Ezra Furman & the Harpoons

Ezra Furman makes no qualms about peddling the deeply personal to the public and draws no drapes between himself and an audience thanks to his pulsating, confessional songwriting style. Through his eponymous Chicago-based quartet, Ezra Furman & the Harpoons, Furman employs the same open-chest honesty that drew ire for Ginsberg’s Howl and spawned speculation of Cohen’s Chelsea Hotel as he pines for his Wild Rosemarie and recounts bouts of transience during the band’s latest studio LP, Mysterious Power. With lyrics featuring the fittingly dualistic motif of blood – representing both the humor d’amour and the stomach-turning stains of tragedy – Furman’s music madly swings between wide-eyed sentimentality and brutally truthful accounts of life’s grotesqueries. Forging ahead with Furman’s brazenly rust-tinged croons, the band solders rollicking rockabilly rhythm and love-struck doo-wop sensibility with punk-rock ferocity and immediacy.

Ezra Furman & the Harpoons have made numerous album of the year lists with their debut Banging Down the Doors and sophomore release Inside the Human Body. Gaining critical acclaim for performances with Lou Reed at South by Southwest, Alec Ounsworth of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, The Walkmen, Spoon, and Delta Spirit, as well as at major festivals such as Lollapalooza, Ezra Furman & the Harpoons deliver live performances that will leave you buzzing with excitement. Furman gallops and crashes around the stage like an asylum-bound Buddy Holly complete with endearing hiccups and frightening tics. He not only christens every tour with a nom de rock, but also titles each individual gig. Furman’s witty and effusive conversations with the audience, along with his heightened attention to the crowd’s prevailing mood and the shows named like children, creates an extremely personalized feel for every performance. The band grinds out riffs stoically and belts out harmonies spiritedly as they lay the aural ties to support the verbal locomotion of Furman as he careens and caroms about, filling the room with the boiling-hot emotional steam of a fully bared soul.