That aptly describes my relationship, or lack there of, with Buffalo cum Chicago punkers the Baseball Furies.
Issuing singles dating back to the mid nineties sets the band in my wheelhouse for obsession. Even during that decade, though, it was difficult to collect each and every release a band put out. I didn’t loose touch with the group, instead my tastes shifted. And after the 2002 release of Greater than Ever the band just seemed to have disappeared. That could be due to my own lack of digging or perhaps even a shift in how the band functioned.
Either way, Great than Ever, despite its hyperbolic title, ostensibly closes the book on the ninties punk resurgence. The genre, obviously never went away, but with a spate of acts as talented as the Showcase Showdown seeking to reactivate ‘70s style stuff combined with an updated sense of sneering wit, the early aughties didn’t have a chance to replicate such a cohort.
Greater than Ever marked the maturing of the Baseball Furies as it unloosed a succinctly, yet sloppy take on the previous thirty years of punk related musics. There wasn’t ever any hope for the band to achieve some semblance of wide spread success, but that might account for why the album was such a visceral thing.
2004 saw the release of Let it Be. I missed that Baseball Furies release completely and still have no idea what that album sounds like. But with a brief two years between releases, shouldn’t it be safe to assume that there isn’t too much of an aural departure? I guess not.
Waiting another five years to issue another album might speak to the shift in music’s dissemination and the relative unpopularity of the genre. 2009’s Feed Them to the Lions, though, arrives so detached from the 2002 pillar of punk that while the disc’s disappointing, it’s more shocking than anything else.
If this were a rap blog, I’d instantly be berated as a hater. And perhaps I am, but that doesn’t account for the band’s complete and total disregard for its earlier work. Of course, playing the same style of music for one’s entire career has gotta be a rather boring endeavor. Why then would one choose punk as a genre to work within.
The Baseball Furies haven’t completely detached itself from punk related sub genres, though. “Are you Going to Point Your Gun at Me?” might come off as something of a lost post-punk gem, but that could easily just be my ears wanting to find something of merit over the course of Feed Them to the Lions. Whatever the answer is, I wouldn’t be too surprised if this was to be the last we heard from the Baseball Furies. And while it’s distasteful to say so, that might be for the best.