I ventured to the nether regions of Riverbend, and happened upon a local band with the curious name of Furious George. I didn’t see any table with promotional material near it, so I did what I do – I asked the nearest possible person, do you know anything about the band? Strike one, but I believe in baseball and it’s not over until, well, I still had two more strikes. The pitch, he swings, and he hits the ball – homerun! Don’t you just love the English language; you can do just about anything with it. I found somebody that knew a great deal about the band, and really liked the band, so I did what I do – I pried into the deepest secrets of the band’s history, well, not really, but I did find out a little bit, so here it goes.
Furious George is based out of Chattanooga, and is a 70s sounding rock band. They’ve been together, in their current line-up, for just under a year. I’m not sure how many gigs they’ve had, but I suspect that they ply the weekend club circuit when the opportunity presents. The band sounds like it is in the fermentation stage; in other words, they are coming along quite well, but they’ve not yet reached that certain point in which one might say – drink now, this is the year. Still, I believe bands can do wondrous things with “world enough, and time.”
Normally, I would suggest a band at this stage of development hit the road for three months for five or six nights a week. I call this the tightening up process and with good musicians this process invariably works – it can make for some kick-ass music. Now, I’m somewhat of a realist, and I suspect that most, if not all, of the members of Furious George have day jobs, and six nights a week away from home is unrealistic. The next best thing is to find a local Thursday, Friday, Saturday gig with one night of practice every week or two – it works wonders.
And, guys, don’t get me wrong, you’ve got a good start on a cool sound (I even heard some echoes of The Rolling Stones in one of your songs).
All in all, Furious George is a driving, decent sounding bar band, and I honestly thought them worthy of a shout out. One of their true strengths is the simple fact that they concentrate on original music, and that’s about the surest way to create, hone, and (please excuse this expression, but any band that wants to play for a paying audience must do this in one form or another) market a band. With time, gigs, love for the song, and a little luck, who knows where Furious George will end up?
Best to you, fellas!
Jay Mouton
wholerest58@comcast.net