The great Fountains Of Wayne just issued their fifth album in a career that dates back 15 years. Sky Full Of Holes (Yep Roc) was recorded by the band—vocalist/guitarist Chris Collingwood, multi-instrumentalist Adam Schlesinger, guitarist Jody Porter and drummer Brian Young—in New York City at the studio Schlesinger co-owns, and it may be the quartet’s best effort to date. Fountains Of Wayne is currently on tour, but Collingwood and Schlesinger will also be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our brand new Q&A with the dynamic duo.
Collingwood: I learned about Sam Lipsyte at an installment of John Wesley Harding‘s Cabinet Of Wonders show, at a little cabaret on Bleecker Street called Le Poisson Rouge. It’s a variety show, and this one included Josh Ritter, Eugene Mirman and Graham Parker, plus my friend Dennis Diken of the Smithereens on drums. A great show throughout, but Sam made the biggest impression with a dark, ugly piece about betrayal that seemed to hush the audience like a toxic gas. I’m a sucker for a certain type of intense lyrical writing, and right away I went out and bought his books. The heroes of Lipsyte’s novels are pathetic in the truest sense, bilious and petty and self-destructive. Yet you root for them, as life hilariously beats them down, and in the end their comeuppance feels not like just desserts but cruel fate. He’s got threenovels, and the most recent, The Ask, is my favorite.
Video after the jump.
