The Fags

There are at least three band with the name “The Fags”:
1) There are some elements of snotty indie garage in The Fags’ sound – raw edges, loud volumes, and of course, the kind of tongue in cheek that leads you to name your band “The Fags” – but, ultimately, the music on this Detroit trio’s new CD is power pop pure and simple. The harmonies are pleasing, the hairpin turns of phrase clever, the hooks insistent, the chord changes both brainy and intuitive. If it wasn’t for the cranked amps and the fuzzed out vocals, you’d almost, at times think they were Cheap Trick. Which is obviously what they want – these Fags have studied long and hard in the school of power pop, figuring out the changes, vocal intervals, and chord voicing’s that make it what it is and applying them, thoroughly and cleverly, to music that aches for it to be 1978 again. At their best moments, though, it works: you get the eerie impression you’re listening, through a busted car stereo speaker, to some 70’s AM radio station that never was. By the time the harmonies at the end of “List” – catchy in a way that’s just this side of cloying – kick in, there’s a catch in your throat, a shake in your knee and a question rattling through your brain: just how the hell did they do that?

2) The Fags was an early band of Eugene Hütz in the mid-90s.

3) The Fags are a band from Perth, Western Australia, who are currently doing a lot of gigs. They were recently praised by Eddie Vedder at a Perth Pearl Jam concert as being pretty cool. The band’s stand-out tune for the time being is “I Think I’m A Fag”. The Fags are: