Albany-based Sky Furrows is a band that defies easy categorization. Sort of like the parable of the five blind men trying to sum up an elephant, you can describe whatever aspect you happen to grab first, but it won’t do justice to the whole creature.
To begin with, a simple description: Sky Furrows plays post-punk guitar music, deftly interwoven with spoken-word poetry. Karen Schoemer, who fronts the band, explains their influences and raison d’être:
“All of us came of age with the punk and post-punk of the late 80s and 90s, bands like Sonic Youth, The Fall, Mudhoney, The Verlaines. It’s not just musical taste but ethics as well. We’re all purists in the sense that we consider music an end in itself, not a vehicle for fashion or a soundtrack to a football game.”
The striking thing about Schoemer’s lyrics is not simply that they’re spoken, it’s that they’re solid poetry. That is to say, they can stand alone apart from the music, which isn’t always true for song lyrics. In fact, it’s only after you listen several times that you really start to appreciate where she’s taking us.
Check out some lines from Shopping Bags, a stand-out track on their recently released album, Reflect and Oppose:
Happy people are intrusive…
This initial sentiment is itself not so surprising, the song is from the point of view of a person dealing with a painful break-up, but then comes an unexpected paradox:
…yet I feel dependent on them, as if any chance I have for happiness rides upon their backs. Happiness must exist somewhere or it’ll never exist for me.
I had to stop to think about that. Might’ve missed it if I’d only listened once, and that’s just one example. Compelling imagery is found throughout the songs. Abandoned childhood homes, flooded churches, dusty desert culverts. Evocative, cool stuff.
Schoemer’s path to poetry includes years spent as a journalist for such publications as the New York Times, Newsweek, Rolling Stone, and Spin.
“I loved my career and had a great time. When I became a parent, I couldn’t imagine being a full-time journalist and part-time parent, so I began doing more creative writing. Eventually I was writing poetry which I found incredibly challenging. It was an entirely different set of skills than the writing I did as a journalist.”
We’ll circle back to Schoemer in a moment, but first let’s focus on the rest of Sky Furrows, which consists of Mike Griffin on guitar, Eric Hardiman on bass, and Phil Donnelly on drums. How do they go about creating the riffs and musical bedrock that dovetail so perfectly with Schoemer’s poetry?
“When I write, I try not to think about anything at all, except whether or not I like what I’m doing,” says Mike Griffin. “For Reflect and Oppose, I wrote the music by myself. As far as the usual process with Sky Furrows, I record a song idea and send it to Karen, who adds words, then we run it through with Eric and Phil, that’s how this last record was written.”
Since Sky Furrows’ is as much about raw sound as chord progressions, let’s geek out just a bit further and let Mike Griffin clue us in on a few trade secrets:
“The guitar setup for Shopping Bags is a Gretsch Electromatic Jet through a Fender Bandmaster amp, with a gain pedal used on the break,” he says. “I use alternate tunings for the guitar in all Sky Furrows songs, nothing too crazy, most of them are based in D.”
In addition to recording, Sky Furrows is very much a live band.
“I’m not much of a showman,” Schoemer says, “but I will say that performing live is the most amazing thing. I absolutely love the massive sound that rises up when Sky Furrows plays. We’re loud and fierce and it’s an incredible experience to put my words into that din of sound.”
For someone who didn’t set out to be a performer or play in a band, Schoemer’s current resume beyond Sky Furrows is pretty impressive. For one thing, she’s also half of a duo called Jaded Azurites along with none other than legendary Minutemen bass player Mike Watt. How the heck did that happen?
“I made a lot of musician friends when I was a music writer, and one of my friends was Mike Watt, who I’d met in 1995 when I interviewed him for Newsweek.”
It was actually Watt who encouraged Schoemer to contribute words to one of his projects, and it was his idea for the two of them to team up together and work as a duo. Watt famously lives out in San Pedro, California, so the two generally collaborate long-distance. They have put out six recordings to date.
Sky Furrows, meanwhile, continues to go full steam ahead on this coast, creating something new and relevant based on previous themes. They’re among the many talents in our region disapproving the old notion that there are no second acts in American lives.
“I think we’re in a new golden age of live music,” Schoemer says. “Given what a total mess the world has become, the pandemic, everyone glued to their phones, many of us overworked and underpaid. It feels really good to walk into a club and have a band lift the roof off. It forces you into the present, everyone’s in the same moment together. I’m not talking about seeing Bruce Springsteen for the 25th time, I’m talking about people with nothing to lose ripping it up…I think it’s a spectacular experience, that kind of no-holds-barred passion, fuck-all attitude and raucous noise. There’s not nearly enough of it in the world.”
Both Sky Furrows’ albums are available on Bandcamp. You can see their next area show at Avalon in Catskill on March 8th. And, whatever you do, make sure you watch their mind-melting, AI-infused video for Shopping Bags on YouTube, directed by filmmaker Jeff Economy, a truly must-see video for 2024: shorturl.at/kwBH0
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