Andy: The Website

Happy New Year to all!  I hope everyone thawed out after the blizzard.   I am closer and closer to having a CD, and I will let you all know when it’s ready!  Those of you who got to the December show early have heard a version of it, but a good deal of behind-the-scenes tweaking has been done since then, and I’m very happy with the great job Dolph is doing with it.

My next solo show will be on Saturday, February 27 at the Galactic Quest comic store in Lawrenceville.  It’s a comic store by day and often a performance venue by night, and having both attended and played shows there I can tell you it’s a good venue in to both perform and listen, even if people can take pictures of a performer at such an angle as to make him look like he has horns and/or wings.   It’s on Hwy 120, about a mile east of 316, in front of Phoenix High School, and next to Captain D’s.

As I’ve always done there, I’ll play songs you haven’t heard before as well as songs you have, I’ll continuously hop from the sublime to the ridiculous, and I’ll explore the areas in between those two extremes.   I’ll even play the 187 game.   And who knows?  I may even have CDs by then.  Be sure to sign my mailing list for updates.  See you at Galactic Quest!

So one year ago today I stood on stage at Galactic Quest in what had the feel of my Lost Boys farewell show.  It wasn’t really as I performed with them twice this year, but apart from those, sporadic cabaret shows, and a few solo shows I’ve kept myself in what I have called a musical cocoon this year.  I’ve been about the task of reinventing myself as a musician, undergoing a metamorphosis, and discovering wings I didn’t know I had.  Now that my CD is almost out I will look to be getting out more and playing some open mic nights and other venues in addition to my show at Galactic Quest on February 27.  Be sure to sign my mailing list if you haven’t already so I can let you know when and where I’m doing what and with whom.  Musically, that is.

In the meantime, however, I have learned quite a bit about myself this year.  I am not one to blog about too much personal stuff, but here are ten things I’ve learned about myself  in the last year as pertains to music.  May all of you benefit from what you have learned about yourselves from your experiences this year, and may you have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.  Here’s my ten:

• Recording a do-it-all-yourself (or 94% of it anyway) full-length solo CD is more work than I thought it would be at the beginning of the year.

• I am much more influenced by Green Day than I thought I was (or would admit I was) at the beginning of the year.

• The songs I write are more effective if you believe the stories behind them to be something other than what they actually were.

• Proportionate to the tracks on my CD, the majority of songs I have written ask questions.

• Sometimes people react to my songs in ways that surprise me.

• I am very blessed to have some very talented musicians in my life.

• I am very blessed to have some very loyal friends from among the Teal Nation who haven’t forgotten about me this year.

• 187 is becoming one of my favorite numbers.

• Playing drums with a parrot on your shoulder isn’t that much different than playing drums without one once you get used to it. After a few minutes the only difference is that there’s a parrot on your shoulder.

• There are a lot of musical things I can do better than play the recorder

See you in 2010

We are so close to having a CD out!  As of Friday night 12/4, there was precious little left to be done on the CD before it goes off for mastering and, subsequently, duplication.   Be sure to check my Recording Journal, which I update whenever there’s a new development, and sign my Mailing List so that I can let you as soon as it’s out!

Thanks to all who attended the show at Galactic Quest this Saturday!  And thank you for your positive response as we listened to the pre-mastered tracks!  I heard a lot of good feedback from several of you, and I’m glad you got to finally hear the songs as I’ve wanted them to be heard before I flew solo and performed them unaccompanied.  As has become my custom at Galactic Quest this year, I played a few covers I hadn’t played there, and though I don’t want to make a habit of commissioned covers I did have fun with “George of the Jungle”.   You may even hear that one again!  I’ve also made a habit of playing originals out for the first time when I’ve played Galactic Quest, and the original this time was “Home Next To You”.

My next Galactic Quest show is Saturday, February 27.   With this recording project behind me I plan to get out quite a bit more in the coming year, playing where I can, hitting some open mic nights around town (I will post on my Calendar page when I decide to go to one), and looking to book some more house concerts.  I certainly need to play locally more often than once every four months!  2010 holds all sorts of possibilities without any imminent plans of another solo project to keep me isolated from society, so stay tuned!

I hope you’ll join me at Galactic Quest in Lawrenceville GA on Saturday December 5.  We have a CD to listen to!  It will not be a “CD Release Party” in every sense of the term, meaning there will not be CDs available for purchase, but I do indeed have plenty of recorded music to listen to before the live show starts.   The songs are not mastered yet, and I’m going back later this week for the final mixing and editing, but it will give you a really good idea of what the album sounds like.  I will, however, update you as soon I have more details as to its release, so be sure to sign my MAILING LIST while you’re here and you’ll find out as soon as I’ve got something more concrete to report!  Meanwhile we’ll have a great time on the 5th! The store is on Highway 120, a mile east of 316 between Phoenix High School and Captain D’s. There will be a few door prizes to be given out during the course of the evening, including a free CD as soon as it’s out.  Hope you can make it!

The live music begins at 7:30, but before that beginning at 6:15 we’ll have a risk-free try-before-you-buy listening session.  We’ll put on the CD and let it run!

We’re getting close to having a CD.  All but a couple of the tracks are done, and now it’s in the editing and mixing stages. Help yourself to my RECORDING JOURNAL, which I update whenever I do something else toward getting that CD in your hands.  Hopefully there aren’t that many more updates between now and the release.  Hopefully….

Thanks to all who have attended my shows the last couple of weekends in Phoenix and in Lawrenceville!

To my friends in Phoenix, thanks for being there for my first ever solo house concert!!!  I had a blast, I love that sort of venue, and I hope to book more shows like that in yours and other cities!  By attending that show, getting into it, and having fun you not only made it a great experience for me but you did a lot toward easing a case of wedding jitters.  It was good to meet some of you for the first time and to see the rest of you again for the first time in over a year.  I hope to see you all again before too much time goes by.  After that trip my songwriting resume now includes three wedding songs in addition to one graduation song and one comic villain song, and I’m grateful for the opportunity.  And just so you know- the folks back home who were at my show this past weekend actually seemed to take rather well to “Arizona”, the song I debuted out there, but their reaction to seeing a piece of jumping cholla that I picked up off the ground in Tucson was akin to your reaction at the mention of boiled peanuts!

To my friends back home in Georgia, thanks to those who made it to Galactic Quest and thanks to Kyle for hosting us the other night.  I genuinely do enjoy playing there, just as I enjoy watching shows there.  No ambient noise to contend with, just a performer and an audience, and I find that desirable no matter which side of that equation I happen to find myself on.  Couple that with the fact that it’s not taboo for yummy baked goods to be brought in and it gets even better.  Plus how many venues have a Gollum figurine handy to use as a visual aide?  Wow, I might be the only performer ever to use a Gollum figurine, a piece of cholla, and a defective headset as props during the same show!  I’ll try not to let it go to my head.  And of all the songs that I thought may potentially hit home with someone, I never thought “Too Much Like Me” would be one!

To those who were at either show, I’d appreciate any feedback you could provide.  Please let me and others who may wander into my site know what you thought about the show or any songs you heard by sending your thoughts to comments@andythewebsite.com.

To my friends in New England, it’s been a while since I’ve seen any of you as well.  I still plan to be at Pomodore’s for the open mic night after faire on September 27.  How many songs I get to play will depend, but I hope I get to see lots of you there.

To all of you, I’m continuing to work on my CD, the next step being recording the bass parts.  The final step in the process, however, will be a CD release party.  Stay tuned for details on that, but I plan to have some fun things in place for that event including more drawings and giveaways.  Events to be given away will include a free CD, the set of strings from my first ever solo show (which I will work hard to make worth something someday), and the Heroes and Scoundrels bass drum head, the only one of its storied history not to be given away.  Who will take home the free CD? Will the person who wins the guitar strings try to use them on a guitar?  Will three of the drumheads from the same set wind up in the same household?  I’ll let you know as soon as I have a release party date so you can find out!  In the meantime please feel free to check in from time to time and read my Recording Journal.

What a great time I had this past Saturday night!  I thank the Teal Nation for making my first Lost Boys appearance in seven months a very special night.  The Push Push Theater was packed, the crowd was full of energy, and I got to see a lot of faces I haven’t seen in a long time.  It felt good to once again be Tom for an evening and to perform with seven other Lost Boys-even at the same time!  I enjoyed getting to perform once again alongside String, Capt. Crosby Nash, Aaron the Moor, Wicked Pete Speakeasy, and Brother Ignatius Loquacious Righteous as well as perform for the first time with Sven Bjornjensenjensenjen(?), the helmeted Norse bassist,  and William Son of William (We Think), my successor.    I would like to thank any of the Teal faithful who stray onto my site for so many years of love and support.  You still haven’t seen the last of Tom, and I hope some of you keep Andy on your radar as well.

The next Atlanta area show for me is at Galactic Quest in Lawrencevile at 7:30 on August 8!  Like the April 4 show, I will do primarily originals but also a few covers and traditionals as well as a few other silly things, plus some drumhead giveaways!  At Fan Appreciation this past weekend I raffled off the snare drum head that was used to record Heroes and Scoundrels and that withstood a number of other memorable Lost Boys events, such as the first two Fan Appreciation shows and the DragonCon show.  I have more of the heads that shared the same storied history that I was not quite ready to replace as of last weekend, but I will have them off in plenty of time for the August 8 show.  So if any of you had your eye on that snare head during the giveaway, don’t sit around feeling jealous of Mary;  c’mon down to Galactic Quest, located on Highway 120 in Lawrencville between Phoenix High School and Captain D’s.  We’ll have a great time, and you’ll get to hear some songs I didn’t play last time I was there.   And by the way, while I will be in Phoenix the weekend before that, I encourage all the Atlanta crowd to catch Matthew Trautwein there.  He always does some nice classical guitar music, some of his originals, and the covers he was commissioned to learn at previous shows.  I can honestly say I’ve never heard a more entertaining one-man cover of “I still write your name in the snow.”

Recording drums for my CD this weekend!  Stay tuned and I hope to see you August 8!

Please join me for another solo appearance at Galactic Quest in Lawrenceville on Saturday, August 8.  I’ll be playing originals with a few covers and traditionals, even some I didn’t play there in April.  As before, some are sincere, some are silly, some are both, and it will be a fun evening.  Feel free to click on the Listen/Watch link at the top of the page for some highlights from the previous show there.  There’s no cover at the door; it’s choose your own admission, so I hope you’ll attend.  We all had a great time at the last one and we will this time as well.

So no Teal kilts in Carvershire this fall.  The closest thing to a Teal Sighting in New England (with the exception of seeing Mark around town) will be at the after-faire open mic event that John hosts at Pomodore’s in Wareham.  I will be in the region on Sunday, September 27 without a need to get up at 4:00 on Monday morning, and that will be my one chance to see and hang out with King Richard’s Faire folk.  It is an open mic event, and how many of my own songs I actually get to play will depend on how many others want to play songs, but I am told that last fall my bandmates actually wound up doing a full set with Mark.  So who knows?  I’ll be there, and I’ll do something, so I hope I get to see some of you there.

We had a fun time at the Dancing Monkey’s “A Mid-Southern Night’s Dream” production, and I enjoyed getting to sing some good Southern rock songs such as “Statesboro Blues”, “Can’t you see?”, and(for those who have that fever for which the only prescription is more cowbell) “Mississippi Queen.”  The next show is “Monkey Beach Party” on August 28-30 at the Academy.

If you were planning on attending the Lost Boys’ Fan Appreciation Night, you should know that the band found out recently that the event will not take place at the James Joyce as it has the past two years.  Fortunately, an alternative venue was secured.  The event will now be held at the nearby Push Push Theater.  The address is 121 New St, Decatur GA 30030.  Having played a Lost Boys show at the Push Push I can tell you it will be a good venue, although details for this event are still being finalized so that the band can somehow try and and make it kinda work for everyone.  Stay tuned for more details on that.  I’ll send a newsletter out to my mailing list.

In other news,  I begin recording my CD later this month!  Once all the session dates are booked I will let you know when the release date is.  That’s all for now and I hope to see you soon, whether it’s at a house concert in Arizona, a comic store in Georgia, or a restaurant in Massachusetts!

Yes, as much as I said I wasn’t going to do it, I finally entered the 21st century and joined Facebook. I personally shy away from telling the world all kinds of details about myself and my personal relationships as I am a rather private person with boundaries, but then again I am a performer and want people to come to shows I do and therefore have need of visibility. It’s mainly for music, mind you, but it is still Facebook. If it keeps me on people’s radar and lures more people here, gets them on my mailing list, helps them keep track of where I’m playing, and sometime in coming months will update them as to the release of my upcoming CD and accompanying release party, then I guess it can’t be all that bad. So friend me!

I haven’t yet joined a house concert networking site as I do not yet have a studio recording to send anyone, but I am now looking to book some house concerts this fall in addition to the one in Phoenix on July 31 (remember, RSVP to andyphxhouseconcert@gmail.com and you’ll receive all the pertinent info), so if your living room can hold people I’d love to do a show there. Click on the HOUSE CONCERTS link at the top for more info.

Tom will be back for his first Lost Boys appearance in seven months at the James Joyce Pub in Avondale on July 18 for the 3rd annual Fan Appreciation Night/10th anniversary celebration. Will has, by all accounts, been rocking out quite capably, and I look forward to joining him and Jason Methvin a.k.a Cornelius the Jester as well as other characters in the band’s storied history. My role will be limited this year, but I’ll still be there, and you should too because a Lost Boys show is fun no matter who is playing. And while I’m at it, Congratulations to String for defying the odds, thinking outside the realm of possibility, and keeping the fantasy alive for ten years. May the clock never strike 1600 on the Lost Boys!

And speaking of shows in Avondale, I hope you’ll join me at the Dancing Monkey Cabaret’s “Mid-Southern Night’s Dream” show June 26-28 at the Academy Theater. Click on the link to my Calendar Page for details, and I hope to see you all soon!

Thanks to all who attended the Free Comic Book Day event at Galactic Quest. Karma Lingo is back, and they did their first full-length show at that event after doing a four-song stint at the cabaret the previous weekend. Before their set started, however, Matthew Trautwein, Geoffrey Brown, and I had fun taking turns at songs that were in one way or another related to comics or superheroes. I showed up with a guitar, which I used for Weird Al’s Spiderman-themed Billy Joel parody and Monty Python’s “Galaxy Song”, and a djembe, which I used on the original Spiderman theme, REM’s “Superman” (which I played and sang together with Matthew and Geoffrey), and a new original- a theme for Galaxy Man villain Dr. Ross Rex.

The Dancing Monkey Cabaret’s “Battle Royale” show was quite fun. Karma Lingo played four songs, including two covers that were their entries in the Battle of the Bands contest. They performed a practically verbatim cover of Led Zeppelin’s “The Ocean”, which we of the cabaret house band The Chromatics answered with an instrumental combo jazz version of “Whole Lotta Love”. And yes, we all took solos. In response to Karma Lingo’s cover of the Pretenders’ “Message of Love” we performed a Latin version of “Middle of the Road.” The audience decision went to Karma Lingo at the dress rehearsal and the Friday night shows and to the Chromatics at the Saturday and Sunday night shows. One rather entertaining feature was the new (to America) Thimblerig Circus from Moldavia featuring Molotov, played by Adam Lowe, who has brilliantly portrayed many renaissance festival characters including the Village Liar and the Lost Boys’ Sven Bjornjensenjensenjen…etc., and who was also a big winner at the flattery contest. We also had some highly entertaining martial arts displays by Caitlin and Michael Ward, one of which was likely the only time in my life that I will ever switch back and forth between “Alice’s Restaurant” and “Mortal Kombat” in the same skit. The next cabaret is “Culture of the South”, which will take place at the Academy Theater on June 26-28.

My next big project is to work on my own CD. It will have full instrumentation with me playing all the drums, most of the bass and guitar tracks, and doing all the vocals. More details will follow when I have an idea for a release date a little bit later this year. If you’re not on my mailing list, be sure to sign up so I can keep you informed of that and whatever else I may be up to.

Also, if you live in the Phoenix area or close enough to it and would like to check out the house concert I’m doing on July 31, please RSVP to andyphxhouseconcert@gmail.com.

I hope to see everybody soon!

Thanks to all who made it out to Galactic Quest for the April 4 show!  It was every bit as special as I’d hoped it would be, and I thank you all for being there.  We had not only a good sized crowd but a fun crowd, a lot of people got to see people they had not seen in a while, and I  really, really enjoyed having you there.   You’re my kind of audience, but then I pretty well knew that going in.  I look forward to the next time!  From the feedback I have received so far, the favorite song of the night seemed to be “People Make Mistakes”.  I’m glad that I have sung words of encouragement to you, and if you need a pick-me-up you can view the video of it that Kyle has so kindly posted.    I also received some kind words about “The Days of King Henry”, a sentimental ballad that lovingly recalls all that was good about the 16th century.

As I announced at the show, a recording project is in the near future, and I’ll keep you posted on the progress of that.   It will have drums, bass, and guitar to accompany, and it will include many of the songs you heard Saturday night.  With a few exceptions, I’ll be doing all the vocals, guitar, bass, and drums, and the ongoing theme of variety that has pervaded my musical career will prevail on the upcoming album.  Stay tuned for a release (and release party) date.

I have posted a few of the comments left in the box at the 4/4 show on a brand new Comments page.  If you did not get a chance to comment this past Saturday, however, or you’d like to leave me a comment from other shows you’ve seen at some point in my recent or not-so-recent past, feel free to visit the Post Comments page and do so.  One comment left in my box this past weekend, though it wasn’t quite relevant enough to the quality of the performance to have made the cut, was apparently from Britney Spears.  Funny, I don’t remember seeing her.  My guess is she came late and left just before intermission, after I sang “People Make Mistakes.”    

I also announced at the show that for the May 2 Free Comic Book Day event that Matthew Trautwein, Geoffrey Brown, and I would each perform an hour set before Karma Lingo took the stage to wrap up the night.  Since then all involved have put our heads together, and hour sets don’t look realistic, but we will each do a few event-themed songs individually and even do one together between the three of us before Karma Lingo hits the stage.  The music will start at about 7:30 that night, and more details will fall into place before then.  Interesting things will be happening there throughout the day for any who are inclined to show up and get their geek on.

Before then, however, the Dancing Monkey Cabaret’s “Battle Royale” show April 24-26 is the next show on my calendar.  I hope to see you all soon!