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Read our previous issues MUSIC FLARERelease concert, May 31 at 7:50 p.m.
By Lawrence Ferber
While they’re nowhere near extinguishing themselves, enjoy Flare while you can, he warns. “I always thought that Flare has a definite arc,” the goateed artist says. “It was always this kind of idea of three albums, three EPs and three singles and that’s plenty for any project. I think people should stop a project before it outlives its youth. The ‘jurassic rockers’—The Rolling Stones, Bruce fucking Springsteen, whose work I love but fucking shut up—they can’t think what they’re doing is good. How can anyone make 1,000 albums and think they’re all going to be good unless you really are a major songwriting talent, a huge one, like [The Magnetic Fields’] Stephin Merritt or James Taylor?” Happily, Flare have only produced two full-length albums, the most recent of which is “Hung” (Le Grand Magistery). Like previous releases, “Bottom,” “Circa,” and “Definitive,” “Hung” boasts richly orchestrated arrangements utilizing an arsenal of instruments both modern and ancient, from guitar to Marxophone, synth to ukulele—queer-tinged lyrics and Beghtol’s honey-soaked voice. Multi-instrumentalist Charles Newman is Beghtol’s partner in crime (founding co-member Damian Costilla co-wrote some of the music, but refrains from playing). They’re joined by a bevy of musicians contributing instrumentation and backup vocals including Dana Kletter (Dish), British folk-popster John Wesley Harding, and Stephin Merritt. An art director and writer (at Time Out NY) when not making music, Tennessee-born Beghtol is also known as part-time vocalist for The Magnetic Fields, one-half of bi-coastal experimental pop outfit The Moth Wranglers, and one-third of The Three Terrors, a cover band (with Fields’ Merritt and Dudley Klute) that perform annually in NYC. “We’re a lot of things but we’re not terrible,” Beghtol insists of the latter. “Dreadful, perhaps, but not terrible.” The Terrors unveiled a drug-themed set in January, covering “Puff The Magic Dragon” in German and LaToya Jackson’s horrific “Just Say No!” The selections on “Hung” are tinged with melancholy, albeit less so than previous efforts. “We decided the pretty, slightly faster, more accessible pop sounds were important, so a lot of the really depressing songs are in major keys now,” Beghtol nods. “An exhilarating despair kind of thing. I don’t really know how to write happy songs.” Beghtol acknowledges that some Flare lyrics reflect personal experience, but more are borne from literary and fictional sources. “I like a good story,” he affirms. To wit, the Brian Wilson-esque “School of New York,” with its dark pleas of “who will teach me how to love, who will teach me how to care... kiss the life right out of me, break my back with your pain.” It isn’t a personal cry for affection (although wild-eyed bachelors please note Beghtol is single!). Instead, it’s based on “The Story of Harold,” a novel by Terry Andrews about sadomasochism and opera. He cites Poison Penmanship by Jessica Mitford, Mark Simpson’s acerbic essay collection “Anti-Gay,” and the late poet Charles Henri Ford as other strong recent influences. You can get a peek into Beghtol’s real-life relationship foibles, however, in “Obvious,” a crooned dialogue inspired by an experience with a starry-eyed boy. “In a little post-coital moment, he said ‘Oh LD, you have such a fabulous life, all your friends are so handsome and funny and fabulous and rock stars,’” he recalls. “I was like ‘you have no idea what my life is like—you should pack and leave right now!’ I’m sure he’s a lovely person but he wasn’t at that moment. It was clear that the romanticized vision he had of my life was totally based on his wish fulfillment. I’m like ‘you know, I have three dollars in the bank and I hate my job and I don’t know if this album is ever going to come out, everything is pathetic and grotesque and you want to be me? See you around! Shut up!’” Somewhere in between life and literature rests “If/Then,” a beauteous, measured tune that asks “If I lost a hundred pounds/would you still want me around? And if I ever shaved my beard/ would you never shed a tear?... I’ll never be your fantasy.” One critic perceived it as an “anti-bear anthem,” but Beghtol—a quite merry, non-loathing bear sort—insists “it’s about superficiality in relationships... That song is sort of based on an extremely superficial person I know. He chooses to live life on the surface, which is deeply infuriating since he’s extremely intelligent. This guy keeps dossiers on people. He lives his life sort of vicariously through others and I guess he thinks that one day, if he gets enough info about somebody, he’ll really know them as opposed to actually knowing them. That’s pathetic and boring! So to me that song was sort of about how can I address his situation interestingly in a 2 1/2 minute pop song.” Next for Beghtol, is another Moth Wranglers album and yet another Flare EP, “Luminary,” which he claims will be even “happier” than “Hung.” “There’s a song on it, called ‘Back When You Wanted Me,’ which aside from being incredibly sad is perky and upbeat and happy sounding.” “It has the line ‘just for a moment I stopped wishing I was dead when you wanted me.’ Sounds really happy, and it is, because for that one or two moments… he, she, or it was in fact happy. That’s valid right?” |
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Mr. LD Beghtol believes a flare should not, and cannot, stay lit forever. Not even if it’s Flare, the eloquent, so-melodic-you-could-cry chamber pop band Beghtol has led since 1996.
