The Fucking Eagles

"In much more encouraging news, I love the Fucking Eagles. This is not an endorsement of a twisted Don Henley project, but a recommendation for a new Tacoma band I encountered via KEXP's Sonic Reducer show. Sounding like a more abrasive and chaotic version of Reigning Sound's garage-soul punk and operating with enough petulant attitude to erase Tacoma's reputation as a musicians' wasteland, the Fucking Eagles don't have anything recorded yet, but you can check out some rough MP3s and info about future shows at www.myspace.com/ihatethefuckingeagles."

hlevin@thestranger.com
- The Stranger

"..For reasons grounded in both firsthand knowledge and a snotty sense of elitism, I assumed that if something interesting was happening in Tacoma, it was already happening in Seattle or would arrive here shortly.

This all started to change late last year, when I began detecting glimmers of activity. The ground down south is far from fallow: Tacoma is churning out a diverse crop of promising bands at an impressive rate. Whether you cite the swaggering, soulful bar rock of the Fucking Eagles; the sunny, cerebral pop of the Elephants; the Anglophonic guitar sprawl of Mono in VCF; or the dirty disco punk of Paris Spleen, it's an unusually fertile time.

..All this development is not unprecedented: Tacoma has been a critical part of Northwest music history since the '60s, when bands like the Sonics, the Ventures, and the Wailers broke ground with noisier, deconstructed approaches to the homogenous Top 40 sound saturating the airwaves. Thanks to Seattle's restrictive teen-dance ordinance in the '80s and '90s, Tacoma venues such as the Crescent Ballroom and Community World Theater hosted landmark performances by seminal bands such as Soundgarden, Green River, Malfunkshun, Melvins, and Nirvana (who held band practices in bassist Krist Noveselic's Tacoma home for a brief spell in the late '80s). When the Northwest music scene began to break nationally, bands migrated north, and the focus shifted toward Seattle. The role Tacoma had in shaping the "grunge years" was forgotten.."

hlevin@thestranger.com
- The Stranger

"These words of mine, printed here every week, have repercussions. It's a lesson I've learned over time. While it seems obvious, I didn't always see it. I figured people just looked at the pretty pictures. Sometimes they're good; sometimes they're bad, but there are always repercussions to the sentences I haphazardly string together. This column has made a lot of people happy. This space has made a lot folks foam with anger. I've been called a liar, a hack, an idiot, and even a professional. I've received gleaming letters of thanks and scathing e-mails, questioning everything from my ability to my manhood.
I guess you could say I've touched a lot of people.
The reason repercussions come to mind is - as you've hopefully noticed - Mudhoney has a show in Tacoma this week. There's an article about it in this issue. The last time Mudhoney came to town there was also an article in this fine rag - only, last time I wrote it. I was thrilled. Mudhoney's the shit. In an attempt to illustrate the band's accomplishments, and how they've paid their dues, I called them old - jokingly, of course - like, 87 times. I found it funny. I still think it's funny. As I watched the band rip through their set that night and reference again and again "that son of a bitch who called us old in the paper," my testicles hid inside me, and I thought about repercussions.
This time someone else is covering Mudhoney.
Luckily, there are a number of shows in Tacoma this week, all deserving ink. Even though someone else has the Mudhoney angle covered, abstaining from calling them old, I'm sure, there's plenty to write about.
Of particular interest, Glimpse, the Blue Dot, the Fucking Eagles, and the Degrees play Hell's Kitchen on Friday.
If anything in the world could ease my pain over missing a chance to cover Mudhoney - excluding lame-ass noble cop-outs like feeding the poor, a cure for cancer, or peace in the Middle East, because that's just not my style - I'd have to rate a Seaweed reunion high on the list. I have a Seaweed poster from a show at RKCNDY above my bed, reminding me every morning or afternoon, as the case may be, how much I miss that band. Seaweed, although often overlooked or forgotten when reminiscing about the glory years, is a band that changed my perspective on music. They did that for a lot of people. They have not been forgotten.
Unfortunately, there's no Seaweed reunion to be had. Sorry for getting your hopes up.
The thing is Friday's show at the Kitchen with the Blue Dot and the Fucking Eagles, while officially being referred to as a "Seaweed Alumni Show," is about as close as you can get without an official reunion.
"The Blue Dot features Aaron Stauffer, former singer of Seaweed. The Fucking Eagles features John Atkins, former bassist for Seaweed. I bet Wade Neal, former guitarist for Seaweed, will show up because he still lives in town," states an excited press release sent to me by the Degrees. Whether Neal shows or not, the electricity in the room that night will be hard to pass up.
You know that without hearing a note from either band.

But it gets better.

I'm in love with the Fucking Eagles, and it all happened within the last hour. Through the magic of Myspace, I tracked down the profane bunch and blasted through the four songs posted, including the endorphin generating "Length of Pipe" and "Feel All Right," a vocal-less shot in the arm that sonically sits your ass down in a musty '60s garage and blows the smell of smoking amplifiers and cigarettes in your face. It's never been truer.

I LOVE THE FUCKING EAGLES.

I also love writing the word Fuck. While how much of this will make it to print is still in question, facts are facts. It is how it is. Half of Seaweed will be at Hell's Kitchen on Friday, and even more exciting, the Fuckng Eagles are who everyone will leave talking about.

Mudhoney who?" - The Weekly Volcano