The first time I saw Les Savy Fav (French for "punk fucking rock") live I laughed my ass off. I talked their show up to friends afterwards-- not because the music was really that memorable, but because of the stage presence of frontman Tim Harrington. He would just shout stuff between songs. Like "Listen up, troops! Awesome!!" Then he'd walk around, stand on the monitors, or walk offstage for a minute. He seemed to be living in a world that consisted of only himself and one microphone. Either that, or he was just really drunk. He looked it. All the songs seemed to run together, broken up by calls directed at us "troops" to "rock hard" and "awesome."

The next time I saw the band, I had three of said friends along with me. After all my talkin', they were ready to see said Les Savy Fav live. This time around, Harrington's punk- style revue featured a moment which found him throwing his mic over a ceiling beam so that it hung down by its cord, allowing him to spend the next few minutes balancing the hanging mic on his finger as if the fate of their set lay in between his finger and the wind- screen. But the music still seemed to sit on the back burner to me, while Harrington was busy jumping from left to right like the seat of his pants was on fire and trailing a snake of smoke.

3/5 took some motivation to listen to. The only way I would be able to see Harrington do anything remotely antic- like would be to throw the disc case around or spin it on a table-- not as good as watching him live. But when I forced myself to listen, man, this stuff was pretty good! It started off with some Frenchie telling us in French that (I translated this myself) "Les Savy Fav enjoys good hygiene, sends their love to you and, in a nutshell, they are the embodiment of punk fucking rock." All this is done over what might be a "theme song" for the band. As soon as this ends, we're ripped in half by the 5/4 guitar of "New Teen Anthem." Assorted Harrington announcements are layered over the guitar riffs, calling a sample crowd to order: "Attencion! Attencion!!"

The whole album is so full of attitude. And the complexity of the music comes through in this mix better than it does live. The band is deceivingly complex, mostly because the drumming is pretty straightforward without many drum fills (c'est tres tres punk). Patrick Mahoney and Seth Thom Jabour shoot lasers at each other from their guitars, having fret conversations a la Fugazi. The lyrics are deceptively poignent: "I've got a feeling/ That special feeling/ I've got no feeling/ That so-so feeling." Heh. You decide. My personal favy-fav comes from 3/5's final track: "We burn the boom box every night!"

So I'm looking forward to seeing these guys for my third time. I'll know what to look for in the music this time around. I'm also craving another performance by that "loose cannon" Harrington. Oooh, and there's a new album set for an October release. Good thing I got the review out for this one now.

-Chip Chanko