"Michael Brandt remembered for compassion, skill as electrical engineer and musician" In The Daily Orange

For the record (DO article, local PDF), a quality write-up about Mike Brandt just posted in The Daily Orange, with thanks to Michael Sessa for the remote gumshoeing.

“You put a bass and a keyboard in front of him and he turned into Geddy Lee, without the vocals,” Allis said.

This is 100% true, although Mike took many more solos. F3 did a cover of Peter Gabriel’s D.I.Y., for which one of us “not-Sean” had to do vocals – this meant I had to do vocals. For the other story in the article, “ransacking” may have been a slightly overly-dramatic description of the event that I also fondly remembered in the other post.

Interviews become stories, stories become tales, tales become legend.

One of the other parts to that theft story was the police escort to the house where the gear had been stashed. The drums and two guitars were taken from Mike's house despite there being a keyboard, a bass, another bass, a Chapman Stick, and all kinds of amps and processors and the like in tripping distance – being trained musicians, this struck us all as kind of "Obviously you're not a golfer" odd. Sean and I did our best not to goose Mike about where in the musical guitar-bass-drums trinity his visitor thought his 4-strings-is-less-than-6 avocation fell.

An… austere version of one of these..

The eclectic sampling from Mike's abode made a little more sense on sight of the rest of the stash. The visitor had, among other items in his collection, several huge Igloo coolers (not the free-with-complementary-siding-estimate size, but the kind medium-build folks could hide in), a mini trail bike that I believe I heard was stolen from the Mr. 2nd's Bargain Outlet on Erie Blvd., and 50 pairs of fireman boots – all proof that, when you do (certainly the wrong) drugs, you're not in your best state of mind.

The Methodist Bells And Colin Phils – Highlights Of Sub Rosa Session #32 At Subcat Studios, 21 August 2016

Posting for historical purposes, given the great recording and video that came from the session.

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The Methodist Bells (bandcamp facebook) had the pleasure of performing a 3/4 set on Sunday, August 21st at (my first drum teacher, Ron Keck's) Subcat Studios for Sub Rosa Session #32. Closing for the Bells (well, I think it's funny) was recently-US-returned-and-immediately-thereafter-Binghamton-bound Colin Phils (bandcamp facebook), who put on a fantastic trio show (and, with one of the wooden USBs in tow, I can say that their previous two albums are excellent as well).

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"The band. The band. THE BAND!" Adam, me, Leah, Clem, Jeremy, et Maurice.

Alice In The Sky, featuring an Allis On The Ground

With thanks to Amanda Rogers for organizing, Subcat, The Rebel 105.9 (we don't get it in Rochester, though), The Syracuse New Times, D.I.T. Records, and my current contributing writer hosters at syracuse.com for making the session and recording possible, a video work-up of "Alice In The Sky" is provided below for your viewing and listening pleasure (courtesy youtube.com).

On day two of an 11-hour jet lag, hadn't played in a month, stuck behind a poorly-left-ified kit, and still sound good.

The Colin Phils tune "Don Cabs" is included below. I was (admittedly) ready to sneak out early, but ended up staying for the whole set (that's musician-speak for "great show").

BONUS MATERIAL

Our fearless leader Clem Coleman (twitter facebook) was featured in a recent Daily Orange article, in which I make my third (known) appearance in the DO ever since starting at SU in 1994.

Link: dailyorange.com/…/otro-cinco-chef-creates-vintage-inspired-music…

PDF (local, for posterity): 2016sept7_methodistbells_dailyorange.pdf