Monday, January 18, 2010

Meet our new team, plus: A punk band meets the "A-Punk" Band

Hello dear friends. If any of you happened to see our performance at last night's Vampire Weekend concert at the United Palace Theater, you may have noticed that (geez, how many times have I said this?) we have some new members. Yes, it's true - Titus Andronicus v. 6.0 Beta is up and running. Who are these people, you ask? Well...
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The woman on the right is named Amy Klein, and she is a native of Glen Ridge, NJ, and a current resident of Fort Greene, Brooklyn. I have known Amy for a few years now, as she used to play in a band in college with a woman that I was dating at the time. Then she moved to Japan for a while and I was pretty sure I'd never see her again, but a couple of months ago, I happened to run into her at a Double Dagger/Future Islands show at Death by Audio (side note: the most recent Double Dagger album More is the best punk album since... gee, is there a better one? "The Lie/The Truth," which features the singer of Future Islands on backing vocals, is the sort of uplifting punk anthem that Double Dagger must not have heard isn't supposed to exist anymore. Anyway, I could go on and on), and I felt the hand of destiny on my shoulder. Maybe it was the Four Loco coursing through my veins, but I demanded right then and there that Amy join the band and, bless her heart, after a few meetings about logistics and other business related concerns, she did it! She will be playing the electric guitar (a beautiful, black Gibson L6, a precursor to our modern SG) and violin. Neat!

In point of fact, she has already contributed her violin talents to our organization. Here is a picture of she and I at Marcata Recording way, way back in the summer of 2007 during the recording of The Airing of Grievances (thanks to our main man Kevin Kearns for the picture).
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Anyway, Amy is great. Speaking of great people...
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This guy's name is David Robbins, and he will be playing the keyboards and the electric guitar in Titus Andronicus until further notice. This talented man was a roommate of Eric's back in their days at Bloomsburg University, where David majored in "Vocal Performance." This suggests to me we shall also hear Dave do some singing in our band, and probably Amy too for that matter. Hmmm... anyway, I digress. Here is a picture of Dave (top left) and Eric (bottom right) with the rest of their college roommates during a period when they all grew moustaches.
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Dave first came to our attention when Titus Andronicus v 5.0 played a concert back in Autumn of 2008 at Oberlin College, where he was then working as an RD (Resident Director, I think that stands for?). He let us stay at his apartment that night, and a certain member of Titus Andronicus who shall remain nameless (it wasn't me!) cracked everybody up by making some truly hilarious/heartbreaking noises as he threw up outside! Oh my god, you should have heard it. Unbelievable.

Dave is remarkable for being the oldest ever member of Titus Andronicus, at a jaw-droppingly ancient 26 years old, and for being only the third member of our ranks who wasn't from New Jersey (he is from western Pennsylvania - close enough, right?). Yes, there in no doubt about it - Dave is the man.

It is worth noting that the pictures from last night's show were taken by someone named a Diana Wong. Thanks, Diana!

Speaking of that show, I am sure that enough about it has already been said. Suffice to say, it was one of the most bizarre nights of my life, but not in a completely unpleasant way. It looked and sounded a little like this:


All I have to say is, the bass player of this band is truly a fantastic dancer. Shit, that guy can dance his ass off. Who knew? I'd love to party with him sometime.

With all this talk of new members, maybe this is the right time to present a comprehensive list of all the people who have been in the band over the years, for prosperity's sake. Hopefully, this will be the last permutation, but I say that every time. In alphabetical order:

Sarim Al-Rawi: drums - Spring 2005 - Summer 2006
Liam Betson: guitar - Summer 2006 - Summer 2008, Summer 2009, Winter 2009
Andrew Cedermark: guitar - Summer 2007, Summer 2008 - Spring 2009
Martin Courtney: keyboard - Summer 2006
Alexi Crawford: guitar - Summer 2005 - Summer 2006
Ian Dykstra: drums - Summer 2006 - Summer 2007
Pete Feigenbaum: guitar - Autumn 2009
Ian Graetzer: bass - Spring 2005 - modern day
Eric Harm: drums - Autumn 2007 - modern day
Amy Klein: guitar, violin - Winter 2010 - modern day
Matt Miller: keyboard - Autumn 2005 - Spring 2006
Ian O'Neil: guitar - Autumn 2008 - Spring 2009
David Robbins: keyboard, guitar - Winter 2010 - modern day
Patrick Stickles: vocals, guitar - Spring 2005 - modern day
Dan Tews: guitar - Autumn 2005 - Summer 2008
Alex Tretiak: drums - Summer 2007

So many happy memories, so many heartbreaks. Let's hope that Dave and Amy bring more of the former and less of the latter, eh?

Okay, well, I guess that is all for now.

Yr friend,
Patrick

4 comments:

Unknown said...

A lot of members have come across your band, I hope this 2 are in it for a long run and a lot of success comes from this. And I hope you never have to look for Cialis Online if things don't work out.

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