I was on a car ride to Mont Kiara when I was listening to Ferns’ sophomore album, Fairweather Friends for the first time, and it was rather amazing how the album in its entirety fits into my being like gloves to hands. The album is the weekender’s kind of album – it doesn’t matter if you’re out at your favourite weekend café sipping on artisanal coffee with your friends, or lazing at home because you can, there is a song to suit any mood you might be going through on a weekend. Something fluffy and snug, something versatile and adaptable.
Like the titled track, the anticipated dawn of the day, as the sun rises over the horizon. No jarring alarm clocks, or early morning appointments to rush to. You wake up whenever, you linger in your bed, tangled in your sheet however long you want. Rearranging yourself in bed with the body next to you – cat, dog, or lover, whichever way that best fits the both of you.
Hey, remember the 50s? Letterman jackets, A-line skirts, knee-high socks, milkshakes with whipped cream and a cherry on top? Yeah, me neither. But Ferns did bring us back to that era of good loving fun, especially in Miss Stormcloud, or for Dismay and Apparitions, a high school prom filled with ill-fitting pastel blue suits with ruffles illuminated by the slow-spinning disco ball above you. The elementary percussion and bass rhythm, clean backing vocals complementing lead Warren’s dreamy vocals. It does remind you of simpler times, even ones we would have just seen on television or in movies, without necessarily having lived them ourselves.
Anti Social Scene goes: “I’d rather be doing something else / Should’ve never left my home / My cover’s blown”. We all have those weekends, when even though events and activities are abundant, and you may or may not be required to attend at least one of them, and you may have headed out because your friend insisted you to and you feel obliged to. (And don’t you just hate it when some of them pull the “don’t be so lansi” card?). And when you do, you’d kick yourself and go: “Well, that was a terrible idea.” All you want to do is just sleep in, curl up in bed catching up on your reading, or just go on a 12-hour Modern Family marathon. But noooo. We do live a life where we do things we don’t necessarily like out of obligations, don’t we?
And there are also those weekends, when you have chosen to stay at home despite the abundant events and activities happening around you. You know, those weekends when you can’t give a fuck if the world is just passing you by. But there you are, browsing through your Facebook timeline, and popping up minute after minute, your friends’ endless pictorial testimonies of their latest escapade at a rave party, an indie flea market, or a shopping spree. And you think to yourself: “Feels just like I should be having more fun”. We can be such a sourpuss sometimes, can’t we?
But of course, there should be weekends when you are at the right place, at the right time, with the right people. It does not necessarily have to be something of gigantic proportion, like attending an alcohol driven event, or having a massive dinner party. It could be something as little and approached with such grace as meeting up with a favourite friend at your favourite restaurant eating your favourite dishes. You know, things you do that just feels – right. There should be weekends like that, that is lived without obligations you don’t want to make, but only things you want to do at your own time, at your own pace. Things you do that make you go: “A-OK, I might not be that kind of guy / But hey, it’s OK”. Or else what’s good about life, really?
Good things take time to grow, and it has taken the quirky indiepoppers Ferns some four years to mature a garden of good natured pop tunes from their On Botany days back in 2007, into their sophomore attempt titled Fairweather Friends, and what a dandy little garden it has turned out to be. Like that little garden out back, it’s something you could rely on on the best of days over the weekend, and at the same time, something you could relate to on the lesser of days.
W: Ferns.Bandcamp.com
T: @fernsband
Backseat Radio II 