Fun Isn't Fair

When we think about rock n’ roll as rebellion, we tend to glorify the happy side of liberation. You know, the car speeding down the highway, a boy and a girl in the backseat, off to a party where the booze shall overfloweth while the parents are out-of-town. But these days, you don’t have to be a rock star to veer sharply from Mom and Dad’s expectations. All you need, really, is an artistic pursuit of some kind and a lousy part-time job. And in that case, fresh-faced duo Fun Isn’t Fair show us that rock, the music of the young, can’t really die when youths are still staggering away from the last generation.

In some ways, Past Lives really doesn’t need much exposition. You have drums and guitar—a substantial, tried-and-true combo like burger and fries, or chips and dip, or pizza and pizza. And this tape offers the meatiest hunk of Fun Isn’t Fair’s hit-and-run repertoire, eschewing their cuter Beat Happening bops for ten minutes of full-throttle tilt action. Isaac Bishop careens from tune to tune like a pinball racking up a high score, and, to complement that analogy, Alex Tuisku mans the flippers that keep the ball in play. Ding! Ding! The rebound from vertiginous opener “JFK” to the congenial surf of “Camel Cash” happens so fast that any lesser player would’ve missed the shot and lost the ball. Not here, though. And just like you’d cheer if you watched a pinball wizard nail a tricky bonus, Fun Isn’t Fair make you grin and bounce to every rad new direction. (In that light, it’s not hard to see why they’re such good buds with Post Hunk, another instant espresso duo bound to set a crowd in motion.)

But we digress! Rock, I posited earlier, can’t die so long as youths—or young adults, in this case—disappoint their parents. The difference with our generation, though, is that we don’t have to try that hard to fall behind; the system’s already stacked against us. Not that Past Lives really delves too far into that (remember the pizza and pizza analogy, after all). “Camel Cash” and the garage stomp “Same Way That It Was” don’t mince words—one’s about trying to get high on limited funds, another speaks to the constant cycle of self-sabotage that we often step into because we see no other way out. “Another breakdown, another year / my sense of wonder, replaced by fear.” So it goes, they say.

By that light, Fun Isn’t Fair succeed in Past Lives to capture the basic essence of their charm—you know, the fun. They’re the sort of band you’d hope to snap you awake at 10:30 p.m., after a drink or three, when you just want to forget your debts and hang at the bar with like-minded folks who struggle like you. This tape doesn’t showcase the full array of Bishop and Tuisku’s skills, but the five tracks here are definitely enough to ping a gig-goer’s radar.

Fun Isn’t Fair will celebrate the release of Past Lives today at the Chiropractor alongside Post Hunk, Paper Matador, Tears for the Dying, Sam Cartin, Pete Though, Custardory, Aidan S. Burns, Yancey Ballard, Double_vanities, Gradient Buster, and Suntundra. Doors open at 5 p.m. - Immersive Atlanta

Atlanta’s newest ragtag garage rock duo formed just a year ago, and already Fun Isn’t Fair have left a dent in the scene. Debut tape Past Lives only catches a snapshot of the pair’s repertoire, as anyone who’s witnessed their rapid-fire set knows—it’s easy to lose count, but 15 songs in 20 minutes is about average. After a small tour and even a one-night merge with fellow duo Post-Hunk, Isaac Bishop and Alex Tuisku are gearing up to press more shirts and plan the next big moves. - Immersive Atlanta