Sunday 27 April 2008

"I'm not that bad, I just got lucky"

I first encountered The Incredible Moses Leroy in my early internet days when I was searching for information about the band Fuzzy. I accidentally stumbled into a not entirely legal download of his song of that name. They say history repeats itself....

The Incredible Moses Leroy - Fuzzy mp3 (available for 7 days)

I was seduced by three minutes of confusingly spiky lyrics disguised as beautiful fluff and, since The Incredible Moses Leroy isn't the kind of name you forget in a hurry, I remembered to seek him out again. Initially when I first read the pseudonym of ex-substitute teacher Ron Fountenberry, I dug my heels in.
"The Incredible Moses Leroy?" I thought, in the manner of a sulky teenager (which I was), "I think I'll be the judge of that thankyouverymuch MISTER Leroy!"
In fact, Moses Leroy was the civil rights activist grandfather of the man behind the music, and the preceding adjective was a nod to Fountenberry's love of comic books. So that's alright then. No ego the size of America at work here!

It's difficult to know where to place TIML (my typing fingers are getting tired) genre-wise. Not that it's especially important to box everything up neatly, but when you're trying to persuade people to download and buy music, it's helpful if you can at least hint at what they're going to get! The next song wouldn't be entirely out of place in the decade to which it refers, and is a nice balance of guitars and a slightly more electronic sound.

The Incredible Moses Leroy - 1983 mp3 (available for 7 days)

Some of the songs on album these come from are really not my kind of thing - too much electro-pop and even a whiff of jungle. But My Best Friend is straight up noise-pop. Come to think of it, there is a hint of electro in there too, though not enough to put me off!

The Incredible Moses Leroy - My Best Friend mp3 (available for 7 days)

Four albums were released under The Incredible Moses Leroy moniker: Bedroom Love Songs (1998), Growing Up Clean in America (2000), Electric Pocket Radio (2001) and, in 2003, Become The Soft.Lightes, which he did by joining with members of El Ten Eleven to form the Softlightes.

You can buy Electric Pocket Radio which all today's tracks were taken from at amazon.co.uk, and visit Ron Fountenberry's current project, the Softelightes, at their website.

5 comments:

Kippers said...

Excellent. 1983's brilliant - as is the Incredible Moses Leroy song of the same name! :P

Anonymous said...

Wow, this is odd kizmet that you posted IML! I'd planned on dropping "1983" on my radio show this weekend, and could not find the damn thing in my CD pile search! And here it is! SUCH A GREAT SONG!

It's basically a complete ripoff of New Order's "Dreams Never End" - but in a good way (no diss there, for real). Anyway - thank you!

Anonymous said...

PS - this is the radio show if ya care:

NEON NOISE / INDIE 103.1FM
Sat. night 12-midnight till 3am
http://www.myspace.com/neonnoise
http://www.indie1031.com

Spike said...

Glad to be of use, Paul! You're right - it is a fantastic song!

Unknown said...

Actually , to be fair 1983 wasn't a rip on any new order song ( I never heard age of consent until after the 2nd moses album was released --because people kept telling me they sounded similar).
1983 was a rip of rod stewarts "young hearts". that's what I was hearing when I wrote that song .
Anyway we are recording 1983 for our next softlightes album , and now we are biting new order especially on the bass .i think it's better but i guess we'll find ot ;)
ron