credit: Evan Jenkins
by Jordan Michael (@jordwhyjames)
FACS’ hypnotic, strangely sexy rhythms are passing through our bodies. The pounding repetition is nauseating in the best way. My butt is dancing up on my girlfriends’ thigh in natural movement to FACS’ beats. The forty or so people watching at No Fun in Troy, NY on a Thursday night are mesmerized. Some of these people probably have no clue where FACS is from or why they’re here, but it is remarkable.
After about 45 minutes of sensory overload, Chicago’s FACS (Brian Case on guitar, Noah Leger on drums and Jonathan Van Herik on bass) fissles down, making sure to thank the opening acts (Sky Furrows and Proximity Crush). The three fierce yet jubilant players are grateful, but also stoic. They’re punk rockers playing psychedelic punk that overwhelms the brain, making bodies move in ways it usually wouldn’t and probably shouldn’t among strangers.
FACS got in a van — which Case referred to as a “cocoon” for the band — for a four-show run in mid-February that started in Cincinnati and ended in Troy. They hadn’t played out in a while and will be releasing album number five, Still Life In Decay, on April 7. They’ll play three more shows smack-dab in the middle of when that album comes out, followed by eighteen more throughout the country. In a world where we are constantly bombarded by information, FACS is back on the road, tuning out while melting minds.
“I don’t feel too connected, even though technology is such a part of our lives,” Case said over a Jack’s Abby before the February 16th show. “We’re minimalists. We don’t try to overwhelm ourselves. The world is terrifying and we try to stay informed. People are greedy, selfish and want power at any expense.”
Case, 45, is a worldly veteran (past bands include 90 Day Men, The Ponys, and Disappears) who makes his two guitars sound psychedelically shrewd as the rhythm section drubbs around him. His signature move is crossing his feet while closing his eyes to feel his band. His vocals are a clear shout of restlessness. His fingers move gently across his six-strings, but there is powerful action underneath. During FACS’ final song, the noise became too much. It was too damn good. Nothing was real, but everything was substantial. The hat was dropped. We walked out.
photo credit: Jordan Michael
Case might have amnesia, but him and his Trouble In Mind label guy, Bill Roe, call it “Post Event Review”. It pertains to a gaping maw of a black hole, which Case says he hasn’t fallen fully into, but observed and came back with a report. “We all must have some sort of amnesia in this world, maybe,” he said. “You just have to let go, and it can be a process. We try to comment on all this greed and powerful selfishness without being a part of it.”
It’s easy to let all your bullshit go when FACS’ juicy rhythms are smacking you in the chest cavity. A few of us here at Post-Trash believe that FACS may be one of the best bands working in the world right now, and it comes down to them not being normal. They have been making eclectic shifts since their 2017 inception, which sprouted from former unit Disappears. Leger and Van Herik were in Disappears, so it’s basically a progressive name change.
New FACS track “Slogan” sounds as if the guitar is a xylophone. “It’s a pitch shift,” Case said, laughing. His guitar continuously has its own very organic life. When writing, his brain does most of the work. “I use two amps; two signals are happening. My pedals are like anyone else’s – a reverb, delay and pitch shifter, but I use them differently. I write with them and my mind, trying to find what I am thinking about. I use the pedals to scope the song.”
FACS is trying to find the sounds in their heads, and they most certainly do, which we are all thankful for. “It takes time and patience, but it is fun,” Case says. “It’s abstract and I bring them [the rhythm section] a sound and we fill in the gaps.”
photo credit: Jordan Michael
The rhythm section is dense, but Case's guitar is lighter, more atmospheric. It’s a counterbalance, he says. “But it’s a conscious thing, we try to juxtapose within a song. There’s never a lot of real guitar chords, just a lot of notes floating along.”
FACS played the hit, “Strawberry Cough,” which seems to be about weed, but is actually a reference to the film Children of Men and the stuff Jasper Palmer was smoking. “What happens in that movie is happening [in the world] right now,” said Case, who has seen the film at least ten times. “I recently watched it with my son. I’m glad they got to experience that.”
Similar to Fugazi, Public Image Ltd, This Heat, and most abstract music, FACS lives outside the groove. Although, they are very groovy, embracing space rather than filling it. They consciously choose to be off the grid, doing things their own way. The punk-rock lexicon is an entire subculture and FACS is currently leading.
“We live by the shark mentality of constant movement,” Case says with a tweak of his eyeball. “If you stop, the whole fuckin’ thing stops, so we keep going forward. Trying to wrap our heads around what is happening in the world is A LOT… we process it and make music.”