| Now Getting Fantastic With... is, at long-last, available to you. Click the image of the cover below to order a copy for $9 postage paid. Read more on the history of this long-awaited release below the image. |
Track Listing:
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| So a million years ago or so, back in the early 2000s, the Fantasy Four were my favorite local band to go see live. They were just...awesome. I don't even remember what prompted me to pick up the Julia Sets/Fantasy Four split CD from Vintage Vinyl--maybe I was feeling adventurous, or maybe I knew somehow that there were people in each band who'd formerly been with Bunnygrunt, or who knows? I loved them, though, and eventually became what no less an authority than Karen Ried herself called the Fantasy Four's biggest fan. The Fantasy Four, originally a three-piece, played many shows as a two-piece (just Karen and Scott) before breaking up in late 2002 or maybe 2003 sometime. Flash forward to a handful of years later when Steve Nagy finally gave me a copy of the recordings that the Fantasy Four had spent much time and money on in earlier days, before their breakup, even before the departure of founding member Marcia Pandolfi. I listened to it once and was, of course, transported back. The next time I tried listening to it, it didn't work. The CD-R was in too bad of repair. Then in December 2009, I went on a miniature tour with Bunnygrunt and when we got back home and were unloading at Karen's house, she managed to find a coupla copies of the CD for me. I went about getting it mastered by Mario Viele, paring the 18 tracks down to 15, coming up with a sequence, contracting Bill Michalski to do the artwork, and makin' a run of the album on CD. Sure, I had re-named many of the tracks from their (often more entertaining) original titles, and information about Marcia's whereabouts wasn't exactly forthcoming enough to consult her about the release, but at least the thing was being released, ya know? We had a CD release show at Mangia Italiano on 06 November 2010, and since I couldn't convince even the two-piece lineup to reform for it, I ended up doing a bunch of Googolplexia covers of Fantasy Four songs (eight or nine in all), and Bunnygrunt (who'd allowed me to tag this along to their own bill) did a coupla Fantasy Four songs from their repertoire. A search for "Fantasy Four Googolplexia" at YouTube.com will probably yield video of most or all of the night. The Fantasy Four also have the second track on PP 000 (Pancake Productions Summer Sampler MMX) and the second-to-last track on PP 007 (Pancake Productions Wintry Sampler MMXI). The former is an unreleased track ("Open Wide"), the latter is "Lovesick & Sick Of It" from PP 002. This thing has actually gotten some reviews from here and there! Read 'em:
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