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I grew
up in San Diego during the 1960s. Inspired by the Beatles, Kinks
and
Rolling Stones, my friends and I formed a band, and I chose to
play
drums. My parents couldn't have known what to
expect when they brought my
first drum kit home, but no matter what kind of horrible noises
my bandmates and I (or my younger brother and his bandmates) made out there in
the garage, Hy and Kay were always
100% supportive, and we will always love them for it.
As my playing improved, I
played in a series of bands, each one
a little more “psychedelic” than the next. By the early
‘70s,
when most local bands were playing Top 40 music or blues based hard
rock, I was playing drums for Horsefeathers,
a popular progressive rock
quintet. Experimenting with odd time signatures and unique sounds
was
par for the course with this group, so no one blinked an eye when I
asked local luthier, Sam Radding, to build me a dulcimer.
Eventually a
friend told me about the African M'bira, or
"kalimba". I saw Taj Mahal play one, and decided I had to have
one of
those, too.
Horsefeathers
opened
shows for the Kinks, Foghat, Mike Bloomfield
and other touring acts. Encouraged by our success on the local
scene, we moved to Los Angeles in 1976, in pursuit of a
record deal.
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We arrived in
LA right as punk
and new
wave music were
kicking in, and no
one
in the
music business was interested in progressive rock. Discouraged,
we soon broke up, although three of
us remained
in LA and made marks for
ourselves. Lead vocalist Mick
Garris
moved into film and TV work, and
today is a producer/director
("Quicksilver Highway," Stephen
King’s "The Stand"). Guitarist Mark
Wittenberg became director of Artist
Relations for Fender
Musical Instruments. I
continued to seek my niche in the music
world while managing the
percussion department for Studio Instrument Rentals, in
Hollywood, where I consulted
with such recording artists as Supertramp, America and Earth, Wind and
Fire.
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HORSEFEATHERS
Bill Manning, Andy Robinson, Mark Wittenberg,
Mick Garris, Bill Birney
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While Horsefeathers was winding down, I
formed a wonderful but short-lived little "splinter group" called The
Earthlings, with Horsefeathers composer/keyboardist Bill Birney and our
friend, Richard Matthew. Richard and I both played kalimba in The
Earthlings. The group was a significant departure for me, being my
first foray into instrumental music, although I wouldn't decide to
seriously pursue that direction for several years. We recorded some
charming 4-track demos, and you can hear them here: http://www.myspace.com/earthlingsaz.
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ELTON DUCK
Michael Steel,
Mike Condello, Mike McFadden, Andy Robinson
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By 1980, I was drumming for a new wave-pop
band called Elton Duck.
After
playing the challenging music of
Horsefeathers, I found this return to bashing out singable and
energetic pop tunes pretty refreshing. The band included bassist Michael Steel, who
later rose to stardom as one of the
Bangles. We
played in every imaginable LA dive, and plastered our hard-to-ignore
name on posters all over town. Elton Duck opened for the Knack, the Motels and Phil Seymour, and toured with the Tubes. Clive Davis himself
signed us to Arista Records.
But when Arista ended up leaving our debut
album on the shelf*, the Duck disbanded, and I redefined my musical
focus, determined to step out from behind the drums and sing my own
songs.
While
writing for A&M
Records’ publicity
department and for Synapse, a
cutting-edge synthesizer magazine, I
formed Invisible
Zoo,
probably
the only synth-rock band ever to have a
lead singer who played dulcimer and kalimba! I liked the idea
that
synthesizers could create such a variety of sounds, many of them very
unique, but we always had way
too much equipment
onstage –
multiple keyboards, sequencers,
drum
machines, tape machines and a ton of gizmos and
electronic devices. One night, someone backstage tripped on a cord and
accidentally unplugged some of our stuff. He plugged the cord
back in
right away, but our programming was scrambled, and our electronic
rhythm section forced us to do a spontaneous medley of our set list, at
top speed!
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* The Elton Duck CD was finally released
in a Limited Edition run in 2012! It is available as a thank-you gift
for making a donation of $15 to the Mike Condello Scholarship Fund,
which benefits college-bound students at Mike's alma mater, North High
School, in Phoenix, AZ. Details here: http://www.foundation4education.org/support-for-students/scholarships
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Despite the
challenging equipment situation, Invisible Zoo was signed
to an indie label, and our song, “Nobody’s
Girl,” received regular airplay
on LA’s then-cutting
edge radio station, KROQ.
Personnel changes left the
Zoo more
electric guitar-oriented (and a lot louder) than what I’d originally
envisioned.
After one particularly
ear-splitting rehearsal, I couldn't take it any more and I quit,
determined to find a more satisying setting for my songs.
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INVISIBLE ZOO
Live at the Palace
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I began pouring my energies into acoustic
music, and in the late eighties, a handful of other artists and I
created LA’s “nu-folk” scene. By
producing our own shows and
lobbying
the media to raise public awareness of local acoustic musicians (this
was before MTV's "Unplugged"), our efforts earned us front-page
coverage in the Calendar section of the Los Angeles Times. At the time,
I had a folk-pop group called Different
World.
Different World released
an album on the Vanguard label
in 1990. Our self-titled CD (I remember
we were disappointed it wasn't coming out on vinyl!) was produced by Earle Mankey
(Concrete Blonde, Sparks, Beach Boys). A song from
the CD, “Dinosaur Tracks,” was
used in the soundtrack for the New Line
Cinema film, Roadside Prophets,
starring X’s John Doe and the
Beastie
Boys’ Adam Horovitz, with
cameos by Arlo Guthrie and Timothy Leary.
Different World toured
California, had some fun, and met with critical acclaim, but eventually
some of the members decided they needed to concentrate on
actually making a little money, so we broke up.
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Pre-DIFFERENT
WORLD group
with Betsy Gerson and Jeff Gregory
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DIFFERENT WORLD
Betsy
Gerson, Michael O'Leary, Andy Robinson, Russell Battelene
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Unfazed, I decided I wanted a more
portable band, and put together an acoustic trio called The
Questionaires. We moved into the coffee house scene, and
found a
lot of like-minded fans. We played some folk festivals, and for
the
first time I actually began hanging around with other dulcimer players.
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THE QUESTIONAIRES
Mike Condello, Andy Robinson, Laura Kass
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In 1994, I
helped to found Southern California
Dulcimer Heritage, a non-profit
organization intended to expose more people to dulcimer music by
holding annual folk festivals. I edited the group's
newsletter. At the
time I was performing solo gigs, teaching dulcimer workshops at various
festivals and giving private lessons through McCabes Guitar Shop, in
Santa Monica.
I did one solo show at a record store called Hyperdisc, in Santa
Monica, where I invited several friends to sit in on various
songs.
Everyone had such a good time that before I knew it, I had a band
again, and a new CD, produced by my brother (this was the first time
Doug and I worked together on a project). The Andy Robinson Band
CD came out great, and performing live with the group was an incredible
experience - we had a chemistry onstage that was impossible to deny,
and, for a folk band, we rocked. But as time went by, our lives
offstage became overly complicated, and it became difficult to
continue. I slowly began to close the book on my LA adventures.
In
2000, I returned home to San Diego, where I began working for Taylor
Guitars. A year later I married
Dagmar,
the love of my
life, at Lumahai Beach, on the spectacular island
of Kauai.
I'd begun working on the demos for my first solo album, Exotic America,
just before leaving LA. This was my first self-produced album so I was
teaching myself to use the necessary digital technology, and planning
on capturing some musical ideas I’d wanted to try for many years. I
wrote new songs, experimented with some new instruments, and put a
fresh spin on a few favorite things I'd written during other times in
my life. It was especially freeing not to write lyrics, and to use
instruments other than the human voice to carry melody lines (although
I did sing, a bit). I also got to work with a fantastic variety
of musicians, including Dennis Caplinger, Pat Kirtley, Paul Blyfuss,
Larry Clark, Tripp Sprague, Suzie Reed, Scott Colby, Bill Birney, and
my own talented brother, Doug Robinson, who produced the album. I
released Exotic America in 2004, and it was chosen by San Diego Union
Tribune's music critic George Varga as one of the Top Ten Debut albums
of the year!
On New Year's Eve 2011, I released my second instrumental album, Music
Bucket. I think Music Bucket carries on in the "tradition" of Exotic
America while still allowing me to push my musical boundaries a bit. I
guess you can call it a solo album - no one was telling me what to do!
This album also features great performances by talented musicians such
as Mike Keneally, Carlos Olmeda, Jamie White, Bill Birney, Chuck and
Nicki Elledge, and my brother, Doug Robinson. Dennis Caplinger and
Tripp Sprague also contributed again. I am so grateful to have access
to this sort of talent pool to bring my music to life! You can hear
clips from both Music Bucket and Exotic America here:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Andy-Robinson/138891899549305?id=138891899549305&sk=app_155326481208883
This just in - "The Open Door" (from Music Bucket) was nominated for
Best New Age Song in the 2012 Independent Music Awards. You can hear
the song, watch my Q&A video, and read all about it, here: http://www.independentmusicawards.com/ima/andy-robinson/
And you can help me win by voting for "The Open Door," here: http://www.independentmusicawards.com/ima/vox-pop/
What's next? I'm gearing up to release my third album of instrumental
music in the summer of 2013. I'm happy to say that music still
surprises and excites me. I imagine it always will, and I look forward
to sharing it with you as long as I can.
If you've read this far, I owe you a beer! Feel free to hit me up for
one, should our paths cross in person.
In the meantime, I wish you happiness, good health, freedom from
distress, and peace!
Andy
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