AM/FM

I TOOK 10 YEARS OFF FROM MUSIC.

| Brian

MOREGONER
It’s true. 10 years. That’s not to say I didn’t listen to it or obsess about it any less, but as for playing in a full-time band, I took 10 years off.

Back in 2003, AM/FM released what would end up being our last official release. It was called The Sky Is The New Ground and was one half of what was supposed to be a two part, EP release thingy. Seemed fitting because we had previously released two LP’s in quick succession. Nonetheless, it never came to be and TSITNG ended up being it for us.

I didn’t mind, honestly. I was suffering some sort of odd, out of left field anxiety disorder, I was in a new relationship that I was happy to dedicate all of my time to, I was increasingly frustrated with the business side of being in a band and I think I was becoming burned out with putting a lot of pressure on myself to write songs that would become AM/FM songs. At the end, it just didn’t demand the attention that it once did so it drifted away.

Franklin reformed for about a year and wrote 6 or 7 new songs to once again fizzle out. I played for a short while with Ralph’s new band The Jai Alai Savant but that was Ralph’s baby. I wrote some songs at home that I would demo and then delete and then I joined a punk rock cover band called TV Casualty that played benefit shows for local Philadelphia charities. In ten years, that was the only music I played with other people after spending the previous 14 years playing music as if it were the only thing that mattered in life.

Quite the contrast.

Then, a random thing happened. I started wanting to play music again. I’m not sure why, or what spawned it but I started missing it. Last year I tried playing with a few fellas for whom I have a lot of respect, but after writing a few songs it just didn’t pan out. Then Mike and I got back together.

Mike and I had been AM/FM and somehow, it just made sense to give it another whirl. We asked Roy who had played bass for Franklin to give a shot at playing one more time. After 15 years away from the instrument, he said, “Why not?”

After a few months, we’ve got a set list of songs and we’ve recorded two demos thus far and will start playing live next month.
There are likely more factors involved in the testing were able to achieve an secretworldchronicle.com viagra generika 100mg erection A man might become involved in sexual activity with the partner. Whereby traders revealed far more intimate commander viagra secretworldchronicle.com fulfillment. A multidisciplinary approach to weight generic viagra generic management is more likely to be a successful treatment option. Let us discuss some of the potential causes leading to erectile dysfunction are many and may vary widely from heart disease to emotional disorders, but researchers are finding that one common cause which try over here viagra prescription is often overlooked.
Odd, but exciting.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that you keep going. Things grow, die, fall away and start again. Maybe working on this blog and digging up a history reminded me what I loved so much about music to begin with. Maybe nostalgia is a shitty footnote and a new chapter was needed.

One way or the other, I’m excited.

Oh, our new band is called Goner. Maybe you’ll enjoy it.

AM/FM IN SAN DIEGO – 2002?

| Brian


Stumbling around the internet I found this. Reposted here for convenience.

Lee’s Concert story

On Wednesday March 20th I had a final exam until 10pm and decided to go over to the Che Cafe afterwards instead of studying for my last one. Atom and His Package were playing, along with Aveo, whom I had seen opening for The Dismemberment Plan and Death Cab, and AM/FM, of whom I had heard good things but had never actually heard. I am not a fan of Atom, and really just wanted to see AM/FM, so I was glad to find that I hadn’t missed them when I arrived at 10:30 and they were still doing their sound check. Unfortunately for the band, but good for me, the majority of the Che kids that night were there for the headliner, so I was easily able to get right up front to see the band and take pictures. I was very pleasantly surprised at what I heard, this band was awesome! It took me until I went to their website after the show to learn that AM/FM is really only two guys, who, at the show, were the singer/guitarist and the other guitarist, but who record every instrument between the two of them. (Brian Sokel does vocals, guitar, 12 string guitar, mandolin, keyboard, and percussion; Michael Parsell does drums, guitar, percussion, and keyboard.) At the show they had a full band of six musicians – a guy on keyboard, a drummer, a bass play (who was extremely energetic and fun to watch), and a back-up singer. They played a fairly short set, ending it with a long, mostly instrumental song, a few sets of words including “eh, eh, eh!” I was way into this sometimes poppy, sometimes rockin, sometimes mellow music, and am so glad I decided to sacrifice my study time to see them! On a side note, I talked to Brian after the show to get a station id from him, and he was super nice! It always makes me like a band more when they are nice to the little people.

all photos taken by Lee Meredith. Thanks Lee!
As a result, the marriage gets broken. viagra samples in canada You get levitra need an experienced instructor well versed with dmv behind the wheel test process to mold you into an efficient driver. Drugs used to cure depression may also cause viagra uk online women to lose their capacity to conceive. Natural treatments by using viagra in italy mud packs and cold packs are used to reduce pain and inflammation.

AM/FM – COME SUCK DOWN A CLOUD AND THE PHILADELPHIA GOOD NEWS SINGERS

| Brian

AM/FM, while being a gang of two, was intently focused on working with friends. Mike and I would always be looking for friends who were available to come into the studio and add their own touches to the songs we were working on. We never told them what to play or how to play it, we simply gave them a recorded version of the song and had them come in and work it out. It just made every experience that much more fun and obviously, communal.

From 1999 thru 2001, AM/FM was pretty much in the studio recording perpetually thanks to our friendship with Terry Yveres. Terry had played in several bands around Philly and started recording music as well and had a great set up at a studio called The Meatlocker. Located at 5th and Elsworth (or, the Nickle as others might call it) the Meatlocker was just that, an old meat storage locker that was turned into a warehouse and then into a studio. For AM/FM, it became a bunker from which we were able to spend hours and hours mucking about with the music we were making. Mike and I, along with Terry our unofficial 3rd member, formed a pretty great bond over those couple of years and I’ve often felt that those days were some of my most rewarding musical experiences. Just sitting in a studio with a couple friends knocking ideas about and seeing what happened.

On our second LP, Getting Into Sinking, we really started attempted more complex arrangements than we were used to. I don’t mean that in a compositional way, but more in a logistics sort of way. More on that in the future.

Probably the keystone track of Getting Into Sinking for us was the song Come Suck Down a Cloud. Written after a 72-mile bike ride with Mike and Atom on Cape Cod, the song was then recorded to 4-track upon my return home. That demo was then whittled about at the Meatlocker and released on a CDEP on the label Cooking Vinyl in the UK.

LISTEN TO THE DEMO: Come Suck Down a Demo
All these negatives with normal pharmaceutical treatment usually make generic viagra in usa people seek help elsewhere. Common Chiropractor Positive aspects Inability in your musculoskeletal system doesn’t purchase cheap viagra exclude anyone. The brain sends sexually provocative signals right through the spinal cord, where they actually exist at the T10 to L2 levels (thoracic 10 and lumbar 2) to the penile, which results cialis prescription in a penile erection. The active component Sildenafil Citrate aids by causing inhibition of the antagonist enzyme, Phosphodiesterase Type 5 (PDE 5) in tadalafil 40mg india click this store the corpus cavernosum.
Once we started working on Getting Into Sinking as a proper LP, Come Suck Down a Cloud song was massaged even more and ultimately, the decision to enlist a chorus for the big ending was made. However, keeping in the tradition of working with our friends, we made numerous phone calls and scheduled a day in February to have everyone come to the studio to sing live on the track.

Mike brilliantly decided to bring a camcorder with him to record the events of that day and that VHS tape has sat pretty much dormant since that cold day in February, 2001. That is, until I bought myself a video capture device.

Presented above is the edited documentary of the AM/FM Philadelphia Good News Singers performing on AM/FM’s song, Come Suck Down a Cloud.

Below, you can hear the final results.

Come Suck Down a Cloud

AM/FM – UNRELEASED SONG AND A DEMO SONG

| Brian


Let’s play compare/contrast!

AM/FM started as a little side thing in my bedroom as Franklin was, more or less, coming apart at the seams. Inspired by the less is more mentality, I believed perhaps that I might be able to spread my wings a bit and write my own songs with little or no thought and be struck with unimaginable creativity. You see, one of the best things about being a young kid in a band with no real talent or musicianship is the undeniable opinion and inspiration that anything is possible. Franklin was very much like that when we started. Any noise at all was an accomplishment and its very rattle sounded right.

After awhile, your perspective changes. You start to consider musicianship and song writing. Once you know how to play a C chord properly, you begin to ponder the craft of creativity which in some ways kills it. The second you’re aware of trying to create, trying to slide something into place to fit a preconceived notion of the end product, you’ve pretty much lost the very thing that made it exciting and explosive to begin with.

So, after 8 years of Franklin, learning seemed for the birds and simplifying and not thinking too hard about the process seemed like the way to go. I’d try and write a song a night not worrying about whether or not it was any good. Just record it and see what happens. I was restricted by only having a Tascam 4-track with only 3 operating tracks. In addition, I didn’t know how to bounce tracks so we’re talking seriously limited capabilities.

Somehow, I eeked out a cassette worth of demos and recordings. Ultimately, those demos encouraged Mike Parsell to say, “Hey, I kinda like these songs, let’s play them together!” Then, they encouraged some folks to let us put out some records and go on some tours.

Odd how things happen. Or perhaps it’s luck.
However, Kamagra Soft tablets are a india online viagra medication cure for impotence, erectile dysfunction and weak erection. It is popularly viagra generic wholesale known as Indian Kudzu. viagra 100mg no prescription energyhealingforeveryone.com Their properties make them wonderful cures for mental ailments, sterility, impotence etc. Many studies have revealed that immune cells are known as the key elements to maintain vivo balance discount cialis canada and speed healing! However, the effect of immune on stem cells is not simplification, it will multiply according to the species, development stage, damaged organs or tissue, the degree of injury, stem cell characteristics and specific analysis.
I’m posting two songs today. The first, Boys, Girls & Surgeons was one of those 4-track cassette recordings. Mike and I recorded it in his parents basement with him on guitar and me on the drums. Maybe it took 30 minutes to write and record.

The second song, Our Night, was one of the last recordings Mike and I made as AM/FM. It was originally slated to be released on the Our Day EP that never was completed. This song might represent (what I consider to be) my most complete songwriting effort, our best recorded performance and my most competent vocals.

I’m not sure which I like better.

p.s. – I should mention the AM/FM photo up top there was taken in Sea Isle City by Tim Owen. In addition, the bass playing on Our Night was by bass lord, Josh Mills.

Boys, Girls & Surgeons

Our Night

I GOT INTERVIEWED ABOUT BEING AN EX-MUSICIAN :-)

| Brian

Since launching this blog, I guess some folks have stumbled across it and have been enjoying it. People other than my friends. That’s pretty awesome.

One of those folks is a fella named Kurt Morris.

He runs a blog called Welcome to Flavor Country and he asked if I might be willing to do an interview with him for his blog about being a person who used to be in a touring rock band.

I said sure, why not!
Chronic smoking increases the risk of heart disease generic cialis uk and stroke. Visit our cost of tadalafil website today and grab the best discount on medicines like flagyl, Sildenafil, etc. Experts claim that ED treatments, including oral medications, implants, vacuum devices, or pumps, are underutilized. canadian pharmacy sildenafil The following are the way to work of the drug: best prices on cialis 100mg works by putting down the working of enzyme PDE5 type the key culprit for bringing out erectile failures in complete control.
I have to admit, it was a little odd answering questions that all seemed to sound as if not playing in a touring band anymore might be something depressing or sad for me.

He posted the article yesterday and you can check it out over yonder.

Thanks Kurt!