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(well... there aren't any bad ones yet, but when they do come we won't hide em)
Traditional rock bands have vocals, guitar, bass, and drums. Traditional bands sing lyrics about love and sports cars.
Fellow Project is all but traditional. The band's album, If We Were Mariachis, was recorded in a buddy's basement and
includes songs about violence, emotions, and the bad part of town. The lyrics are interesting, more like poetry
than rock 'n' roll. In their song "Shoot the Latter but Save Your Face," vocalist Joe chants about a violent war
led by the religious right. "United millions will die/divided by boundaries that fail to form shields/the red that
will flow will be celebrated as well as mourned.Nothing will stop the bombs/God's name will be emblazoned on the sides of them."
All of the lyrics on the album are chanted in no particular rhythm over the music, but one must appreciate both the poetry
and the melodic instrumentals. Band members Tia and Jeff add a new dimension to the music with a flute and a mandolin.
Where else could you find a band that combines poetry with unconventional instrumentation than Fellow Project?
Elizabeth St. John
Oh, great. A record. Like, a real record. The big black disc thing you need some ancient bulky machine to play.
What the hell am I supposed to do with this?
What kinda goddamn fools put out a 10" record in this day and age? The same kinda goddamn fools who don't give a fuck about
what they're supposed to do, opting instead to take a path of their own choosing. I admire that, and I admire Fellow Project.
I'm sure every half-baked hack who's listened to this would probably describe Where's The Wire? this way (and since I fall into
this realm, I'll unapologetically say it anyhow), but these guys sound like a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup meeting between Lou Reed
and an unplugged version of the Pixies. Lyrically, Fellow Project is sharp and clever and painfully self-conscious. "Doom?" kicks
off side one by saying, "Some singers are assholes and really good actors who really mean what they say. I may be guilty but I do
believe there is something inside me." The album's closing track, "Where's The Wire?" (and don't these guys use a helluva lot of
question marks?) contains what's probably my favorite line of the entire release: "Yeah I stick to myself, though I may be hanging out
with the wrong crowd." They even have a song called "Vamanos," which I suspect may be a dig at their obvious Pixies influence. (And just
in case you didn't realize it, the Pixies' "Vamos"- in both its forms- is absolutely one [or two, I guess] of the best songs released
in the late '80s). Musically, Fellow Project has a smoothness and high bopability factor that'll suck you right into their horse
race-loving maws. Kick your goddamn parakeet off your turntable and check this out already.
- Ben Hunter
Eight songs of ragged pop strum with some nice co-ed vocalizing, vaguely approaching some sort of Black Francis/Kim Deal dynamic,
only the guy sounds more like Howe Gelb of Giant Sand, and the songs have a sort of open-air sound that wouldn't have been out of
place on their earlier records - though to be sure, Fellow Project is a lot less ambitious about it, choosing to fall into a
Pixies/Violent Femmes style of ingredienty songwriting quirk. They write good songs, but for every time I cringed at where
they were derived from, I heard a touch that surprised me... a handful of both good and bad, really. Black jellybeans mixed in with
the tasty ones, if you will. If they got better at covering up the seams, and stopped showing their hand so much, they could get
really good. As it is, this shows more promise than expected, and was a very nice surprise that some of you may very much want to
check out. Grown up sounds.
The singer sounds so much like Lou Reed it's eerie. Aside from that,
it's pretty damn hard to pin a sound on a band as unique sounding as
the Fellow Project. (I fucking hate that name, by the way.) It's mostly
acoustic music done incredibly well. They have a flute, the standard
stringed instruments, and people who know how to play them very well.
Sounds jazzy in places. I hear the early punk sounds of the Minutemen
and the Big Boys, but there are also artsy sounds reminiscent of the
Velvet Underground and Belle & Sebastian. Regardless, it sounds really
good in a sort of way most things that come out of Plan-It-X Records
do. Except, of course, it didn't come from Plan-It-X.
(burnitdown/REBUILD 153 East 17th St. Huntington Station, NY 11746)
-General Zod And The Laser Beam
Fellow Project plays mellow music with lovely tones and introspective lyrics. Their use of instruments like the mandolin and flute gives them an airy feel.
Both vocalists bring something to the style as the female's vocals are smooth and the male vocals have a '60s protest quality. The songs here seem to float
along with a presence that comes from the power of the sound. This set of songs is nice, in its mellowness. It seems like this would be an intensive and
interesting live show. LO
This product of the staunchly DIY Long Island punk scene is living proof that do it yourself does not mean crappy production, crappy packaging and a crappy performance. Instead, this full-length by Fellow Project is totally elegant and beatiful without playing into accepted definitions of what a serious punk or indie rock CD should look or sound like. The packaging, while spare, is a perfect reflection of the music, which is just as brilliantly expectation-defying.
Fellow Project's sound is based around vocalist Joe's acoustic guitar and powerful pipes (the guy is seriously a dead ringer for early Pixies-era Frank Black; I'd hardly be surprised to find out that the two of them share some DNA) with the addition of some bass, mandolin and a very unexpected flute. While this kind of unconventional band setup is hardly unheard-of in DIY circles (just check out Myles of Destruction's fiddle-fueled metal), Fellow Project are far better at using their cobbled-togther toolbox than most bands of their ilk. While the songs themselves are fairly straightforward, there is a great deal of skill apparent in arranging these awkward pop songs for this particular group of instruments and not making it sound completely off the wall (though, indeed, I'm not 100% sold on the flute).
While Fellow Project clearly don't aspire toward that kind of fame (at least their DIY aesthetic seems to indicate that they don't... plus you can download this entire record for free from their web site), they really could be the next Pixies. Their sound is that distinctive, their lyrics are that clever and their skill as players is that well-developed. In this age of thousands of independent records being released every month on a listening public physically unable to take it all in it's likely that Fellow Project may end up just being a tiny drop in the bucket, but with an approach just different enough to turn heads this band could really become something special. In fact, to those who have heard them I have no doubt that they already are.
Posted by Daniel on August 24th, 2004 12:35 PM
Who says that punk needs to be loud, distorted and in your face to get a point across? The oldest grassroots musical form, folk, has been telling stories of the personal and social for a few hundred years now. Long Island's Fellow Project uses Americana as a springboard for it's jangly acoustic guitar-based yet punk inspired anthems, executed in "raise your fist to the sky" spirit. The lyrics are carried by the sincere weight of Joe Jerkens' (vocals and guitar) Lou Reed meets Jonathan Richmond vocal stylings. Fellow Project's sound is a cross between the storytelling of Johnny Cash or David Dondero with hints of the Alt-Country Indie Rock vibe of Spoon fluttering about(CD)
- Andrianni
Fellow Project is more DIY than Fugazi.
They make their own CD cases, modifying discarded AOL disc jackets with tape, staples, black paint and all. That procedure is best reflected in the song titled "We Do the Best We Can With What We Have," one of 11 tracks on If We Were Mariachis that exude smart anti-folk rock. Vocalist/guitarist Joe Jerkens leads this Huntington trio, as he and bassist/flautist/vocalist Tia Meilinger, drummer Adam Kuhn and occasional mandolin player Jeff Oblique display a voice rooted in the socially-aware folk of Billy Bragg, Woody Guthrie and early Bob Dylan. In addition to questioning social and personal struggles via stream-of-consciousness lyrics, Fellow Project questions contentedness. "When I swing my arm across this elegant instrument I yearn for resistance, some tension to break the slack," Jerkens languishes in "The Myth," as if he's unsure that playing it safe is the best bet. Later, in the solo, lo-fi "Perfectly Subtle" he mulls, "days like these make me want to kind of fight a battle. I need a cause, my cause." We're sure that he'll find one.
— Kenyon Hopkin
Acoustic Folk music with hints of punk, country, jazz, indie rock and other exotic musical genres. They also utilize exotic musical instruments like the flute and mandolin. I'm really not qualified at all to review such a thing or tell you if it's good or not. The only thing I can think of while listening to this is being in a coffee house. That may or may not be a good thing to you.
This was put out by burnitdown/REBUILD though and if you haven't checked out their site, you should. It's a very DIY label based out of Long Island who are all about putting out bands in their scene for free and distributing the music for free. I'm sure they're putting out something you'd be into, so go to their site. www.burnitdownrebuild.com. You can find info on how to get the Fellow Project CD there and many other CD's. Or you can go to Fellow Project's site and download the entire CD there. www.fellowproject.com
Fellow Project singer Joe sounds like a peppier, less pretentious Lou Reed as he sings over the band's acoustic,
poppy numbers. As the album carries on, the Lou Reed feel becomes even more pronounced, and the CD starts to drag.
Its 11 tracks pass by in only 34 minutes, but it feels much longer. For instance, the eighth track sounds like it
was recorded during a live performance, but the sound is so bad and so quiet that it's nearly impossible to make
anything out. That just brings the whole thing down and tries the listener's patience.
(KR) (punk planet)
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