Bad Flamingo – Queen City Sounds and Art

Bad Flamingo Leans Into Defying Conventional Morality on the Languid, Noir Folk Single “The Fruit”

Bad Flamingo, photo courtesy the artists

With “The Fruit” Bad Flamingo takes a more gentle tone from the dark edge of some of its other songwriting. Some tasteful slide guitar work and folk-inflected delicacy gives a new quality to the band’s tales of being from the wrong side of the tracks and leaning into sweet temptations. Bad Flamingo is expert at implying people in the throes of a romantic and sexual relationship or rare connection and passion. But this song is more like having the time to reflect on yet another facet of that relationship in a moment with the typical, and refreshing, lack of regret for transgressing conventional behavior and morality in pursuit and service to something real and vital. The title of the song and references to snakes cleverly allude to original sin while discarding such spurious notions and taking a thrill at defying god/mainstream society at the same time. In the video we see the be-masked members languishing about in what looks like a hotel room from the 1970s, an aesthetic suiting their vibe and the late night musings of the song. Watch the video for “The Fruit” on YouTube and follow Bad Flamingo at the links below.

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Bad Flamingo Stretches Its Songwriting Wings on the Upbeat Vampire Love Song “Hold Up the Lighter”

Bad Flamingo stretches its songwriting skills well beyond where it has been before on the new single “Hold Up the Lighter.” With the music video and one of the members seen almost acting out the story of the song it’s like a the song is a noir power pop song about love and obsession. It’s tempting to say it’s supernatural and fantastical given the line about “a vampire bite” and sitting up well into the night spying the object of one’s affections and staking out their place waiting for the moment to consummate one’s desires with the line, “Wanna sink my teeth into you” – one has to wonder if it’s purely metaphorical or if the band is telling a darkly romantic story about a creature of the night yearning for a special connection. Either way the song works and the touch of banjo, the subtle guitar screeches and the finely accented percussion give the song something paradoxically less musically dark than some of its earlier songs. And yet, Bad Flamingo once again proves that its gift for love in peril and between people who might be a little dangerous is unchanged. Watch the video for “Hold Up the Lighter” on YouTube and follow Bad Flamingo at the links provided.

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Bad Flamingo’s Noir Pop American Single “Miles” is a Tale of Outlaw Love on the Run

Bad Flamingo has made quite a career for itself with endlessly being able to spin variations on themes of being a rebel on the run from mainstream society and its restrictive social mores. Its “Miles” single shows the band putting some spare yet fiery guitar solos into its tale of passion, lust and a love as star crossed as Bonnie & Clyde. But in that mix too is the group’s always rich array of instrumentation with slide guitar accents, banjo, minimal drum machine and a touch of synth to give some emotive backdrop. But none of those components are throwaway, all serve the song and its mood of leaning into a vagabond love on the run and exulting in the hedonism without shame. And, really, who doesn’t want a love like that where you can be who you are with someone that gets it and celebrates what you have together? It’s a stylistic evolution for the enigmatic duo that always delivers superb songwriting and an ever-growing mythology of noir pop. Watch the video for “Miles” on YouTube and follow Bad Flamingo at the links below.

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Bad Flamingo’s Dark Americana Pop Single “Frying Pan” is a Cinematic Ballad of Doomed Romance on the Edge

Bad Flamingo switches up its song structure style a lot more on the single “Frying Pan” leaving ample open space into which the vocals cast a character study worthy of the duo’s previous material. It’s a tale of impending peril, doomed romance, a life lived on the edge but done so without regret. The banjo and slide guitar this time also providing some of the percussion as well as the textured tones that grounds this noir pop song with a tactile immediacy, which the band always seems to accomplish in various ways. The lyrics employ inventive thematic couplets that pair ideas that express similar ideas in divergent applications such as “I don’t feel safe, I don’t feel sound” and “I lose my shit, I lose myself, and I don’t like to lose.” Those couplets also include contrasting thoughts like a more creative way of conveying conflicting feelings the narrator has reconciled. Is this a country song? No, but the outlaw country sensibility is there. It’s like a dark Americana but of Bad Flamingo’s signature style of smoldering, moody, dreamlike pop with enough grit to keep it from ever sounding safe. Listen to “Frying Pan” on Spotify and follow Bad Flamingo at the links provided.

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Bad Flamingo’s Darkly Dreamy “The Devil Knows” is a Gritty and Shimmery Murder Ballad of a Love Gone Wrong

Bad Flamingo waxes slightly more folk on “The Devil Knows” with a touch of banjo and/or mandolin more prominently in the mix intermingling seamlessly with guitar. The kind of percussion established sounds like the kind of thing a performer will effect by knocking on their guitar and a tambourine on a foot. But there are some nice touches of production with a dramatic, swelling drone here and there and in the background as well as electric guitar shimmer and buzz. The themes are a new spin on a tale of personal darkness and struggling with self-redemption and the acceptance and even romanticizing of one’s lurid past and anti-social impulses. With this song we hear hints of actual skullduggery rather than merely misdeeds in the pursuit of fun or at the fantasy of violating the sixth commandment. Bad Flamingo’s songwriting and musicianship with the tactile quality of fretting the guitar lends the whole song a grounded quality so that it’s cinematic, dreamlike mood has an intimacy and immediacy that makes its story not sound so sinister. Listen to “The Devil Knows” on Spotify and follow Bad Flamingo at the links below.

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Bad Flamingo’s Leisurely Jazz Pop Single “Days of Mellow” Celebrates Having the Luxury of Unstructured Time

The slinky guitar line in Bad Flamingo’s “Days of Mellow” is a different vibe for the mysterious duo. But it embodies the title and the energy of the song. It’s like a loop that in an extended groove and riff manner is a little hypnotic. This time it’s not a song about desperate love and the hint of a dark past and being on the run. Instead lines like “I do have the time” and “Saturdays, cartoons” it’s one about relaxation and having the luxury of indulging a leisurely pace and not being on edge and ducking the consequences of perceived misdeeds. Yet for those more familiar with Bad Flamingos’ past work the song does retain the fantastic level of sonic detail with guitars, bass and percussion going off the main stream of sounds in a playful way that lends the music a playful and cinematic quality. Listen to “Days of Mellow” on Spotify and follow Bad Flamingo at the links below.

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Bad Flamingo Peels Back the Tedium of Understimulated Boredom on Retro Pop Single “Numb”

Bad Flamingo expands its musical palette and songcraft a bit on “Numb.” Ratchet sounds provide some of the texture and rhythm. Like the band is sampling a wrench sound used to maintain the getaway car one imagines listening to a lot of the duo’s music. The bass slinks along, leading the song and ghostly guitar work resounds and fades in some moments and others the acoustic guitar the vulnerable and fragile melody. But of course the main driver are the vocals and the group’s signature storytelling of an impulse to bad behavior as an act of resistance against a society that necessitates boredom to function “smoothly” and lacks a channel for the energy that builds when people are feeling constrained by tedium and few varied enough options that feel like they actually matter. The chorus of “I’m bored, kiss me, if I’m going out I want you with me” speaks to a need for stimulation that isn’t being satisfied with a stale status quo. It isn’t exactly Rebel Without a Cause but a restless spirit and intrusive thoughts seem more realistic and instantly relatable anyway and that’s what Bad Flamingo excels at expressing in its songs that defy easy genre categorization but it is fine crafted pop music for anyone with a taste for retro sensibilities and the aesthetics of noir. Listen to “Numb” on Spotify and follow Bad Flamingo at the links provided.

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Bad Flamingo’s Americana Noir Song “Fast” is a Tale of Life on the Edge and Outrunning Boring and Tamed Normiedom

It’s really remarkable at this point how Bad Flamingo can take similar instrumentation with guitar, some percussion, banjo, maybe some mandolin, bass, synth and nearly whispered vocals and arrange it in endlessly different ways with a seemingly deep well of material that is the personal mythology of someone who is living on the edges of society as a rebel storyteller who is caught up in melodramatic tales with the gritty feel and sense of underlying menace in a kind of urban Americana noir. “Fast” finds the band offering evocative couplets with the construct like the lyric “I’m a fist waiting for a fight” and “I’m a wolf waiting for the night.” We hear about money hidden in a mattress that is rapidly running out and yet our narrator and their companion seem to run just ahead of the negative consequences of a life lived outside the bounds of straight society. This time out the music gets some rush of low end atmosphere to heighten the sense of danger and that just renders the song yet another great entry in the duo’s consistently growing body of work that remains distinctive yet not completely classifiable which seems to suit the vibe of what the band is about.

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Bad Flamingo’s “I Drink Alone” is a Song About Reserving Some Joys, Rituals and Moments of Vulnerability For Your Solitary Hours

Twinkly, moody keyboards and a drum click bring us into Bad Flamingo’s “I Drink Alone.” It’s an even further departure from the duo’s palette of sounds and to a certain extent the subject matter of the lyrics. Acoustic guitar slinks along and a spectral drone haunts the backgrounds of the song, maybe a bit of autoharp or hammered dulcimer near the song’s end alongside some nice slide guitar flourishes—all lend the song a hushed intensity befitting what sounds like the narrative of a person who acknowledges their own tempestuous emotions and passionate nature. We hear hints of former relationships and the boundary set, willing to share everything and give almost anything, but sparing the activity of drinking for a solitary experience. Why? That is left up to the listener to interpret whether in those moments or narrator feels most unguarded and open to suggestions and foolish acts better left to one’s own mind to inspire. When you’re someone who is normally so generous with your heart, your energy and your time sometimes you just have to carve out some space and some pleasures for your alone time. Listen to the dark, psychedelic, western folk blues song “I Drink Alone” (not to be confused with the George Thorogood song) on Spotify and follow the enigmatic songwriting phenoms Bad Flamingo at the links below.

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Bad Flamingo Explores the Allure of Revisiting the Romance of One’s Youth on the Dark Folk Ballad “White T Shirt”

Bad Flamingo seems to have an endless well of takes on star crossed love and bittersweet nostalgia and “White T Shirt” finds the enigmatic duo tapping into a different palette of sounds in crafting a typically engaging song. Sounding like some kind of outlaw country folk pop song with a tone of youthful indiscretion shared between two young lovers rekindled when they reconnect after years apart though what brings them together in this moment is memories of past passion and bonding over the simple pleasures available to teenagers in a rural town. The fretting on the acoustic guitar is left in as a tactile detail as much as the line about “hands got rough but your lips are still soft” to anchor the song in physical reality. The chorus of “white t shirts falling to the floor, we’ve been here before, whiskey and cola from the corner store, drunk as before” really captures a ritual that might have been one of the few moments of actual joy and passion in an otherwise mundane existence. But then there’s the bit about “old habits dying so damn hard” as a recognition that while that earlier past time could get stale and seem like a dead end and thus our plucky narrator moved on to broader pastures even though she has taken a trip back home and encountered a past that still holds an allure the way the things from our youth often do even when we’ve moved on as adults. Bad Flamingo excels at taking earnest musicianship and performances atmospheric and imbued with a darkly romantic edge and turning the simple story into something approaching the epic and “White T Shirt” is no exception minus how the song demonstrates that the band is also able to consistently switch up its songwriting approach to lend its storytelling a unique dimension each time. Listen to “White T Shirt” on Spotify and follow Bad Flamingo at the links below.