MUSIC FOR NOVEMBER 2023
‘THE END OF THE AFFAIR’
Something that distinguished the sound of the Fashion Jungle during the first year of the band’s existence was our use of a Farfisa rock organ. Manufactured in Italy, these keyboards were popular in the U.S. in the 1960s because they cost so much less than instruments that inspired them — e.g., the Vox Continental.
The Farfisa sound, arguably, fell short of the Vox, but as this recording of my song “The End of the Affair” demonstrates, it had charms of its own.
That song stayed with the Fashion Jungle throughout the band’s existence. This late 1981 version was recorded on a Sony two-track in my parents’ basement by three members of the founding FJ quartet: drummer Ken Reynolds, multi-instrumentalist Jim Sullivan on the Farfisa, and me on guitar and vocal. The fourth player was bassist Steve Chapman, who had just joined the band, after the departure of Mike Piscopo. (Ken, Steve and I would go on to become the most durable lineup of this combo that was briefly prominent in Maine’s punk–New Wave scene.)
A 1981 composition, “The End of the Affair” borrows its title from Graham Greene’s novel published 30 years earlier, which I’d read during a Greene binge that made on me a literary impression of singular depth. But the song’s emotional direction is all mine. Written over Labor Day weekend in an inn in Georgetown, Maine, the song draws on a big breakup — in a way. The characters, setting and actions are all fiction, but the vortex of pain, blame, guilt and relief at the heart of the song is exactly as it happened all those years ago.
Hear “End of the Affair” below! Buy it on Bandcamp! (“End of the Affair” copyright © 1984 by Douglas L. Hubley. All rights reserved. Above: Banner photo by Doug Hubley. Below: Two photos by Jeff Stanton. The first shows Jim Sullivan at the Farfisa rock organ during a performance by the original Fashion Jungle at Kayo’s, 1981. The second shows the Fashion Jungle at a barn dance in June 1982, for which Jim joined us on several numbers . From left, Doug Hubley, Ken Reynolds and Steve Chapman.)
