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BUFFALO, NY
The History
of
The Outlyers debut performance was at the Mohawk Place on May 28, 1998.
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The Outlyers, May 1998: Adam, Tom, Jim, Dave "Don't know where
you're goin, "The Journey is the Thing" - Adam Gearing THE
OUTLYERS are (by senority): also... plus people who have added to our performances or filled in for missing members: Biography It seems fair to divide modern musicians into two rather distinct groups; those who play because they want the fame, the glory, the chicks - and those who play simply because they live for music and take great joy in the performing of it. Buffalo's Outlyers fall with a resounding thud into the second category. The Outlyers are an Americana rock'n'roll band from Buffalo, New York that mixes their own well-penned songs with a crowd-pleasing mix of cover tunes. The group shows a wide-ranging love of the roots/rock canon across the decades, playing well-known classics and hidden gems from the era of Elvis and Buddy Holly to anthems by Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Steve Earle, and Bruce Springsteen, to name but a few. The band's original members, guitarists Dave Meinzer and Adam Gearing, bassist Tom Fischer, and drummer Jim Celeste - all mainstays of the Buffalo music scene, formed the Outlyers in 1998. Adam, Tom and Jim had previously (before a 10 year hiatus) performed in the Buffalo post-new wave band The Riddlers. The Outlyers began slowly, with limited appearances at events such as a Gram Parsons Birthday Party at Buffalo's Mohawk Place. Encouraged by audiences' enthusiastic response, the Outlyers began playing venues from the Americanarama Festival in Buffalo to the Orange Bear in New York City's lower Manhattan. They have played a monthly Friday Happy Hour show at Nietzsche's in downtown Buffalo for since 2002. Keyboardist Cathy Carfagna started out as a guest performer with the group but became a full member a year or so after band's formation. The Outlyers released their first album - the 12-song American Songbook - in May 2002. The Outlyers' second CD of original songs, Hits & Myths, offers powerful rock, quiet folk, and covers a lot of territory in between. Twangy Fenders, warm Gibsons, vintage keyboard sounds, and acoustic guitars form the core of the band's sound, while pedal steel guitar, Memphis-style horns, accordion, castanets, and sleigh bells sweeten the recordings. With three vocalist/songwriters contributing to the proceedings, Hits & Myths demonstrates contrasting textures and moods - but lyrics that frequently express alienation and disaffection with the current American political climate provide a common thread. Hits & Myths was released in May 2006. Due to out-of-town job responsibilities, Jim Celeste regretfully stepped out of the drummer's chair in late 2004, and Bob Chapman began playing drums with the Outlyers until he was beckoned to a job in Denver at the end of 2005. The Outlyers' old friend, John F. Brady III - versatile drummer for the Steam Donkeys and several other local bands - took over as drummer in 2006. In 2007 Adam Gearing and his family moved to Chicago. While Adam still occasionally performs with the band when back in Buffalo, a more regular replacement was needed. They didn't have to look far: the fourth member of the aforementioned Riddlers, Kevin McCue, began playing regularly as an Outlyer in late 2007. As people, The Outlyers share some common traits: they all have day jobs and family committments, and none of them are expecting to get rich or famous from their music. As one member noted, "We just continue to play together because it's creatively satisfying, and because we enjoy it."
The Recording of the Outlyers'
Hits & Myths On May 8, 2003 the
Outlyers gathered with engineer Dwane Hall at Sessions
Recording Studio in Buffalo's Black Rock neighborhood to
start recording their second album. At the time, they didn't
plan on taking three years to complete the project, and
certainly didn't expect the song they were recording - Adam
Gearing's anthemic "Scatterplot" - to be one of the last
ones finished. Indeed, the plan at the
time was to do one song per session and try to complete each
recording during a single studio date. A fine version of
"Scatterplot" emerged from that first evening, and
recordings of "The Truth," "Kisses," and "Stonehenge in a
Texas Weedfield" were largely completed at Sessions Studio
over the next few months. But looking through their catalog
of unrecorded originals, the band found that they only had
half an album's worth of good songs. So they started
writing. Then, in December of 2003,
drummer Jim Celeste took an out-of-town job and became a
long distance commuter. This made it difficult for him to
participate in the rehearsals where new arrangements were
created, and the project slowed down. It was May 2004 before
the band got back into the studio to record. That recording date
included two new songs, Adam's "Everything but Time," and
Dave Meinzer's "The View From My Window" - a song that had
only been written a few days before. For the rest of 2004 the
band worked on recordings in a home studio (Rancho
Notorious), tracking new songs with a drum machine as time
keeper, and building arrangements piece by piece. The studio
versions of "Kisses" and "Stonehenge in a Texas Weedfield"
were scrapped and new recordings assembled. New songs
included "Sophia Dying" and "Persephone," a pair of Adam's
compositions using mythological figures to express modern
political themes, and Dave's deliberate political statement
in "Criminal." Dave also wrote a southwestern styled melody
and arrangement that he gave to bandmate Cathy Carfagna
(also his wife) to add lyrics to. The song became "Loteria,"
which uses images from a Mexican children's game to weave
another political statement. Once Adam contributed "State
Street," a song about campaigning for John Kerry during the
2004 presidential election, the album had developed a theme.
An older song of Cathy's, "Tumble Down," and a quiet folk
number of Dave's, "Walk Around With You," were added to
round out the album. Once the basic home studio
recordings were ready, they were taken to both Sessions
Studio and Soundscape Studio (Jim Calabrese, engineer) on
Buffalo's lower West Side for overdubbing and mixing. Drums
(played by Jim Celeste and replacement drummer Bob Chapman)
were recorded, along with various vocal parts and keyboards
not available in the home studio. Finally, the band spiced
the arrangements with extras. Local violinist Michael
Miskuly (Them Jazzbeards) played a dramatic part on
"Loteria," Jim Bohm and Eric Wozniak played trumpet and
saxophone on "Scatterplot" and "Tumble Down," and Jim
Whitford added pedal steel to a pair of cuts and a fine lap
steel to "Sophia Dying." Singer Gretchen Schulz, guitarist
Kevin McCue, and percussionist George Olmsted also made
contributions. Cathy added expansive string parts to
"Scatterplot" and "Kisses" using a digital string program.
One of the more unusual
sessions took place at Rancho Notorious on a steamy summer
evening in 2005. Bassist Tom Fischer built a washtub bass
and assembled a children's version of a telephone - two
paper cups and about 10 feet of string. These were used to
record the intro to "Persephone:" Tom plucked the washtub
along with footstomps and handclaps and Adam sang into one
paper cup with a microphone stuck in the other to get an
other-worldly lo-fi sound. Other unusual sonic touches
include the castanets that open "Loteria," and the sleigh
bells that add a chill to the bridge of "The View from My
Window." The beginning of the album's first song,
"Criminal," features nasty crackling (produced with a cat
toy borrowed from Rancho Notorious denizen Hobo) and the
burglar alarm bell at Soundscape Studio. Among the last things
recorded were fresh lead vocals to a few songs - including
the first one started almost three years earlier,
"Scatterplot." The album was completed in March of 2006,
mastered in April by David St. Onge at the Digital Barn, and
released in May. A large crowd celebrated the CD release
with the band at Nietzsche's in Buffalo on May 19,
2006. The Hits &
Myths CD cover features a photo of a roadside attraction
called Stonehenge II taken during a trip to Kerrville, Texas
in 1997. A skyscape photo by Buffalo artist Mike Herbold was
matted in behind the ersatz antiquity to create a striking
photo collage. The rest of the CD package (designed by band
member Meinzer) consists of photos taken by the band,
including some of Gearing's pictures of Greek ruins.
RECORDINGS - PERFORMANCES & NEWS
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