Flowers From The Man Who Shot
Your Cousin, as its long
name does not suggest, is
essentially made up of one person
(Morgan Caris) who writes, performs,
arranges, and records songs with
occasional help from some of his
many musician friends.
These, so far, have included :
Morgan
spent the better part of his childhood
in Wappingers Falls, New York, listening to his parents'
old Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and Neil Young records (namely Desire,
Songs From a Room and On the Beach.) In the late 80ies, still only a
teenager, he followed his family back to Paris, France, where in school, he met
and befriended Erwan.
Together they spent their time listening to the Field Mice, the Go-Betweens, the Apartments... and soon they started to write and record their own songs. With singer Caroline, this became Loons, a melancholic indie pop trio that released a few songs on a number of compilations throughout the 90ies, along with two albums (one on Elefant Records, the other on Galaxy Train.)
All along, Morgan had also been writing songs that were too dark for the Loons repertoire and too personal to be left for someone else to sing. It is from this stem that the songs of "Hapless" (FMSC's first album) grew. They were first played to live audiences in whatever cities Morgan happened to be living in. Namely at an open mic in Paris' Pop In bar, hosted by David-Ivar Herman Düne, and in various other venues around Vancouver, BC, and the Pacific North West.
But it wasn't until he came together again with Erwan (who had in the meantime set up a small analog recording studio and launched what has since become Waterhouse Records) that the songs finally made it to tape, and from there found their way into people's heads.
Since the release of the album, Morgan has toured the Pacific North West a few times and met some wonderful musicians and people there. Among these is Ross Cowman of June Madrona who aranged to make "Hapless" available in North America by putting it on the catalog of Olympia Washington's very own Bicycle Records.
Meanwhile the internet has been doing its thing, so after a slow start "Hapless" is now getting increasing attention from music connoisseurs all around the globe. Also, new Flowers From The Man Who Shot Your Cousin songs are surfacing here and there on various labels (Ronda's mp3 single club, Waterhouse's Folks Pop In at the Waterhouse compilation and Blog Up's Have A Good Night Moon...) and a new Hinah ep should be on its way...