miami) even pronounces
the word "glance" in decidedly Morrisseyan
vernacular, as "glaahnce." Although Walsh readily acknowledges
an abiding fondness for the above mentioned artists
and that particular era of alternative pop, he and bandmates Patrick Cooley
(bass) and John Michael (drums) say they
more or less stumbled upon their sound when they first got together in
John Michael's basement. "I had been up here a
little while, and in a band before, and we went our separate ways,"
says Walsh, whose group performs July 10 at the
Lizard Lounge and again July 17 at the Kendall Cafe. "But I had written
a lot, and i put a flier up and Patrick answered.
And John Michael had put out a flier at Boston University (looking for
a band). We didn't know each other, so there was
some awkwardness at first. We never thought, 'What's the big master plan
here?' But we all listened to a vast amount of music..
.and there was a mutual respect there. But none of us had a manifesto
or anything...we weren't going for a specific sound."
Before long, however,
the three knew they had found it, as well as having found trusted musical
allies in each other.
"There was a chemistry there that we immediately felt," says
Cooley, who had also spent time in other bands. "It's good
to start playing together and feel that you're not afraid to take chances,
that everything's very open, very flexible.
You've got to have that in a band." That sense of mystery and possibility
is, in part, what led to the group's name.
Walsh was on vacation in Australia (he has family in Sydney) and saw a
tree exhibit featuring the Douglas fir. Those
words immediately struck him as enigmatic, like the name of some sort
of fictional character. And it somehow fit a
band that had yet to define itself. "I think people think we're a
little different, that we're off the beaten path a little bit,
which is good," says Walsh. Drummer John Michael grins, chiming in
with his own sound bite: "There's a buzz about
being in this band, and I'm high on it!" Indeed, despite only having
issued one single and a pair of lo-fi-demo-tape EP's,
the Fir's ravishingly melancholy, dark-hued dream pop suggests a new band
whose promise far exceeds their current
discography.
One of the band's
earliest homemade efforts, "Apollo 11," for example, was a magnificent
slice of echo-drenched,
psychedelic space-pop in the vein of Bailter Space (there's that New Zealand
connection again) or Bob Pollard on a basement
bender. And this spring, Magnet magazine even included "Unwelcome"
on a CD sampler that also features tracks by the likes of
Ani DiFranco, Cobra Verde, and the Meat Puppets. Not bad for an unsigned
group who have yet to make their first album.
"We've just struck the tip of the ice berg of where we're going as
a band," Walsh says. "And hopefully, we'll be able to get
something out there nationally in the future. We'd like it if someone
else picked up the tab (for making a record), but that's
not going to put it off. We're going to be doing this when we're 80 years
old." Sounds perfectly reasonable to us, after all,
Douglas firs have been known to survive longer that that.
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