Fountains of Wayne first entered the collective music fan’s conscious with a little help from supermodel Rachel Hunter’s scantily-clad contribution to the band’s video for “Stacy’s Mom.” However, these power pop wizards are hardly one-hit-wonders of the video generation. Read on to find out more and enter to win a pair of tickets to their special acoustic performance at the High Noon Saloon on July 8th with Jon Auer of the Posies and Big Star.
Check them out on their official site and MySpace.
BIO:
“Although Fountains of Wayne didn’t enjoy mainstream attention until the release of “Stacy’s Mom” in 2003, the band had already established itself as one of America’s strongest power pop acts. Based in New Jersey, the group first appeared in 1996 with a mix of British-influenced songcraft, lo-fi production, and wry lyrics about dead-end jobs and biker boyfriends. Fountains of Wayne expanded their lineup and embraced a more polished sound during the following years, eventually hitting gold with 2003′s Welcome Interstate Managers. While the album proved to be something of a fluke success, the band continued releasing well-crafted records throughout the subsequent years. Meanwhile, co-founder Adam Schlesinger enjoyed a separate career as a producer and ghostwriter for other artists…
…Released in 2003 on the newly minted S-Curve label, [Welcome Interstate Managers] gave Fountains of Wayne its first taste of Billboard-certified success with “Stacy’s Mom,” a hit across several charts and the band’s first Top 40 entry. The accompanying music video featured Rachel Hunter as the song’s voluptuous title character; predictably so, it became a staple at MTV. The subsequent singles “Mexican Wine” and “Hey Julie” fared less well, but Welcome Interstate Managers nevertheless went gold, whetting the public’s appetite for future Fountains of Wayne releases.
The double-disc compilation album Out-of-State Plates arrived in 2005, sporting two new songs (including the single “Maureen”), several live performances, and a wealth of rarities. Fountains of Wayne embarked on a limited tour before returning home, where Schlesinger kept up his songwriting talents by penning four tracks for the soundtrack to the 2007 film Music & Lyrics. That same year also saw the release of another FOW album, Traffic and Weather, which continued the band’s tradition of fusing power pop orchestration with literate lyrics about travel, relationships, and occupational monotony. While working on a follow-up album, Schlesinger found time to play alongside Taylor Hanson, James Iha, and Bun E. Carlos in the pop supergroup Tinted Windows.”
–Andrew Leahey, allmusic.com
WIN A PAIR OF TIX: In “Go, Hippie,” the band sings “Mr. Crabtree sits in the window/He sees a lot, but he don’t know/That was you across the yard/Throwing brownies at his car.” Maybe you never threw brownies at a motor vehicle, but we’ve all pulled a few delinquent pranks in our day. Tell us your funniest, most memorable, idiotic, or legendary bratty kid stories. Your tales of juvenille rebellion might just be rewarded with a pair of tickets to FOW’s show. Get your responses in by Friday, July 3rd at 6:00 pm. A winner will be announced at that time.
Filed under: Music Shows This Week in Madison Tagged: | Artists You Should Know, fountains of wayne, fow, Free Tickets, Madison WI concerts, Madison WI live music, madison wi music, Madison WI Music Scene, power ppop, ticket, ticket contest, Ticket Giveaway, win, Win Tickets, win tix
So, here’s my stupid/bratty kid story. Although I wasn’t really a kid – more like 17. One of my friends, having climbed on top of our high school one weekend night just for kicks (after figuring out a way to climb on top of our high school without a ladder or helicopter), discovered to our amusement that there was a badminton court painted on top of the building. Why on earth it was there, no one knows. But of course, a group of seven of us decided to get up there and play a few rounds.
This involved sneaking out of our respective houses after curfew, which for me and most others was 1am. Two of my friends volunteered to drive, so by 2am on a Friday night the pickups had been made and we all rendezvous-ed at the back of the school. One of the car’s trunks was opened to reveal several badminton rackets and birdies. Of course, none of us knew how to play badminton, but still.
The dumbest part was that we had been talking this plan up at school all day that Friday, so of course word had gotten around, and of course it evolved into the story that we were planning to break into the school from the roof and steal computers. Parents had been told, and police had been notified, all without our knowledge. So we got up there and proceeded to play joke badminton for about a half-hour (I got hit in the eye with a birdie, since it was after all 2am and pretty dark). We each climbed down, and just as the feet of the last of us hit the ground, we were greeted with the screeching of tires, the blinding light of police flashlights, and about 6 cop cars zooming up in full formation, 2 cops from each car jumping out and slamming us against the nearest fence. They took our IDs, and of course asked us what we were doing. When the biggest smartass in our group answered defiantly, “playing badminton” (that quote made it into the official police report), they put us all in the backs of cop cars and made us wait while they determined that no computers or other valuables had, in fact, been stolen, and that we were actually just kids trying to amuse ourselves in our Nebraska town.
They charged us all with misdemeanor trespassing, sent us home, and told us we had an hour to tell our parents before they called them all. So my parents had to be awakened at 3 in the morning by their son (who of course they thought was asleep in their basement this whole time) telling them that the police were about to call. Not fun.
We all got six months probation – all for a stupid joke game of badminton that none of us knew how to play anyway. But we were sort of heroes after that, and “badminton on the roof” became a bit of an urban legend.
I was given the opportunity to work the sound booth at a local church when I was only nine or ten. It was a smaller church and the tech guy had taken a liking to me so he taught me the ins and outs of the sound equipment.
Eventually, he was comfortable enough with leaving me alone for a Sunday or two to handle the whole service.
I managed to make it through a service without any problems, so for the second week I was allowed to bring a friend up and show him how I worked everything. We were noticeably more boisterous, but the service went on.
Finally, he asked me what would happen if I put two of the levers at full. Naturally he was pointing to the Main and Minor Volume levers. Of course, I didn’t know for sure, so I tried it out, in the middle of one of our pastor’s prayers.
The scream from the speakers was anything other than the voice of God. I am still haunted by the slow motion view of every single person in each pew turning their heads around to look back at a rapidly shrinking young man behind a sound booth.
While I’ve never thrown a brownie at a car, I have thrown Ho-Ho’s and Ding Dong’s at passing vehicles. Your “Go Hippie” story spoke to me. I used to run with a strange delinquent crowd in eighth grade. In addition to pastry heaving, we would shake up cans of Diet Rite and throw them as high as we could. If they landed just right they’d crack open at the base or the top of the can and the spume of shaken soda would launch the can back up into the air. I wish I could say that wasn’t awesome, but it was.
Those were all just opening acts to our primary form of delinquency, though, which was stealing people’s lawn ornaments. I don’t know why we did it, but we did a lot of it. And not just pink flamingos or racist lawn jockeys, either. Perhaps that would have been noble. We took everything, all creatures great and small. Our prize possession was a large golden lion taken from the front of a particularly opulent house. It took four boys to carry it and another four of us to circle around it nervously, dart ahead at times and play the part of lookout/coward (my primary role).
We stashed all the lawn ornaments in a wooded area by the train tracks that ran right behind my parents’ house, and over time we accumulated one of the most enormous, tackiest menageries the Mid-West has ever known, and I believe that’s saying something.
One day my Mom came across this collection in the woods and asked me if I knew anything about it. I pleaded ignorance, but I’m pretty sure that she knew we were responsible. She actually took a small stone squirrel, frozen for all eternity in the pose of eating an acorn, out of the menagerie and placed it in her garden in the backyard and never said another word about it. My friends were pissed and wanted to steal it back, but I wouldn’t let them. I was out.
Seventeen years later, that squirrel’s still there. Same spot. Same pose. And I really wish some other teenager would come steal it.
It may not be too much of a prank, but annoying high school behavior is bad enough. A group of friends bored on night decided to go out and steal garage sale signs through the neighborhood. Naturally, we only took the ones that were the most colorful and biggest.
The police, however, did not think it was so fun. Everyone was sent home with an officer and were told we were “luckily not charged with theft”. Not too bad for the first “run in with the law”
These responses were laugh out loud hysterical you guys! They definitely sent me on a memory lane trip. Congrats Andrew, you are going to grab this pair of tix! Keep checking back to enter for other shows everyone. We do a give-away each Monday but also occasionally during the week. See you at the show!
Oh, and if there is mischief, we’ll know who to look for…
Great! Do I just pick the tickets up at the show?
When you get to the door just mention that you are “on the list”