User:Fourletterfury
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Mike Fury is a musician, writer and broadcaster from London, UK. He has worked extensively with various bands and artists, published and authored numerous texts and has more recently been involved in radio broadcasting and production. He taught himself to play drums at a young age by playing saucepans which he beat with pencils. The musicians who impressed him most at this time were jazz drummers, in addition to his consistantly favourite bands, such as Bad Religion and Iggy and The Stooges. By practicing and emphasising jazz techniques and rudiments, he gained an understanding and respect in utilising more than one style in any form of musical expression, and not restricting oneself to a single traditional approach. He has always had a very wide and eclectic taste in music, ranging from punk rock to jazz, old-skool rap by artists such as Public Enemy, and even 1950s pop.
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[edit] Musician
His first band was an Essex based mellow rock group called The Seen, in which he was promptly booted from the band for playing all the songs too fast!
In 2001, he formed Four Letter Fury, a punk rock band who blended various other influences ranging from blues, to reggae, who also went on to perform various clubs and venues around London, notably supporting The Stranglers' singer, Paul Roberts, and British punk heavyweights, Airbomb. The band recorded two EPs and two full albums and concluded their three years in this band in January of 2005 when they performed a final concert in aid of the charity Cancer Research UK, which received unexpected press coverage.
In 2004, while still playing in Four Letter Fury, he joined Dead Famous, a glam-oriented punk band who made a vast number of notable appearences, including live slots at The Bulldog Bash festival in Stratford-Upon-Avon, alongside The Datsuns and others, and supporting Australian punk legends, The Scientists. Despite two recordings and a huge backlog of live appearences, the band departed in 2006 to pursue their individually preferred styles of music.
Shortly after this breakup, Mike and Dead Famous frontman, Mark Thorn, joined Bubblegum Screw, a new London based punk band dedicated to the energy and sounds of 1970s New York, and bands such as Ramones and New York Dolls, which they still play in to this day.
Mike has also produced various bands and recorded his own, unusual ambient music under the title "Yellow Gravy Shaker" (this would later become the premise for a radio programme), in which he would record and sample various instruments and distort and modify them with strange effects. He has claimed it was a purely experimental project.
[edit] Writer
He has occasionally contributed articles and written for a variety of publications such as The Guardian newspaper, and Hong Kong film zines and press such as 'HK Cinemagic', which discusses new and classic theatrical releases as well as western re-issues of Asian films. He is also planning a book on the influence of culture in music.
[edit] Radio
Having worked occassionally in pirate and internet radio, finally in 2005 he wrote, produced and hosted a new show called 'Yellow Gravy', which aired every week on Fridays at noon, on 101.4FM for the duration of nearly two months. The show combined a large selection of classic music, covering virtually all genres, with pre-recorded surreal comedy sketches and skits edited into the programme live on air. On one occasion, the listener figures for the station reportedly shot from 10 to 200 within the first minute of his show starting. He is planning a new radio show for early 2007 and would like to continue working on pirate and internet stations for their lack on censorship.
[edit] Trivia
-His favourite band of all-time is Bad Religion
-His favourite jazz drummers are Max Roach and Buddy Rich
-His favourite punk drummers are Lucky Lehrer and Spit Stix
-In addition to drums, he also plays the bass guitar and piano.
-During one Dead Famous performance, the sound crew unplugged all the microphones from his drumkit because he was playing so loudly it was drowning out the guitars. Later, the volume went up again and the drums were drowning out the sound of all the other instruments. When the sound crew returned to unplug the microphones again, they found they were all still unplugged.
