The Notorious Amps Brothers

Update (2.4.08) - Since posting this last week, Tony Madejczyk has uploaded the entire Jan. 4, '08 show at his site. Go here for the whole show.

If you're new to the music I play, in addition to my original bands (one that plays just under my name, and Meltzer-Hart and The Hanks - my Neil Young Band is yet another hobby of mine), I am in a musical collective called Amps Do Furnish A Room. The name is a sly play on words regarding a Durham NC bookstore, plus my very real dilemma of where to seat visitors when they visit my small garage apartment.

Our debut year of 2007, we chose to rehearse and learn the landmark Marquee Moon record by NYC and CBGBs heroes Television. We gathered every Sunday afternoon and occasional weeknights at a house in the Duke Forest area to learn this complicated and beautifully complex masterpiece. We decided our goal each year is to play the selected album live a few times at the end of the year. We actually played the lp all the way through once in January, a few weeks behind schedule to fit it in during 2007. However we did play two other shorter gigs earlier, a three song sneak peek in March and a 45 minute set in September, just two songs shy of playing the whole record. Needless to say, it was thrilling each time to sing and play. I sang the lions share of the record, while bassist Jamie McLendon sang Prove It and Torn Curtain. It clearly made me a better singer and guitarist to tackle this each week with the likes of Andy Fekete and Pete Gamble sharing the guitar duties with me. Andy and Pete really possess the power and rock aggression that Tom Verlaine & Richard Lloyd brought to Television. Drummer Ken Friedman came out of a decades long hibernation to get back behind the drums and anchored our sound on some of the most challenging songs imaginable for what started as a Sunday garage band jam session. Bassist Jamie McLendon added a definite rock snarl to complete the picture.

Here's a youtube of one of the best moments from the January 4th, Local 506 show in Chapel Hill we played with Shalini and Mitch Easter's Guitars in the Sky (The Records) Tribute and Abby Pearce's Heart of Glass (Blondie Tribute).

Friction:








Elevation:


More videos of ADFAR are here (courtesy of Tony Madejczyk and Andy Fekete).
And here (courtesy of Eddie Huffman)

Just last night, after many deliberations of pros and cons (who knows what album better, who is lukewarm, can we pull this off, etc.) we decided last night to tackle the landmark January 1968 lp The Notorious Bryd Brothers.



I honestly think this one may be as challenging to pull off live Marquee Moon. Luckily, we give ourselves the better part of a year to learn it in Andy's basement and at home in front of the cd player and the repeat button. The Byrds continued their trajectory towards experimental sounds (moog, phased instruments, baroque arrangements combined with pre- Sweetheart of the Rodeo country-rock interludes). They had grown very complex and dark indeed by this point. '68 was a strange year in every respect. It was only a matter of weeks and months after the release of this record that the Tet Offensive and the assassinations of MLK Jr. and Robert Kennedy occurred. Some have hailed this record as not only the original Byrds (Gene Clark had left the year before, but rejoined briefly for an ill-fated tour) crowning achievement but also the end of the innocence of the 1960's. Musically, there are some wonderfully freaky guitar parts played by future Byrd Clarence White. I believe he was doing studio work with them a good bit by then. I can't wait to see what ADFAR's Pete Gamble will do for this.

Since the original lp is just under 30 minutes long (11 songs), we decided we may tackle a few other choice Byrds tunes. When I mentioned the David Crosby B-Side Lady Friend, Ken's eyes lit up. It would be fun to work in some of Gene Clark's Byrds' best.

We also decided we don't necessarily have to ditch playing Television in the year we learn the Byrds. Once an lp is learned, it's gonna be a part of us, at least I hope so. If there's a call for it at some club, we'll do it some more. We're still figuring out this ADFAR plan. We're making it up as we go. Our friend Parke Puterbaugh teaches a course at Guilford College about rock music. I'd love to attend sometime. I've described what we do in ADFAR is like a graduate course in not only some of rock's greatest works, but we get to play them each week at rehearsal and selected gigs. I think we have something really special.