“Because it’s memorable,” says singer/guitarist Tim Prudhomme when questioned about why anyone would name his band after a loathsome expletive designed to make any good mother’s skin crawl. Go ahead: Say the San Francisco (by way of New York City) band’s name aloud in public and see where it gets you. Certainly, DJs can’t say it on the radio. Big chain stores won’t carry the group’s albums, and journalists, of course, love to harp on it.
Given that a band’s name should ideally give insight into its sound, it would be easy to expect Fuck to make a statement of the hard-core punk or death-metal variety. Not so. Their moniker fails to reflect the varied, multiple shades of indie-rock intelligence hidden beneath their rambling guitar noodlings and whispered vocals. In fact, the sloppy electric charge that infuses the band’s latest CD, Conduct, brings to mind the likes of Pavement and Thinking Fellers Union Local 282.
Still, because the band members switch instruments and songwriting chores, there really isn’t a single consistent characteristic that defines Fuck’s music, even if their approach is uniformly energetic and raw. Truth be told, experiencing Conduct is a lot like listening to an indie-rock radio station locked on the scan function, from its laconic vocals, delicate plucking and introspective lyrics, to its preponderance of retro-dirty power chords. What it lacks in continuity, Fuck makes up for in emotion.
Even so, the content can’t help but take a back seat to the name. “Which is unfortunate, but what can you do?,” says Prudhomme. “If we dressed funny, then the way we dressed would get more attention. Or if we fought a lot, then that would get more attention. Rarely do bands get noticed for their music. If we wanted people to pay attention to the music, maybe we would have moved to the same town as each other and picked a bland name.”
Rather than doing the above, Fuck opted to change its M.O. In addition to being the first Fuck release recorded outside of San Francisco, Conduct is the first album produced by someone other than the band. The group traveled all the way to Memphis to work at Easley Studios, where the Spinanes and Sonic Youth, among others, have recorded. Prudhomme says that the differences in the recording situation may have been minor, but they did end up having an impact.
“We did it sort of like the other records; the only difference was the other records were engineered by [Fuck member] Kyle [Statham],” he says. “It’s very difficult for him to play and engineer. This was a chance for all four of us to play at the same time.”
The change of scenery also enabled the group to concentrate a bit more. In the past, Fuck had recorded in San Francisco, where Statham and the rest of the band (Theodore Ellison and Geoff Soule) live. “So, at the end of the night they go back to their respective lives,” Prudhomme quips. “And the next day they call up late, saying, ‘Oh, I gotta go take care of this phone bill.’ Being down in Memphis, we didn’t have so many distractions.”
If there is one constant within the Fuck catalog — Conduct included — it’s the adventurous album artwork, beginning with their debut, 1996’s Pretty … Slow (on the micro-mini Walt label), which was issued in hand-numbered cardboard cases with games and a coloring book inside. Subsequent releases have each been packaged in their own uniquely offbeat way: Baby Loves a Funny Bunny was made to look like an oversized matchbook, and one seven-inch was issued with individually handcrafted sleeves made from magazine clippings. Along the same lines, Conduct’s booklet has holes punched in it so that the band members’ faces, silk-screened on the CD, show through.
“We didn’t know if you could ask for the CD to come from the pressing plant turned a certain way. It did turn out that they all came out very similar. So you really have to buy the CD in order to see all of the heads,” Prudhomme deadpans. “When we signed up with Matador, we realized that we would never have as much individuality in our packaging. But Matador does give us a thousand raw CDs, without the packaging, so that we can make our own packages to sell on the road.”
The road is nearly the only place Prudhomme gets to see his band mates, as he lives in New York City, thousands of miles from the rest of the band. “As soon as I moved away, we started meeting up for little tours,” explains Prudhomme. “Whenever you tour, you spend every day together, day after day. Most of the bands I have been in have lived in the same town, so we’d see each other two or three times a week and never really do much touring. When we get together, instead of rehearsing a couple of times a week for a month, we rehearse every day for a week.
“We tour and see each other every day, and then we don’t see each other. We spend just as much time together as your average band, it’s just done more in chunks. So right about the time [we] get sick of [each other], we take a break.”
Fuck performs Friday, October 9, at Rudz!, 2010 Waugh. Doors open at 8 p.m. Tickets are $6. Storm & Stress and Linoleum Experiment open. For info, call 521-0521.
This article appears in Oct 8-14, 1998.