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(Clicka qua per la versione Italiana)
The Fucking Champs, an instrumental trio from San Francisco, relied on
the double-guitar attack of Josh Smith and
Tim Green (a former Nation Of Ulysses).
Drummer (and occasionally keyboardist) Tim Soete completed the line-up.
They began in 1994 with two self-released cassettes,
Music for Films About Rock and Triumph of the Air Elementals,
followed in 1995 by the singles
Some Swords (Wantage), one of their few vocal tracks,
and Second 7 (Galaxia).
The defining moment was III (Frenetic, 1997), a 25-track double album
released under the moniker C4AM95.
The style of the guitar duo had solidified in a forceful fusion of heavy-metal
and math-rock, that did not eschew melodic progressions but only if grafted
on convoluted structures. Sometimes reminiscent of
Voivod , the Champs romp through rock and roll
numbers such as Amanda and Valkyrie Is Dying and linger on the
complex scaffolding of Dale Bozzio, Flawless Victory and
The Golden Pipes Trilogy. The album is embellished with several
short electronic ditties in the vein of Brian Eno
(Now Is The Winter Of Our Discoteque,
Andres Segovia Interests Me).
IV (Drag City, 2000) is a more adult and restrained excursion into the
sources of their inspiration. Most of the rawer and harsher tones are gone,
and some sound as breezy and melodic as anything Joe Satriani has done (Esprit De Corpse, Vangelis Again).
The electronic experiments of the previous album have turned into yawn-inspiring
flirtations
with synth-pop (Policenauts) or in amateurish ambient music
(Lost).
The album is also marred by parodies of
heavy-metal classics, like
the ridiculous pomp of
Thor Is Like Immortal,
that sounds like a parody of Rush,
and the clumsy stoner innuendos of Extra Man (the
only song with vocals).
There is little of interest beyond the
trivial riffing of These Glyphs Are Dusty.
The attempt to merge
instrumental progressive-metal and post-rock is generally a failure.
Tim Green also had an electronica project called Concentrick that released
the soothing, relaxing ambient music of
Music For Tunnels (Louder, 2000),
Tender Machines (Deluxe, 2002) and
Lucid Dreaming (Emperor Jones, 2002) for guitar, keyboards, cello and flute,
and then Aluminum Lake (Drag City, 2007), the first album to feature a band.
Concentrick was the solo project of Fucking Champs' guitarist Tim Green.
Lucid Dreaming (Emperor Jones, 2002) is, surprisingly, an album of
soothing electronic ambient music engulfed in slowly morphing, celestial
new-age melodies (but the tour de force of Sometimes The Sun Rises,
occupying half of the album, is instead a dumb display of harsh drones).
The playing on The Fucking Champs's V (Drag City, 2002) is often fearlessly intriguing in songs like
Crummy Lovers Die in the Grave and
Never Enough Neck (a cross between
King Crimson and Thin Lizzy)
and occasionally amusing (I Am the Album Cover) but
there is little that they had not done before, and the ambient electronic intermezzos (such as Children Perceive The Hoax Cluster) are really embarrassing.
Aliens of Gold is falsely intellectual heavy metal for the age of easy-to-make CDs.
Best are the pounding boogie of Policenauts 2000,
the jazzy videogame-inspired jam of Major Airbro's Landing
and the horror atmosphere of Chorale Motherfucker.
The Fucking AM is a mostly instrumental joint collaboration between
the Fucking Champs and
Trans AM. But Gold (Drag City, 2004) is
merely a rather outdated take on hard-rock
with echoes of prog-metal suites
(Bad Leg, Powerpoint)
and southern-rock jams (Doing Research For An Autobiography).
One inspired nolvety (the minimalist progression of
Electrico Gomez) is not enough to redeem a trivial idea.
The Fucking Champs' guitarist Josh Smith is also in Weakling,
a black metal outfit that released the five colossal tracks of
Dead As Dreams (Tumult, 2000), reminiscent of Scandinavian
black metal.
Members of Weakling went on to play in Amber Asylum, Drunk Horse, Asunder, Sangre Amado, Saros and Gault.
Weakling's frontman John Gossard formed Dispirit that debuted with the cassette Rehearsal At Oboreten.
VI (Drag City, 2007), replacing Josh Smith with Trans Am's Phil Manley,
boasts A Forgotten Chapter In The History Of Ideas and little else.
The Fucking Champs' guitarist Tim Green and
Piano Magic's occasional drummer Ezra Feinberg
formed Citay and released albums of soaring guitar-pop such as
Citay (Dead Oceans, 2006) and
Little Kingdom (Dead Oceans, 2007).
Josh Smith also formed Futur Skullz (Kemado, 2011).
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