I first heard about this band whilst reading Lizzy Goodman's Meet Me in the Bathroom. The name grabbed me right away, but listening to the first track on Tremble Under Boom Lights? I was in love. I think at the time (and still now to some extent) JF*E encapsulated everything I romanticized about new york city.  While they may not have grown up in the city like some, they are a quintessential band of this era. They put on performances at iconic 90s venues like The Cooler (in Meatpacking), Alligator Lounge (Williamsburg, still open for bingo btw), Irving Plaza, and also toured internationally. From all accounts (i.e. youtbe comments), when they were with it, they were electric live, and their recorded stuff limited though it may be, is fucking phenomenal (if you didn't already know, I cuss like a sailor, cover your virginal ears if you must.)

Stuart's jerky poetry and obstinate delivery is just so succulent—a quality the band's four instrumentalists accentuate wonderfully. For me, Walter Martin's Farfisa organ makes the band's sound. His keyboard feels like the twighlight zone meets an old b&w vampire flic meets rockabilly. It captures the melancholy of an old country steel guitar and the drama of a church organ, especially in more down-tempo numbers like "Winston Plum: Undertaker" and The Cakewalk of Crime. But any sappiness that you might expect from a synth-heavy rock outfit (The Doors, ELO) is cut away by the blaring garage rock sound of the rhythm section, some ear-frying feedback, and the most deliciously distorted guitar riffs. Paul Maroon's guitar tone has something of Keith Richards (and therefore Muddy Waters) but also a taste of punk attitude, like he listened to the Stooges just before recording. And then Walter's keys play right into the feedback of Paul's guitar. Together, they create this blade-like strata of sound that Stuart dances in (I mean this literally too...see below). 

One of the band's more known songs, When the Curtain Calls for You, the first track of Wolf Songs for Lambs, has an intro that starts with a beautifully haunting riff from Paul. A few measures in, Matt Barrick starts wailing on the drums. He's a pretty small guy, but generates this incredible sound that feels like a deranged march toward trouble and makes it hard for me to sleep hours after listening. Once Stuart is singing, the track starts to exude the feeling you get when you're headed out for the  night with a mind to get belligerently fucked up. (Not fucked up in the "I wanna drink away my sorrows" way, but more in the "lets dive into the freezing cold water just to see how it feels" way.) In short, the song is a legendary entrance into the album. Then, Wolf Songs takes you along for a wild ride, like an acid trip in black and white. It is sonically what I think would happen if the Gories or the Mummies made a psych record but with more balls.

Wolf Songs is an additionally impressive mastery when you look at how fast these guys put stuff out. They released three longer records total, Johnathan Fire*Eater (1995), Tremble Under Boom Lights (1996), and Wolf Songs for Lambs (1997). Only the latter two are available on Spotify unfortunately (the first record was released on  a tiny Underground label) but I am a benevolent and made you all a youtube playlist of the self titled record. Wolf Songs is my favorite from them as a body of work but  you can't deny songs like "Give Me Daughters" and "When Prince was a Kid" that just beg to played loud enough to piss off your neighbors. Now that I think of it, JF*E is certainly a band meant to be enjoyed in a city after dark. There is something about their sound that calls for dirty sidewalks and beer in questionably clean glasses. It is the music that plays over grimey, drunk, corner-of-the-room makeouts. It's rough pavement and soft static, like a fur-lined jagged edge... a musical version of Object (Breakfast in Fur ) (Oppenheim, 1936). It is music made for those freaks that come out at night and for better or worse, Stuart Lupton was perhaps one of those freaks. He had a bit of a drug issue that became too unruly and, to my knowledge, forced the band to break up in 1998. A boyhood project finally meeting its end (though the group remained friends.)  Stuart never stopped writing and would go on to win a poetry award later in life, but sadly passed away in 2018. Walt, Paul, and Matt went on to form the (considerably more commercially successful) group  The Walkmen (see below around the time when they formed) a couple years post breakup with a new vocalist and bassist. They are great but lack the element of danger that Stuart brought to JF*E. 

The Walkmen still perform, notably opening for Interpol on the Antics anniversary tour, but my current favorite bit of ongoing JF*E content comes from dear Walt. Starting a few months ago, he has hosted a radio show on WEXT 97.1/106.1 , a small rock station in upstate NY, which he has aptly dubbed "Walter Martin Radio Hour". He exclusively plays vinyl from his own collection and plays everything from Toots and the Maytals to the Stones to Adrianne Lenker. I have discovered and rediscovered SO much good shit from him. He has impeccable taste and is a true music lover (especially where Leiber and Stoller are concerned). He posts the recordings of all his shows on Substack, and I highly recommend you check him out. As far as I'm concerned, what Walt says, goes.  (Walt, if you're reading this, you rock.)

At any rate, JF*E is still my favorite project of Walt's and is up there with some of my all time favorite bands. All this to say, if you've made it this far, go give them a listen. If you want more recs based on them, give me a shout on ig or text me.