The Saga of Andrew Fox: Chapter 2

The other day, I ran into a Mr. Andrew Fox in the lobby of the SUNY Purchase Music Conservatory. He urgently summoned me to his side, pointing excitedly at the screen of his Macbook Pro.

This kind of insistent, innocently intrusive behavior is normal for Andrew Fox, so I happily obliged him by putting a pair of headphones over my head, and on to my ears. "Get ready" he said with a grin not unlike the grin pictured above, and then double clicked. My ears were confronted with an onslaught of soaring trumpets and trombones, shimmering strings, and the heartbeat of Spencer Murphy's and my bass and drums. It was Disco Institute: half recorded, unmixed, and without final vocal takes. Considerably incomplete.

but WOW!

Ladies and Gentlemen, Andrew Fox has done it again! Or at least, he's doing it again. Throughout the course of this 5 minute 43 second song, I received enough weird looks to count on both hands, due to my outbursts of laughter and "Oh my God!"s.

I've since begged him to let me upload a 30 second sample of the song. He kindly agreed.

And so, friends, Romans, and countrymen, lend me your ears. This is Disco Institute.

***Editor's Note***
Upon my request for a copy of Disco Institute, Andrew kindly sent me a super compressed, low quality version of the recording. Enjoy!

The Saga of Andrew Fox

My first memory of Andrew Fox takes place in my Freshman year Songwriting I class. It was one of my very first classes in college, and the idea of a college education was still fresh and new to me . The class was an open forum, where students could present their songs-in-progress to the class, and receive feedback. Andrew Fox stood up, walked to the piano, informed us that his song-in-progress was titled Londonistan, and proceeded to play a song that got to the heart of just about every musical genre stereotype there is, including Klezmer, broadway showtunes, Arabic Pop, 1970's Punk, and some good old fashioned Rock and Roll.

One year later, Andrew is in the studio recording his album. Tom Rosato, SUNY Purchase alum, is engineering the record. Spencer Murphy (earlier mentioned for Madeleine McMillan's record) is playing bass, and I am lucky enough to be playing drums.

Andrew's recordings, track by track, are becoming epic, and Andrew is becoming known to regularly run out of available audio tracks in Pro Tools. One of his more popular songs, Disco Institute, will be rooted in drums, bass, electric guitar, and Andrew's voice, but will be augmented by tubular bells, latin hand drums, fourteen cellos, ten violins, trombone, trumpet, tenor saxaphone, distorted guitar, and french horn.

Go Andrew!

In Studio with Madeleine McMillan

My good friend, Madeleine McMillan, is a singer, songwriter, and pianist in the SUNY Purchase Studio Composition program. I met her Freshman year in my required Songwriting I class. I was intimidated by her for a long time. She was from the Upper West Side, had long black hair with bangs, wore Doc Marten boots, and sat alone. However, our conservatory is only so big, and before I knew it, she was helping me order Doc Martens of my own from Zappos

I've been lucky enough to play drums for her since Spring 2008. She's also enlisted the services of two of the best groovesters at Purchase, Spencer Murphy on bass, and Rob Hokamp on guitar. I couldn't ask for more.

The following video is my first ever attempt at making a movie. I'm sure this will be somewhat obvious. The documented session was "drum day" which explains the relentless focus on me. Pictures to come.

By the way, I should mention that the recordings of Madeleine's voice and keyboard in the following video are temporary scratch takes, meant only to give the drummer (me) a road map of the song.