LBM Flashback: Handsome Furs

Time for another blast from the past. For some reason I feel like I’ve been reading a lot of reports recently from bands having it rough it China – coming over here to tour and just not being able to handle it. So I thought it’d be appropriate to dig up this gem of a show from Handsome Furs, who took China for a spin back in 2009/2010 while they immersed themselves in everything China (and southeast asia which they toured extensively) had to offer, good and bad – taking it all at face value. When I caught them at Dos Kolegas in August of 2010, it was just fucking gravy – really one of the first shows here where I felt like the biggest fan, singing along to just about every song (as one can tell by my spastic nature in these videos).

And this was during the time when they were working on their latest and sadly last album (the pair broke up this June), Sound Kapital, which throughout gives nods to the music scene here (including the title). So the whole album to me was like a big personal love letter to what so many of us find exhilarating here in the Chinese music scene, to “a bunch of lonely kids making noise in a basement”.

But really it’s when they get down to “You Don’t Serve The People” that I realized the effect the country had on these two; you’d be a fool not to be able to connect the lyrics to the situation here in China. It’s a fantastic song, that’s hellbent on stirring up emotions all the while keeping a beat that falls like napalm.

Kudos to Handsome Furs for taking advantage of their travels out here and squeezing some gold out of it.

P.S – please get back together!!