Santa's Workshop Rock Band

So……..picture this; I was 21 years old and had been playing in home town bands since I was 14. I was invited to join my big brother Dave's new group “The New Feeling”, a real professional show band. We left for our first gig in Kirkland Lake Ontario. We removed the seats from his 68 Fury and I had to sit in the back on the record player squashed between the leslie speaker cabinet and the door. The car was so full of equipment there was no room at all. I was so stiff when we arrived 6.5 hrs later, I could hardly stand up. When we started playing our first set, the adrenaline kicked in and all was fine. For the next 6 months or so, this was how I travelled with the group. 

Hi there AB3 fans; As this is my first blog, and the first chance you have had to learn about how we create the music we do, I thought I would take the opportunity to tell you all about it.

After the band I was working in self destructed and the band Justin was travelling with also folded, we decided it was time to do something together.

We set some rules. Let's learn songs we had loved and always wanted to play, but do it in our own way. Never go back and listen to the original. Play the parts we remembered. Follow the music where it wanted to go. Sometimes this would lead to mashing up with other songs, changing the chord progressions. We used orchestral type arrangements using mostly our own instruments, guitar, bass and drums. Also, we incorporated space. This method makes the arrangements sound like more instruments and more interesting. We recorded several of these songs on two albums (unreleased) called, "Smokin'" and "Das Ubbermann". We liked the sound of these and decided to continue, as this was a lot of fun.

We then enlisted Peter Novar on bass as he was on the same wavelength, had the same kind of musical background and was excited to try this method. The magic was there. Shortly thereafter we made a cd titled "Contraband" mostly for our friends. The title comes from the fact that all the songs were cover tunes we really mangled and formed into The AB3 material. This was so much fun that we started on another album immediately. We completed the album and named it "Doubious". This album was never released because we came to the realization that we could do more.

We should write our own music!

Andy

Stay tuned and learn the unique way we wrote "Shake!" and "Roach 5"