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members:
website:
http://www.avondale-online.com/
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In January 1998, Gregg Todt had an idea for a new band. After toiling away in countless bands, including Channel Zero and Venus Auto, he'd become a veteran of the Kansas City music scene. The new band would pull together varied influences, and would be a band for the sake of being a band; they would play music that they loved, for themselves and anyone that shared their tastes. The main goal of this new unit was to create something special in a music world full of mediocrity and bands that were blatantly derivative of bands and artists that were themselves blatantly derivative of others. With holdover bassist Mike Wheeler (Venus Auto, the Kents), Gregg recruited guitarist Jon Freeman (Larry) to take first guitar and actively began the search for a second to fill out the sound. Enter Joe Fortunato, whose PitchWeekly ad caught Gregg's eye. The influences and the equipment were right, but was the personality a match as well? The new "band" had no rehearsal space, so the 4 members would regularly meet at the 98.9 studio to write on acoustic guitars, listen to demo recordings of proposed song material, and get to know each other as friends. Soon after the addition of Joe, Jon Freeman left to pursue another band he'd been working with, The Zippo Moment. Finally, after 3 months, they secured a practice space, and the three piece began to learn each other's material and shape it into a live set. The pursuit for a vocalist began, with little success at first. Many hopefuls tried out, but fell short of the sound that the other three heard in their heads. A fateful thing occurred, when Mike decided it was in his best interest to leave with his new wife and move to Florida. Weeks after, Joe and Gregg auditioned Matt Palubicki for the daunting task of becoming lead vocalist. It was apparent to both of them upon hearing Matt's demo songs that he was already a match for the sound they were trying to find. At the first practice together, it was very clear that the core of Avondale was solid. All that was missing was a versatile, solid bassist. Avondale auditioned well over 30 bass players, none of whom seemed to match the sound or intensity that was needed. Continuing on as a 3 piece for months, Gregg was reminded by Leigh, his wife, that his friend of many years, Brian Brooks, was a bassist (Dr.Zeuss) with talent and experience to spare. Avondale invited Brian to rehearsal, and it was apparent from the start that he was also a fit. He learned the songs after one or two listens, and was already filling out dynamics that moved the band closer to their desired sound. They rehearsed and wrote for months, refining their backlog of songs and ideas into a cohesive set of dynamic and challenging material. The true glimmer of what could be came with the demo recordings of "Superstar" and "Noisy True", which eventually would end up on their first release. The response from friends and listeners from all over the country, who had downloaded the songs from the web, was enough to let the band know that they had something special in the making. After further refining material from these early demo recordings, the band decided to seek out the production team of Paul Malinowski (Season To Risk, Shiner) and Joel Hamilton (Glazed Baby, Shiner) at WestEnd studios in Kansas City to commit the new material to tape. The resulting release, "Enormous Black Power Gift", begins to define the band and puts in place sounds and structures that will become signature to Avondale. Out of genre vocals over some of the ugliest, dirtiest, and darkly heavy melodies and rhythms. This page was last updated on 2.27.00.
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