All hail the King of Fuh

November 20, 2005 9:03 PM

All hail the King of FuhSince 1965, Stephen "Brute Force" Friedland has been a professional blower of minds. He began his musical career penning the first existential/psychedelic girl group record, graduated to tapeworms and sat-upon sandwiches, then was personally signed by George Harrison as an Apple artist with the sly and ultimately unreleasable "King of Fuh." (Turn it inside out. There, you see. MP3.) But oddball songs of love and linguistic quirkiness are just the tip of Brutie's iceberg. In 1969, he swam half way across the Bering Strait in a symbolic plea to warm up the cold war. He does deliciously absurd stand-up prop comedy interspersed with song. And his eyebrows are a work of art in their own right. So all hail the Fuh King, who has never compromised his deliriously batty vision, and at this point assuredly never will.
posted by Scram (8 comments total)

Thanks to the 365 Days Project for the MP3 link!
posted by Scram at 9:05 PM on November 20, 2005

Thanks Scram, i was sort of hoping the "sly" aspect of "King Of Fuh" would be that the "Fuh-King" would gradually creep up on you, but as it turned out I enjoyed the balls-to-the-wall unsubtlety of it even more. I'ved never heard of this guy before, and I'm glad i have now - an interesting character for sure...
posted by Jon Mitchell at 11:00 PM on November 20, 2005

fun post!
posted by mr.marx at 1:13 AM on November 21, 2005

an interesting character for sure...

And handsome too.

I can only hope that when I'm his age, I'm still as handsome as he is.

Uh-oh. I've just realized. I am his age. And I'm nowhere near as handsome. I guess that's why he's the King of Fuh and I'm not even a court jester....
posted by PeterMcDermott at 1:18 AM on November 21, 2005

I just recently started listening to Brute Force, I found out about him while reading up on Misty's Big Adventure with whom Brute Force played much of last year.
posted by herting at 3:20 AM on November 21, 2005

In 1969, he swam half way across the Bering Strait in a symbolic plea to warm up the cold war.

I do not think that metaphor means what you think it means. Unless you're saying he was advocating that Nato and the Warsaw Pact start shooting...
posted by alumshubby at 5:13 AM on November 21, 2005

An old roommate turned me on to "Confections of Love". He became so fascinated that he actually tracked the guy down and convinced him to engage in some silliness on his local show "Tales of the New Depression", and even joined his band after convincing him to play out again recently.

"I Brute Force: Confections of Love" is infectious, hilarious listening. Definitely in the "so bad it's good" category, but the amazing part of it is the big budget industry production quality, all for songs called "To Sit on a Sandwich" or "The Tapeworm of Love".
posted by hellbient at 8:52 AM on November 21, 2005

Mr. Force was also a member of The Tokens (he's on the far left of the album cover shown), although he did not perform on their hit single The Lion Sleeps Tonight.

His second album, Extemporaneous, was recently released on CD. This version includes The King of Fuh as a bonus track.
posted by joseph_elmhurst at 10:21 AM on November 21, 2005