The Faux Fibbers – Learn To Lie

Blang

Bit of a history lesson for you. Way back in the Before Times, when people used to do things outside together and Carole Baskin didn’t get blamed for everything by everyone, there were things called “festivals”. Now, what a festival was was when people would come from far and wide to sit in the sun (or, more likely, drizzle) with a bottle of cheap cider and watch bands. (Bands were those groups of people playing instruments and singing, kind of like the ones you see on Zoom these days, but not on Zoom). I’d like to to imagine one of those, if you would. And keep that thought in mind – you’ll need it later.

Anyway, Learn To Lie is the new album by The Faux Fibbers. If you decide to carry on with the history and mythology theme, it’s available on a CD, like in the olden days, with lovely cover art (in a style vaguely reminiscent of Pete Loveday) by DIAZSTEROUS. And it has songs on it – and if you don’t remember what those are, then either lockdown’s been tougher on the brain than previously imagined, or you’ve disappeared a little too far up the Avant-Garde Ass.

Fronted by Hackney’s finest Monster Raving Loony and Christmas pudding impresario Nigel Knapp, The Faux Fibbers are very much in a folk/blues tradition, like a less bitter Half Man Half Biscuit or a less angry Rev Hammer, serving up slices of gentle absurdism in a way that’s altogether charming and, dare I say it, almost wholesome. And any band who list “a warm place to sleep and a bottle of booze” as the ingredients to true happiness are bound to be likeable.

“Dwarves (Dwarfs)” is simultanously the tale of an infestation of the titular fellas and a treatise (well, argument) on how to correctly pluralise them, while “The Weatherman” reveals that the Fibbers, like Louis Armstrong before them, don’t care what the weatherman says if the weatherman says it’s raining. But you probably WILL hear them complaining. It’s also one of my favourite tracks on the album, largely due to some awesome harmonies on the chorus.

My other favourite is “My Baby Said…”, musically a very dark blues rock number with some geniunely LOLworthy lyrics, which I shan’t spoil as it’s all in the delivery, really. But the whole package is some good cheerful fun, which is kinda what 2020 needs. And ends with the sterling advice “Don’t Shoot The Waitress”, which is a better rule for life than anything Jordan bloody Peterson can come out with.

Anyway, you remember the festival thing? No you don’t, do you? That’s the trouble with people these days. Looking at your phone, I’ll be bound, watching a video of a dude rescuing a puppy from an alligator without dropping his cigar (OK, I’ll admit it, that IS awesome, but pay fucking attention when I’m talking).

One of the great pleasures of these events was to wander past a stage or into a tent (“tents” were – oh sod it, go look it up on Wikipedia) carrying a half-empty bottle of dry cider and a spliff, and randomly encounter an act who make you laugh your ass off and end up being the unexpected highlight of your day. If it wasn’t for that bloody Covid (and, of course, Carole Baskin) then The Faux Fibbers could easily be that band. So get yourself some cider, skin up, open the door so it’s a bit like being outdoors, and slip into their gently hilarious world.

Here endeth the lesson.

-Justin Farrington-