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Andy Davenhall

Indie rock musician from Seattle, WA, with a long history spanning from 84' to Present times, occasionally still posting on facebook and the likes Around the Mid to Late 80's, after graduating from SUNY in 82', coming from Garfield High School, East L.A; a small Indie Rock player, Andrew "Andy" Davenhall, moving around from Seattle and New York for his musical interests, had been exploring Rock for a long time now. Having traveled across the states from California, to New York, he had picked up a lot of influences, that would all conjugate into the Alternative, Grungy, Indie "Folk" Rock band, "[a= Sister Psychic]" Details track to him starting around 84-85' being a local drummer, playing on bands like [a= Wild Debbies] incase when their main drummer was out. Presumably he also did performance on a Christmas release titled, "Christmas in the Northwest", with an assortment of other artists; Presumably a few connected to [l= PopLLama] Records. Around this time is where 'Andy' would help, pop rock band, [a= Pure Joy (2)] for their 1989 release, "[m=317557]" where "The band then stripped down to a three-piece, with Andy Davenhall taking over on drums", along with Andy writing some of the songs directly. He would go onto contribute towards 'Pure Joy's, 1989 releases, "[m=317557]", their self-titled release "[r=9905085]", "[r=3193845]" and then their final release till the mid 90's, "[r=2755995]" in 1990. Supposedly, about a year later, when "Pure Joy" would be put on hold for a while, Andy would go onto help another PopLLama band, novelty pop band, "[a= The Squirrels]" for their 1990 release, "[r=7044669]". This would get him some further contact and support in the label. He did go as a temporary member of a the band when it was called, "New Urban Age Squirrels", also claimed by "Songtrader.com" and he did one more release for "The Squirrels", for their 1996 compilation, "[r=8676406]" doing the drums. In PopLLama, this is where Andy would get in touch with [a= Chris Hanzsek], a major help in producing the soon to be releases for Sister Psychic. Along with him, and a couple of buds, with the support of Restless Records, Bass player "[a= Christian Fulghum]", and [a= Ryan Michael Vego] featuring on Andy's drumset would all come together across several music studios such as, '[l= Word Of Mouth Studios]', '[l= The Music Source]', '[l= Robert Lang Studios]' and '[l= Hanzsek Audio]', they would make their 1991 debut, "[r=8056337]", later followed by "[m=1466813]" The story behind Fuel, is an intriguing one. Andy and his band, are "Grunge-Refugees", in which they differentiated from the main time sound of Seattle and didn't do too well. Quote from the L.A. Times Archive, from April 11th, 1994, "If you were to map the Seattle rock scene by its commercial impact, you’d have to say that Andy Davenhall came up on the wrong side of the tracks.", "Not that Davenhall didn’t at least sniff around a mine or two that held a big strike. In 1990, he auditioned for the open drum chair in the pre-”Teen Spirit” [a= Nirvana]. Dave Grohl got the job, and Davenhall got the notion that maybe it was time to start a band of his own." "Sister Psychic, which he launched in 1991 and fronts as guitarist, lead singer and main songwriter, has issued two contrasting, many-faceted albums that showcase both a sure, pure-pop touch and an ability to rock with noisy authority. The generally dark cast of Sister Psychic’s first album may have fit the prevailing emotional tenor of Seattle rock, but Davenhall says fashion had nothing to do with it. “When I wrote ‘Fuel’ I was going through some fairly heavy personal stuff that’s reflected on the record,” Davenhall, 30, said by phone recently from Seattle. “I lost a girlfriend to heroin. She’s still alive, and she’s doing well now, living in Colorado. But it was a fairly miserable time of my life. . . .” Right after this small release, he would make a single on the "[m=423151]" cover he'd done a while back live in 1991, along with previewing a song from the next album, called "Little Bird", made along with Peter Lansdowne, produced and mixed by Jack Endino. These 2 tracks would differ from the harshness of Fuel and for good reason too, as their next release in 94' would really delve deep into the themes they slowly developed with this small release. Following the 1992 release, and as the L.A. Times article described, for 1994's "[m=629381]", Davenhall took a more lenient approach to his Noisy, Rock Influences. quote from the article, "Sister Psychic expands from a blasting trio to a nuanced quartet, cleans up most of the extraneous grit and casts its lot with the enthusiasm and wistfulness of pure pop." Having gotten out all of these harsh sounds on track, Davenhall states, “I didn’t want to stay dark, because I think I’m fairly complex, and I want to show different sides of me and express them through music. I really don’t want to get pigeonholed.”, Then moving to Seattle from Upstate New York during the rise of Grunge, he would encounter, "a scene in which pop was the dominant alternative-rock flavor. Then the grunge movement arrived, focused on the independent label Sub Pop." where then in the L.A. Article he states, 'I think in the early days there was a bit of friction (between the pop and grunge camps). Seattle was just full of pop bands, then Sub Pop came out and they were just that--the sub, the anti-pop. If anything, we created a backdrop for grunge. I enjoy that music a lot, but I’m not going to limit myself. Why be a lemming?'" During the production of 1994's "Surrender, You Freak", he goes on (in the interview) about how society had largely demeaned new upstart coming bands, and or bands completely changing their sound, quote again from the L.A. Times, " The new album’s title was inspired by the long odds facing any emerging band that hopes to make a living playing original music. 'It has to do with the struggle between trying to make it on your own and surrendering to the norm, to society as we know it,” Davenhall said. “It’s society yelling at us to ‘surrender, you freak, get a real job.’ ” Paying no attention, he recently quit his day job in a music store. “I’m just now at the jumping-off stage, and I think I’m going to do this professionally,” Davenhall said. “Or I’m going to try to.”" This explains the difference in sound from, "Fuel", which was influenced by all the folk and smaller pop influences gained from travelling across the states. There's more to creativity than sticking to one genre, and be creative they did. After releasing "Surrender, You Freak!" it was more of a commercial success than Fuel, though, it was making enough copies to render a 3rd and final album from the band. This is also when, Christian and Vego weren't credited; Presumably they were off the band, as new members (apparently confirmed), John Fleischman, Pat Pedersen and Mark Hoyt, had joined in This is where we come in for the production of the ride we now call "Catch & Release", Sister Psychic's final release. Now this is an oddcase because not much has been documented about record, only a few copies being sold; and seeing as how this flop ended the band, there's not much news or press about it anywhere. Notable of which is that Andy would still continue to be active, creating "The Lawnmowers" in 2002, and "The Diving Bell" in 2012, with Christian Fulghum, and making a soundcloud later in 2014, where he would upload 3 more small tracks he made, along with a modern cover of, 'The Lawnmower's, "The Goat" In his soundcloud biography it reads: "American singer songwriter blues, alt rock, pop punk, poetry, subversive, Americana prison rock. Born and raised Up-State New York via Seattle Washington to Everett, Washington with long stays in Los Angeles. Belonging to Restless Records, Sub-Pop Records, Pop Llama Records, Y Records, Bug Publishing and Andy Davenhall Music. Multi-instrumentalist, music producer, recording engineer." "BANDS: Accurate Brats - NY. | The Vitamins - NY. | Pure Joy - Sea. | Gnome - Sea. | Sister Psychic - Sea. | Dodi - Sea. | The Lawnmowers - LA and Seattle." Though most of his bands unknown, he would be recognized within his respective local area, the most prominent of which being in Seattle and New York, where he would front bands like, "Pure Joy", "The Squirrels" (as claimed by a few sources), "The Lawnmowers", "The Diving Bell" and most prominently, his Alternative Rock, Alternative Pop, experiment, "Sister Psychic" Throughout the years, getting acquainted with a good few labels like, Restless Records and PopLLama, there he would be in touch with notable producers like Chris Hanzsek and Jack Endino. Also in 2010, Davenhall and Fulghum were talking of Re-releasing the old records on Fin Records (Fulghum's Record Label), though it never happened because, "We subsequently were advised that we were likely to be sued if we did so, and that idea kept getting pushed back while we tried to obtain permission. No one at Warner Brothers or Bug Music ever responded to our letters or phone calls.", in Christian's own words. His take on Rock was a very interesting way to go, though because of this experimentation, many of his records did not sell well and are lost to time; so information differs amongst releases and time does too, but notable of which, he was active up until 2014 where he had been on Soundcloud, though not much has been heard of him since. Valis, The Diving Bell and The Lawnmowers, were the last recorded of projects (of which we're aware) he was included in.