Supergroup FFS combines Franz Ferdinand and Sparks. (Photo by David Edwards)
Legacy glam rockers Sparks love wordplay — they never met a pun they didn’t like. They are, after all, a band that released a seminal album called Kimona My House. They followed that up with lots of cheekiness in album titles like “Music You Can Dance To” and “Plagiarism,” among others.
Post-punk upstarts Franz Ferdinand also love wordplay — they never met an artistic statement as an allegory for life decisions they didn’t like. They are, after all, a band that released the cheeky “Take Me Out” and the referential “Ulysses.”
Well, a funny thing happened when Sparks met Franz Ferdinand: They discovered that they were two great tastes that taste great together, and so because Franz Ferdinand Sparks is a bit too cumbersome, they became the flash FFS.
The super group released its self-titled debut album as FFS earlier this year on June 8, drawing the sensibilities of the now six-member band somewhere into the middle of two extremes. The result is a hyper-intelligent if quirky new wave monster that really really loves wordplay. After releasing the album, FFS launched a world tour that comes to the Lincoln Theatre in DC on Monday, Oct. 5.
The lead single from FFS — “Johnny Delusional” actually was a familiar nervous pop song, particularly for those of us who grew up listening to the likes of Devo and the Talking Heads in the early ’80s. Watch the video for “Johnny Delusional” on YouTube:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCxLpte5loY]
The rest of the FFS songs have a bit more fun with their lyrical ambitions. Is “Call Girl” a wistful note to a distant love or a lascivious expression of sexual desire? “Dictator’s Son” is surely the first song to attempt to explore the soul of a dictator’s son? And “Man Without a Tan” is certainly a Sparksesque lampooning of what people find attractive among or between the sexes.
Tickets are available online. This is going to be great.
FFS
w/ The Intelligence
Lincoln Theatre
Monday, Oct. 5
Doors @6:30pm
$45
All ages