Furtips

Indie band Furtips formed in the Netherlands out of the remains of a group called De Artsen. Herman Bunskoeke, De Artsen's bass player, pulled together Thom Vanderdoef, Jane Pol, and Camille Courbois with the intent of playing hardcore, but his desire failed to materialize. Pol and Courbois, the group's songsmiths, were unfamiliar with the genre. When Bettie Serveert, another group that Bunskoeke was affiliated with, started to take off in a big way, the other members of Furtips gave their founder the boot and invited a musician who called himself the Royal Penguin Saver to take Bunskoeke's place on bass. The new bassist previously played the trombone, and the band's official history claims that he turned to the bass after finding one of the instruments in a container of garbage. A flurry of songwriting activity followed, and the band recorded with equipment that was on loan from others. The result was a less-than-clear sound, and the recordings the band made were lumped into the category of lo-fi, although members of the group declined to describe their music with that term. Furtips' first release, They Should Be Crowned, was issued in cassette format only. A copy of the tape made its way to a label called Ajax in Chicago, IL. Following that initial introduction to the band, the label went on to issue Stand Back, Speak Normally, a CD, and Pitched Up Twinkie, an EP. American sales were respectable. Back in the Netherlands, however, the Furtips releases received almost no acceptance. For a two-year period beginning in 1996, the group was less productive as it lost drummers and their label ceased operations. The band picked up speed after receiving an invitation from Animal World Recordings, another U.S. label, to contribute to After the Divine Flying Insect, a...