Fun Ender
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Fun Ender

Band Alternative Punk

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This band has not uploaded any videos

Music

The best kept secret in music

Press


"Fun Ender take Tourette’s to a new level"

Recently making the dreaded trek out to the mailbox for my weekly helping of bills, I was greeted by a peculiar little gift — amidst the bills, of course. Fun Ender, an oft-overlooked and under appreciated trio of Lansing musicians, has finished its year-in-the-making full-length and the results had been left in my mailbox along with a cute, personalized invitation to the band’s CD release show this Thursday, March 3, at Mac’s Bar.

Having witnessed Fun Ender’s take on what must be the closest musical approximation to Tourette’s syndrome, I was not surprised by the cover art: a birthday cake with the record title, “Happy Birthday, Motherfucker,” decorated in frosting. In fact, Fun Ender has always tended toward a time and place where punk rock meant throwing political-correctness to the wind and just letting loose with whatever was on your mind.

That’s not to say that Fun Ender is a politically oriented band by any means. The topics that fuel the band’s creative angst seem to be reserved for the type of under-the-skin annoyances that can only be provided by such things as bad drivers (“Turn Signal Motherfucker”), dishonest friends (“The Ruse Beneath”) and the misfortune of the mentally handicapped (“Retard(s)”).

The newly cultivated “Tourette’s” genre is not only appropriate when applied to Fun Ender’s lyrical content. The band’s guitarist/singer, Colin Such, seems to have a way of making his instrument sound like it’s rambling between fits of random expression that fits the group’s style to a tee. In fact, each member of the band (including drummer Kevin Mulrooney, previous bassist George Brackx, who is on the album, and current bassist Josh Such) brings a distinctly unique playing style to the table that separates Fun Ender from contemporaries in its field. Simply put, the music is actually complicated and progressive without coming off as pretentious.

Fun Ender’s combination of loose-lipped insanity and up-tempo, noisy musical dementia on “Happy Birthday Motherfucker” is sure to garner comparisons to early-‘90s Touch & Go bands such as the Jesus Lizard or Shellac. While the band isn’t reinventing music on “Happy Birthday Motherfucker,” it is surely mining territory that few bands choose to in today’s musical climate. As other bands mired in pontificating on grand political themes or simply sticking to straight-ahead rock music seem to come a dime per dozen, Fun Ender is bound to breathe some fresh — albeit polluted — air on bored and sanitized ears.
- Lansing City Pulse


Discography

"Happy Birthday Motherfucker" - Self-produced
debut!

"Plane Crash Sampler" - features two live songs and album single!

Photos

Feeling a bit camera shy

Bio

Do you fabricate your life and lie to your friends? Do you pretend the fun will never end? If so, Fun Ender will show you the light. Like a gospel band without religion, these boys tell of the harsh truths of life and remind us that the end of life as we know it may always be lurking just around every corner. Armed with a loud, piercing squalor of guitar, chest-thumping bass that threatens to leave its listeners in cardiac arrest, crackle-and-pop drums reminiscent of 4th of July fireworks trapped in rhythm, and a distinct style of razor-sharp sarcasm, Fun Ender preaches the Good Book of true rock and roll spirit to a world corrupted by unholy zealous marketing suits Zand walking fashion plates.
Fun Ender’s saga began as early as the winter of 2003 when two long-time high school chums chose to become comrades in arms and destroy the throngs of fake bands with fake images and fake agendas proliferating across the globe. One, guitarist/vocalist Colin (who has managed to keep his last name top-secret), emerged from the rubble of a heavy rock band known as the Black Lungs. The other, drummer/sometimes vocalist, Kevin (again, last names appear to be classified information with this band) survived the implosion of a red hot speedy punk band called Betrayed by Birth. The two soon recruited the effects-laden bass style of George, also of the Black Lungs, and set to work on writing angular songs that dared to be put in one category at a time, drawing on influences ranging from Black Flag to Devo to Queen, and even trashy 70's Bollywood songs. After a number of months and a handful of promising shows the band moved into a house together and promptly overhauled the basement, making it a private, albeit damp, studio. A few sunless months passed and Fun Ender released themselves from self-imposed prison, emerging with a solid homegrown album, aptly titled Happy Birthday Motherfucker. However, the toll had already been taken. Struggling with financial problems and strained friendships (but mostly financial problems) George walked away from the band owing a great deal of rent for their house/studio/prison. He was later found dead in his cheap new apartment. Coincidence? Anyway, the band was left baseless and bass-less in 2004. Enter Josh, a longtime friend with a penchant for backwoods antics, and more importantly whirlwind bass. With as solid a lineup as ever, Fun Ender once again began to perform around the Lansing area and write new material.
While their music may come across as hard and abrasive as any metal or hardcore band, the Fun Ender boys know there is no time for the flavor-of-the-week dress and macho posturing that comes with the territory. They come with a message: this money-maker B.S. that passes for real rock and roll better duck and cover, because its got to go. Fun Ender knows the end cometh, and its just a matter of when.

- Chaz Brackz, professional music critic