Francis 7 >> My heart began to splinter

Francis 7 - "Red Roses"
(unreleased[?], ca. 2003)

For my first song post, here's a gem by a Miami band named after a character in the 1976 post-quasi-erotica dystopian escapism fluff-noir movie Logan's Run.  (No woman in history will ever be more gorgeous than Jenny Agutter was in that flick, which I hear is unfortunately being remade.)

I downloaded an mp3 excerpt of this song in '03 or '04, and have played it an alarming number of times over the ensuing years, always wondering what the rest of the song would sound like.  Being a New Orleanian, the fact that they were a band from the Southern U.S. in the '00s, rather than one from, say, England in 1992, was very intriguing to me.  I talked to the lead guy from F7, Omar, in an AOL chatroom for an hour or two one night back then.  The main thing I remember him saying was that John Lever of The Chameleons was his favorite drummer ever.  I asked him about some other Florida bands, like Swivel Stick and Stella Luna, and maybe Whirlaway.  We mainly talked about shoegaze-related gear stuff like delay and reverb, and he was super-talkative and extremely knowledgeable/passionate/perfectionist about the whole thing, not unlike a Kevin Shields or a Scott Cortez.  Someone on RYM sent me this mp3 the other day, after I had given up hope of ever finding it.  Apparently it's only available on a compilation CD put out by the (defunct?) website Auralgasms, called The Beat Of Discontent. And much to my shock, I found out today that the band is still around, and on their Facebook page, they say "Well, it looks like "Red Roses" is a song that just won't die. Kind of appropriate! Version 3 to be recorded soon, or Raf may kill me..."  So apparently the one I'm posting is version 2, and my excerpt mp3 (with a different vocal track and other small differences) was version 1.  TMI, I know.


Update, 3/29/11: Here is the original mp3 excerpt that I got in '03; I just recently found it on an old mix CD that I made, dated 8/17/04.  I love how it charges out of the gate with that drum roll and synth wash, which is why I was so surprised to hear the long, subduded buildup in the full-length version: 

If you like this song, check out: The Douglas Fir - "Unwelcome" (1999), Kitchens Of Distinction - "Railwayed" (1991), The House Of Love - "Feel" (1992), National Skyline - "Some Will Say" (2001), Antarctica - "Absence" (1999).