Further

Bad Paintings

“We put beach sand in our tape machine!” neatly sums up Further’s approach to creating music. Their original brand of 90’s West Coast indie-rock was born of their unashamed love of their favorite bands and the freedom to Do-It-Yourself. The music they made was both referential and innovative but their legacy remains as obscure as the records they released.

WHERE WERE YOU THEN?

1990 was a strange year for the Rademaker brothers. While their indie rock contemporaries/heroes were signing record deals with Geffen Records (Teenage Fanclub, Sonic Youth, Nirvana etc), they were just escaping. After being under contract with Geffen for three years with their mishandled but well-meaning Los Angeles band Shadowland, their music was fairly unnoticed despite the major label dollars being spent on them. Falling somewhere between pre-Americana, pre-Grunge and post-Punk, Shadowland did manage to cast a spell on the LA music scene for a short time. Not the hair metal or pay-to-play scene that dominated in the late 80’s but the legit scene that revolved around clubs like Scream and had them sharing bills with locals Janes Addiction, Lions and Ghosts as well as 80’s touring bands like the Pixies, Soul Asylum, House of Love, Mighty Lemon Drops, and World Party.

After what amounted to an mild bidding war, Shadowland signed to Geffen Records and ran in some pretty cool circles by recording and touring with the likes of the Waterboys, Dream Academy and Robert Plant. The rest of the story kinda sucks except for the opportunity the band got to tour the USA with the Meat Puppets and it put them back in touch with what was happening on the college rock circuit; now newly named Indie Rock…After a few tours, two releases, and one particularly fierce onstage tongue-lashing from Mark Arm after the group opened for Mudhoney, Darren and Brent put Shadowland to bed for good.

Overdosing on weed, surfing and Dinosaur Jr’s “You’re Living All Over Me,” the Rademaker’s along with drummer Kevin Fitzgerald recruited a young San Gabriel valley guitarist named Josh Schwartz and started Further half outta spite and half outta their minds. Further flat out turned down other major label offers, opting to release their debut 7″ Filling Station on Bongload Records (home of Beck’s Loser 12”) and for their next release, the band and good friend and filmmaker Darren J Lavett started Christmas Records. After releasing a few more singles and two full length records, the Griptape lp and Sometimes Chimes, other indie labels from around the world keyed in on their sound and released singles and compilation tracks and a milestone was reached. The band impressed Alan McGee with their knowledge of Creation’s history and more importantly their “fuck it” attitude and signed on to the Creation Records’ umbrella label, Ball Product, to issue their next LP in the UK. Alan even suggested the band call their record “David Geffen Suck my D*ck” but they went with his second suggestion “Sometimes Chimes” and wound up receiving acclaim from the UK press including a 9/10 review in NME as well as recording a BBC Session with the legendary John Peel.

Further became a permanent fixture on the tiny LA indie scene at clubs like Raji’s, Al’s Bar and the now infamous all-ages club, Jabberjaw, where they shared bills with everyone from the likes of Pavement, Beck, Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev, Royal Trux, Urge Overkill, Archers of Loaf, and Codeine. The highlight of Further’s touring came when Lou Barlow and Sebadoh took the band out on a southeastern tour just to spite Lou’s ex-bandmate J Mascis. At the time the two were not speaking and since Further had a knack of exploding into Dinosaur Jr’s sonic territory, Lou believed it would get J’s goat to have them out as his support act. Even when asked by the NME if he had anything to say to J Mascis, Lou smugly replied “ever heard Further?”

Cut to over two decades later and Lou and J are once again band-mates and all is right with the world. Like many great records from that era, the Further records are all long “out of print” and probably fetching decent bucks on Ebay. The Rademaker brothers along with Josh went on to form two highly-acclaimed bands, Beachwood Sparks and The Tyde, respectively and Kevin Fitzgerald went on to become the drummer for the Circle Jerks. That West Coast lo-fi California indie rock sound that Further helped to pioneer actually became a thing with the kids and “Where Were You Then?” chronologically compiles the best of the singles, all remastered from the original vinyl, and gives us chance to look back at a band that cared enough not to sell indie rock down the river and didn’t care enough to bring a paddle.

It’s FURTHER Where Were You Then? (out September 2nd on Bad Paintings)

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TRACK LISTING:

1. Filing Station – 7” single Bongload (bl003) 1992

2. Over And Out – 7” single Christmas Records (ch101) 1992

3. Generic 7 – from Born Under A Good Sign 7” EP Standard Recordings (sr75) 1993

4. She Lives By The Castle 2 – from Fluf/Further Split 7” single First Strike Recordings (4inv1) 1993

5. Surfing Pointers – 7” EP Christmas Records (ch107) 1994

6. California Bummer – from Grimes Golden 10”/CD EP Fingerpaint Records/Runt (fingerpaint4)/(runt07) 1994/1995

7. Quiet Riot Grrrl – from Grimes Golden 10”/CD EP Fingerpaint Records/Runt (fingerpaint4)/(runt07) 1994/1995

8. Springfield Mods – from Distance 2×7” EP Lissys Records (liss4) 1995

9. Spheres of Influence – from Distance 2×7” EP Lissys Records (liss4) 1995

10. Wett Katt – from Distance 2×7” EP Lissys Records (liss4) 1995

11. I Wanna Be A Stranger – 7” single Kirb Dog Records (kirbdog16) 1996

12. Be That As It May – from Next Time West Coast CD EP 100 Guitar Mania Records (100gm-15) 1996

13. Grandview Skyline – from Next Time West Coast CD EP 100 Guitar Mania Records (100gm-15) 1996