The Fens

Simply put, Peter Orr is a hands-down superb entertainer. - David Cuthbert

The Fens
Circle Bar

June 01, 2005

"Sneaky Pete" Orr should have always gotten as much attention as fellow bitter and grizzled singer-songwriter Alex McMurray. But, then again, McMurray needed a Disneyworld angle for his music's story before he got on the cover of Offbeat.

Honestly, Orr isn't as musically talented as McMurray, but he's more of an entertainer and way funnier. Orr is now the city's poet laureate of dark folk. Thankfully, his silly, irreverent, and self-deprecating humor shines some light on shitty memories, but he doesn't pull any punches. There's no comforting wink. Pete is pissed.

His band, The Fens, has been spewing backwards, vitriol-infested material since 1998. Orr is joined onstage by an upright bassist and a mandolin player. Who knows if it's true, but it's been said The Fens set a record by getting fired the most times from Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville (for onstage fistfights, for disrespectful renditions of audience requests, and for telling some guy from Ohio, "Yell 'Brick House' once more and I'll brain you with this pint glass").

The band wasn't that mean last night at The Circle Bar, even though the bassist made sure to mention they made a woman cry at their last performance at the bar. So, what's to cry about? Not the music. The Fens were solid on that front, turning out a tight mix of Appalachian bluegrass, folk, and country. Some people call it Americana. One song was a slower number that didn't have a punchline, but most were upbeat ramblers led by the upright bass and colored by mandolin solos. No, even though you'd have to be pretty sensitive, if anyone would have cried, they would have cried about Orr's dim and base outlook on life.

Songs concerned the luck of not catching the eye of an ugly woman and how New Orleans is a hellhole. The Fens'll really make you re-think whether you should ask that girl to move down here with you. They'll make you think you should move up there. The Fens needed "your love and friendship like a hole in the head" and they didn't need "enemies with friends like you."

The icing on the cake was an attack on the drunks at Checkpoint Charlie's.

"Blow all your money but don't blame yourself
Somebody in here might be your friend
Or maybe you could just pretend
Will it make any difference in the end?"--"Checkpoints"

Who wants ice cream? - review by Jason Songe

The Fens
Nobody Likes Sneaky Pete
Binky Records


Leaving my personal feelings aside, I don't know if it's really true that nobody likes Sneaky Pete. I guess it makes for a better title than Strung-Out, Horny, and Pissed-Off in New Orleans. Some listeners might be tempted to throw in overeducated but not me. If Sneaky Pete's New Orleans sounds like Henry Miller's Paris and William Burroughs' Algiers...well, New Orleans is like Henry Miller's Paris and Algiers is within the parish limits.

Or maybe you can believe that nobody loves Sneaky Pete, a man who is (imagine the announcer introducing James Brown on Live at the Apollo) a "Lush," who needs "Your love and friendship like a hole in the head," who's "Better off stupid," who doesn't need "Enemies with friends like you," and who's gonna "Jump from the Algiers ferry and drown."

Welcome to his world.


* * *

It was 1981
We were wearing ugly clothes
Listening to Talking Heads
and the Teardrop Explodes
While staring at the Hudson
Until you ran away from me
Which wouldn't have been so bad
Except we'd taken LSD
All at once you couldn't stand me
And you didn't want to know me
I said, "I'm from Missouri"
And you're going have to show me"
And I cried out to the heavens
And the sky turned white and red
And I need your love and friendship like a hole in my goddam head
-----Peter Orr, "I Need Your Love and Friendship"

The core of Nobody Likes Sneaky Pete is a set of five humorous but dark songs about bad love. Maybe with five different women, maybe with one woman, clearly with The One Woman Sneaky Pete looks for and usually finds in all the women he sings about. One song is even called "New Song, Old Story." She's the one he follows down to New Orleans or finds in the demimonde after he's here.

Your tears are bleary but my heart is aching
The light in your eyes is all I hold sacred
You throw your pearls at swine
They all drag you down every time
You throw your pearls at swine
From here to the end of the line
You spend your nights
In whisky and lights
You wake up hungover with strange married men
You crawl to my sofa
Where you sit sipping coffee
You say you're so glad I'm not one of them
Fuck you too
-----Peter Orr, "Dumb as Shit"

Tormenting himself with a self-destructive woman who he's letting destroy him, it's no wonder nobody likes Sneaky Pete: he doesn't much like himself, at least not in any way you would notice. Musically, the strongest song of this set of five, the one I'd pick for radio play on some college station, is the bass-riff driven "Better Off Stupid."

Nothing like a good looking woman who's just starting to hit the skids
Left your husband in Ohio, he got the house and kids
I wouldn't trust you even if you weren't a thief
With all your lies and betrayals and your strange beliefs
You'll be older and wiser if you don't die first
That thing on your arm is only gonna get worse
-----Peter Orr, "Better Off Stupid"


* * *

Sneaky Pete is Peter Orr's stage-name and alter-ego, and how far his world view is shared by Mr. Orr I don't know. Orr knows that since the advent of recorded music, all music became contemporary and that our folk songs, the ones we heard in childhood and high school, the ones that are stuck in our helpless minds and hearts, are less likely to be Childe's Ballads and Woody Guthrie than they are the Four Tops and the Rolling Stones. These are the songs that are the touchstones for most of Sneaky Pete's sad tales.

Narrative logic insists that Nobody Likes Sneaky Pete end with a song about suicide. Sneaky Pete says he's going to jump from the Algiers Ferry, the unromantic car ferry that shuttles from the foot of Canal Street to Algiers Point. It's the funniest thing on the cd precisely because, as Peter Orr told me, you know the singer really is just going to stay in the bar and drink more beer. He's more likely to miss the ferry than jump from it.

But Sneaky Pete has more to sing about than Sneaky Pete. There's also the song "Checkpoint's," about a local late night bar. It has the same relationshipship to Billy Joel's "Piano Man" as anti-matter to matter. Imagine coming into Cheers and hearing the entertainer toast you along these lines:

Drink all your troubles away
Let them wash up somewhere
They might like it and stay
You hate your life
You can't stand your job
What's five o'clock for anyway?
Shoot all your wishes to hell
Blow all your money but don't blame yourself
Somebody in here might be your friend
Or maybe you could just pretend
Will it make any difference in the end?
It's rare to hear a debut album where all the songs are as powerful--and corrosive--as these. One warning: if you get to the point you're firmly fixed in the world of Nobody Likes Sneaky Pete, it'll probably be a good idea to stop listening to the cd for a while. And maybe d - Reid Mitchell

Orr is one of the funniest men in New Orleans... Thankfully, he's able to shine some light on shitty memories by also being silly, irreverent, and self-deprecating, while pulling no punches. There's no comforting wink... And when those maladjusted and perverse lyrics mix with that bitter and hopeless music, the Fens can be pretty potent.


Read the complete interview in the archive at www.antigravitymagazine.com - Feature article: