User:O Jackson 1 o/Amy+Jack

Amy + Jack
Left to Right - Amy Simpson and Jackson Willmott
Background information
Origin	Luton, Bedfordshire
Genres	Anti-Folk, Alternative
Labels	Cookie Dough Records
Members	Amy Simpson, Jackson Willmott

Amy + Jack is an alternative anti-folk band originating from Luton, England. The band consists of Amy Simpson (vocals/acoustic guitar) and Jackson Willmott (vocals/acoustic guitar/bass/drums/keyboards), and formed in the summer of 2009. The band's demos and professional recordings were regarded as a major milestone for acoustic music in their hometown and pioneered the introduction of the avant-garde to Bedfordshire's music scene. Their subsequent live performances are often unpredictable and their intimate, stripped-down versions of their recordings are humorously light-hearted - both in aural and visual context (Jack has played only a handful of shows without his dress and cat make-up).

Their debut EP MotherFolkers! and subsequent recorded work has attracted the attention of musicians, promoters and media all around their hometown and beyond, being regularly featured on BBC Three Counties Radio (3CR) (also performing for their "BBC Introducing" show), their songs included local in bar jukeboxes, and receiving features from several media outlets, including radio interviews, newspaper advertisements, and magazine, social networking, website and fanzine reviews.

History

Around 2007, Amy and Jackson met while both working at the Dunstable branch of Sainsbury's. At this time, they were casual acquaintances brought together by a mutual friend, and neither of them were aiming to form a band - Jackson was already performing with other local acts Strawberry Forks and a short-lived grunge band, Apex, while Amy was planning to move away to university to study philosophy.

In 2009, Amy had taken an interest in singing professionally, and had been asked by a friend to join a rock band as a lead vocalist while attending university. When she traveled home for Easter, Amy asked Jackson to record a selection of demos to give the band as an audition. Jackson accepted her request, and the two recorded cover versions of Letters To Cleo's "Cruel To Be Kind" and Oasis' "Don't Look Back in Anger", with Amy on vocals and Jackson improvising the guitar parts. The demos were recorded in a single afternoon, and they were both satisfied with the results of the tapes. Amy then proceeded to take the demo recordings back to the band to seal her place within it.

A few weeks prior to the recordings, they decided to form Amy + Jack after listening to the demos, realizing the potential for small gigs and exposure around Luton and the surrounding area. As Amy was back for the summer from university, and Jackson was unemployed, the two were able to practice often, starting out practicing covers of the Moldy Peaches and Blink 182's "I Miss You". When they were satisfied with the quality of the cover versions, they promptly took the stage of Luton's primary music venue, the Hat Factory, to perform stripped-down renditions of the Moldy Peaches' "Lucky Number Nine" and "Who's Got the Crack?", and received a positive reception.

The band initially struggled to write their own material, as they would usually write music after drinking heavily. They had written a fumbled set of lyrics for what would soon be reworked by Jackson to form the band's first hit single, "5 or 6", and the band continued from there. From this sudden surge of inspiration, they were able to write together at regular practices and also wrote separately to create enough songs within their repertoire to gig regularly.

The band went on to perform at the Hat Factory on numerous occasions in 2009, including it's own Fringe Festival, along with several other shows organized through local promoters. They quickly gained a small loyal following, and with the release of MotherFolkers! in the same year, they gained exposure in the Live in Luton and Hat Factory magazines, were offered an interview on BBC Three Counties Radio after their show and were advertised throughout local newspapers. This gained Amy + Jack a large amount of notoriety within their hometown within a very short timescale, and soon afterward, their shows were filling up with fans and the generally interested public.

After a brief hiatus at the beginning of 2010, whilst Amy attended her second year of university, the band reconvened and worked on new material, penning the newer hits, "'Til Death Do Us Part" and "I'm Not Taking You Home, You Bastard" - the latter gaining the position of being one of their more recent live staples. The band went on in the spring and summer of 2010 to play more live shows due to popular demand, performing at the Hat Factory's second annual Fringe Festival, several shows for local promotion company PDM, George II's Clockwork night, a Songbook Promotions' acoustic night, I Heart Promotions' gigs at the Proud Camden venue and Bedford Esquires and Jackson's twenty-first birthday party in July at Totternhoe Football Club.

A Collection of Strange Folk

The band intially struggled to write material for their own project, although, by this time, they had established the name Amy + Jack for themselves and were actively seeking inspiration for their upcoming EP. In the meantime, they created a 7-track demonstration CD of cover songs that, despite being hastily recorded and only a minute number of copies being created (around 10-20 copies of the CD were reproduced - however, the songs were featured heavily on the bands Myspace page), identified their musical personalities. The CD was more recognisable as a means to showing the few people who heard it (and themselves) that Amy + Jack was a project worth pursuing.

The demo featured six of their favourite Moldy Peaches songs, going on to perform "Lucky Number 9", "Steak For Chicken" and "Who's Got The Crack?" as regular live covers. The demo also featured their stripped down version of Blink 182's major hit, "I Miss You", which was also a big feature of their live repertoire.

MotherFolkers! and Amy + Jack Live DVD

The songs included on "A Collection of Strange Folk" received positive feedback from attendees of their live shows of early 2009, and when the band had finally added their own songs to their shows, they decided to make their second EP, which, in turn, gained a lot more exposure and more gig opportunities for the band than their previous effort.

Entitled "MotherFolkers!", the 4-track EP featured the band's most popular and commercially viable songs. "5 or 6", the duo's first ever original effort, touches upon the hardships of growing up generally, and also within a society dictated to by fashion and social standing. "Eye to Eye" shows the narrator as an outsider looking at a relationship gone sour, and is trying their hardest to reassure that all is not lost. "Drop Dead Donkey" was originally written in "Drop D" tuning as Amy had somehow found a link between the song name and the tuning it was written in. This was later scrapped and the song remained in standard tuning. The lyrics contain much psychedelic imagery paired with a self-depreciating outlook (a technique used by many anti-folk lyricists). "Cat on a Tin Roof" follows a conversation between Amy and a cat (voiced by Jackson), with the cat lecturing Amy on how many take life for granted. The irony of the cat's wise words (who has 9 lives) is noted throughout the second verse.

Jackson performed all the instruments for the EP and the pairs' vocals were overdubbed a few weeks after the instrumental tracks had been completed. From there, around 250 copies of the EP (around 10 times the amount of their prior release) were produced and sold at the band's upcoming gigs (the majority being sold at the 2009 Fringe Festival).

A subsequent DVD included the aforementioned performance at the Fringe Festival, band photos and features all the tracks from the EP (and an early recording of "Lime Song" at the menu screen).

Amy + Jack (album)

In the summer of 2010, Amy + Jack set out to record all of their work onto a single disk, initially in order to add to their profits and gain exposure for themselves. Jackson had been working on the instrumental parts for several weeks before inviting Amy to join him at Barnfield College, Luton, (where Jackson attended the BTEC National Diploma in Music Technology) to record the vocal parts over the course of a few more weeks. The album consisted of every song the band had played live (minus the ode to an alcoholic superhero, "Superman", which was written some time later), along with the four tracks that had been featured on MotherFolkers!.

When Amy + Jack had been completed, Jackson brought the final product to Amy's house, where the pair performed their usual ritual of listening to the finished CD whilst drinking a bottle of red wine. They were happy with the result at the time, but due to minor mixing problems beyond their control, admittedly overblown instrumentation and with no remaining studio time, the band felt they had not done as brilliantly as they previously thought. Also, due to a lack of funding, materials and time to reproduce their work, the band were forced to create only a small percentage of their original target. The band subsequently lost interest in reproducing the CD, and gave the remaining copies to friends, family and a small number of their fan base after playing shows.

Despite the disappointment of their debut album attempt, Amy + Jack gained considerable inspiration from the loss, seeking to record stripped-down, true-to-sound versions of their songs (as they would appear in their intimate live performances).

Future Projects

Amy + Jack are actively performing around the UK this year. The band have been dedicated to playing as many shows as they can, along with writing new material for upcoming performances. Their gigs, to this day, are still largely based around London, Luton and the surrounding area. A recent update on the band's Myspace page indicates a tour of the United Kingdom will be organised throughout 2011.

An entirely acoustic CD of some of the band's work is being produced in the winter of 2010, and will be available soon afterwards. The band has also issued a statement through their Myspace page confirming the new material being written for their live shows will be recorded within in 2011.

Musical Style and Influences

Amy + Jack's musical direction is highly influenced by many anti-folk artists (namely The Moldy Peaches, but also includes Kimya Dawson and Adam Green's solo work, Jeffrey Lewis [plus Jeffrey Lewis and the Junkyard], The Bundles, Antsy Pants, Barry Louis Polisar) in addition to artists originating from differing genres, such as Nirvana, Dashboard Confessional, Rise Against, The Police, Blink 182, The Beatles, Dire Straits, The Ink Spots, Regina Spektor, The Beach Boys, among many more.

The band itself originally and unintentionally modeled itself as a covers group, but even after the first few songs had been written by the duo, their musical style still followed a similar pattern to their anti-folk heroes. The band intends to keep their musical style fluent and familiar throughout their future projects, although many of their new songs have revealed a secondary tender and thoughtful side to the band's lyrics and general songwriting.

Discography

A Collection of Strange Folk (Spring 2009)

1. Lucky Number 9 (written by The Moldy Peaches)
2. Lazy Confessions (written by The Moldy Peaches)
3. Steak for Chicken (written by The Moldy Peaches)
4. Nothing Came Out (written by The Moldy Peaches)
5. Who's Got The Crack? (written by The Moldy Peaches)
6. Anyone Else But You (written by the Moldy Peaches)
7. I Miss You (written by Blink 182)

MotherFolkers! (Summer 2009)

1. 5 or 6 (Amy Simpson/Jackson Willmott)
2. Eye to Eye (Amy Simpson/Jackson Willmott)
3. Drop Dead Donkey (Amy Simpson/Jackson Willmott)
4. Cat on a Tin Roof (Amy Simpson/Jackson Willmott)

Amy + Jack Live DVD (Summer 2009)

Features the band's performances from their various dates of the first annual "Fringe Festival" in Luton.

Amy + Jack (album) (Spring 2010)

1. 5 or 6 (Amy Simpson/Jackson Willmott)
2. Back + Forth (Amy Simpson/Jackson Willmott)
3. Drop Dead Donkey (Amy Simpson/Jackson Willmott)
4. Floorboards (Amy Simpson/Jackson Willmott)
5. Cookies (Amy Simpson/Jackson Willmott)
6. Dreamy Daze (Amy Simpson/Jackson Willmott)
7. Lime Song (Amy Simpson/Jackson Willmott)
8. Eye to Eye (Amy Simpson/Jackson Willmott)
9. Good Ol' Days (Amy Simpson/Jackson Willmott)
10. Cat on a Tin Roof (Amy Simpson/Jackson Willmott)

External links

Amy + Jack Official Myspace Page