HEY WHERE'D YOU GUYS GO??

WUZZUP??????

Alas, oy vey, Mr. Herb Heinz is stepping down from his position as nerd-o-riffic guitarist. Meanwhile the band is on a big long indefinite break while everyone pursues other cool stuff. See what the Men are up to: Herb -- Joel -- Micah -- JT.

Are Amy X Neuburg & Men defunct? They are still as funky as ever, and if that perfect guitarist stumbles into their midst, perhaps they will pick up where they left off. Here's the job description:

In the meantime, Bitter Herb is always around for your viewing pleasure, and to remind you to start schmearing up for next year's Irish April Fool's Passover Extravaganza which you are encouraged to celebrate in the privacy of your own home.... Stock up on kazoos and gefilte fish. Put on "Naked Puppets," guzzle a Guinness and dance around. Eat cardboard. Sacrifice a Spam.

Such a mensch. Here's a groovy Review of the 1999 Passover show.

1999: Sports! Chips! Booty!
1995: UTECHMA

(More info, CD artwork, lyrics, purchasing, lotsa sound clips and MP3 songs can be found at Racer Records.)

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 1999: Sports! Chips! Booty!

Amy's 3rd release on Racer (her second with the Men), Sports! captures the essence of AXN & Men's off-the-wall over-the-top on-the-edge "avant-cabaret" stage show. Highly crunchy punchy bouncy crispy and manly...

For your listening pleasure but short attention span, here are some brief [mono, Real Audio] clips from Sports! Chips! Booty! Enjoy!

Sports Chips Booty (87k - :20)

Naked Puppets (232k - :54)

Orange County (305k - 1:13)

Baby (247k - 1:00)

Shower Song (145k - :33)

For some downloadable MP3s go to the Racer Sounds page.

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 1995: UTECHMA (pronounced "yoo-TEK-muh")

Featuring the original line-up of Amy X Neuburg & Men -- with keyboardist Tim Root using all 10 fingers! This one's a tad more reflective than Sports!, a tad more "studio," and the song styles are (even more) all over the map.

Sound samples and MP3s from UTECHMA are available at the Racer Sounds page.

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Majorly excellent Reviews of Sports! and UTECHMA

$$$-- Buy em! --$$$

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The Personnel:

The members of Amy X Neuburg & Men are Herb Heinz on weird guitar, Joel Davel on Marimba Lumina and Lightning motion-sensor instrument, Micah Ball on Chapman Stick, Amy X on DrumKat and lead vocals, and xtra singer and theatrical dude JT Quillan III. (See Weird Instruments for a description of the Weird Instruments.)

The Sound:

Amy writes songs steeped heavily in the musical theatre tradition, though she sings in various styles, from rock to bel canto. The arrangements then go off in left field, played by an assortment of unusual electronic instruments that sometimes emulate traditional instruments and sometimes just sound really bizarre.

Bordering on accessible, every song is rescued from commercialness by an odd time signature or a space jam or a yelling match or some such thing. No Top 40 hit is imminent.

The Men sing in a manly way, bringing attention to the fact that they are indeed Men. They often echo Amy in a thick Wall Of Men chorus, or go off on their own macho beer-drinking tangent of sloshed Mannitude.

To hear this implausible sound for yourself, check out the sound files above or at Racer Records (where you can hear clips from EVERY song on both Sports and UTECHMA). Better yet, buy a CD.

The Show:

Well uh ... you kind of have to see it to believe it. The Men go wacko on stage and leap about in a truly Manly way, dressed to the nines -- especially JT, who always wears a tux and has astounding hair. Some songs are intricately choreographed, others are free-for-alls. The shows often involve props and other stage apparati and in accommodating venues may be enhanced by slide projections and fancy lighting. It's a damn circus. Videos on the way... Promise.

Herb uses Roland's VG-8 guitar processor (and his super-genius brain) to make all those bizarre detuned sounds -- he even plays bass using his guitar in some songs!

A Chapman Stick is an instrument developed by Emmett Chapman that looks like the neck of a guitar and is played by tapping the strings rather than strumming. The Stick has both bass strings and guitar strings, so the player can access a full range of notes using both hands simultaneously.

Lightning -- a new instrument created by Don Buchla -- uses two sticks that emit infra-red beams. A receiving device senses the positions and motions of the sticks and translates these into various sound parameters such as pitch, volume, and timbre. The player appears to be "playing the air."

The Marimba Lumina -- co-created by Don Buchla and our own Joel Davel -- looks like a marimba and is played like one, but the keys are touch-sensitive pads that trigger any desired synthesizer sound. It differs from other mallet controllers in that the keys can respond differently to the different color-coded mallets, and the sound can change along the up-down axis of the key. Also, it lights up when you hit it!

The DrumKat is a set of ten small pads in a square-shaped chassis, played with sticks. It can trigger drums or any other sound, depending on what it's MIDI-ed to.

Because of the diverse capabilities of these instruments, each member of the band can play nearly any type of sound, so the bass line, for instance, may change hands from song to song.

a brief History of AMY X NEUBURG & MEN

Amy X Neuburg & Men formed in 1993 at the request of Racer Records, who wanted Amy to perform music from her CD Songs 91 to 85 in a Gavin Week showcase.

Amy had worked previously with guitarist and technical genius Herb Heinz, keyboardist Tim Root, and percussionist Joel Davel, in a multimedia techno-theatre ensemble called MAP. All knew each other before that from having attended the Mills College Center for Contemporary Music graduate program in electronic music.

This group began performing in the Bay Area, in clubs and all sorts of interesting techno-art venues like the Anon Salon and the Digital Be-in. The band recorded UTECHMA in the IS Productions studio, and it was released in 1995 on Racer Records. Then Tim grew up and got a real job, so Micah Ball took his place, playing Chapman Stick rather than keyboards, and leaping tuxedo-man JT Quillan III joined the band as theatrical backing vocalist.

The band has since performed up and down the West Coast and has released a second recording -- Sports Chips Booty. They've expanded their show to include slide projections (in certain venues), props, and choreography. Recent exciting shows have included: the opening ceremonies of the new San Jose Tech Museum, a 2-month theatrical run at Venue 9 (here's a groovy review), the Art Car Fest, Seattle's Experience Music Project, a month at The Pink Door cabaret in Seattle, and the (now annual!) Irish April Fool's Passover show at the Starry Plough (another groovy review ). See more venues below.