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This Month There Are Two Articles. Click Below To View |
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STREET BEAT: (Regional Artist Spotlight) by Ernie Thomas
Calumet City’s Akdov
Addiction owes a nod to late filmmaker Stanley
Kubrick. “I was away at
school when they came up with our name,” explained bassist Jack Daniel, “but
it seems they were watching ‘The
Shining’ like the scene where the word ‘murder’ is spelled
backwards as ‘redrum’ and wanted to do that with the band’s name. Vodka is their
favorite drink, so they spelled it backwards as Akdov Addiction (pronounced as “active”
addiction). It works because
we’re a very active band on stage and we hope our music is addictive.” While legal drinking
age at the time of the name change –– bassist Jack Daniel, guitarist Jason
Moscickis, rapper/vocalist Patrick
Noonan, and drummer Dan Chavez
–– had actually come together in 1997 while in a teenage cover band called Sickle. The name later changed to Metal
Symphony and as such they recorded the CD Anarchy TV and won regional battle
of the bands. Life soon after interrupted their collective dream
of world domination, as college and jobs pulled the band apart for a spell.
Daniel left for school in the summer of ‘99 and was soon followed out
of the band by Chavez. When new
members failed to click, Metal Symphony broke up.
The original four regrouped in April of last year upon Daniel’s return. “We decided to get serious and give it another shot,” he
said. All members sing
except Moscickis. Chavez does
backup vocals, Daniel sings the lead harmonic stuff, while Noonan covers rapping
and screaming. “Our sound is
‘old school’ guitar metal with‘nu-metal’ vocals,” said Daniel. “We’re kind of like Metallica meets Disturbed meets
Linkin Park.” The two lead vocalist
thing works well for the band, especially on their song, “Is It You?”
“It’s about a guy’s internal struggle.
I sing the nice melodic parts which represent the good part of his brain,
while Patrick does this demonic deep voice representing the bad side,” said
Daniel. Daniel’s is also
proud of their customized heavy metal arrangement of Real Life’s 1984 pop gem,
“Send Me An Angel,” even though
they rarely perform cover songs anymore. “We
all write,” he said, “so we always seem to have a new song in the works.
We usually bring in our own individual ideas and then all four of us
collaborate on it. Pat almost
always does the lyrics and the rest of us do the music.” They recently recorded
an 11-song CD –– "Face
Your Addiction" –– to hand out at shows.
“We went to Sheffield Studios in late October and recorded the album in
three days,” recalled Daniel. “We’ve
handed out a lot of CDs to people.”
They’ve attended music conferences and gotten the CD into the hand of label reps, some of which have already called the band. A New York A&R guy who assembles songs for film and television soundtracks is one of those who has taken a liking to the band’s aggressive music. “We
don’t know if any of our stuff will be used [in anything],” said Daniel.
“They contacted us to let us just to let us know they liked our songs and that
we were being listened to.” In the meantime, Akdov Addiction
have found some radio stations willing to play their homegrown material...one as
far away as Russia. “They
turned on to us through the internet,” he said.
“From what they say, they really like us there a lot!” The band recently performed on two regional cable music programs –– “Chicago Rockers Live!” and “Metal Mayhem” –– and are presently focusing on building their name and fan base.
For more info, email the band at:
adkdovaddiction@hotmail.com |
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STREET BEAT (Regional Artist Spotlight) by Ernie Thomas
When the three founding members of N.W. Indiana’s Jump In The Dumpster saw their singer take a walk, they
carried on without him and managed to keep working while auditioning to
fill the position. They booked shows and
recruited audience members to step up and sing. “They lost their singer in 1999,” explained Lee Couch who has been the band’s frontman/lead vocalist for the
last nine months. “Between
his leaving and my joining they came up with a way to keep working.
They called it ‘Jump Into Karaoke’, where instead of a karaoke machine, they
would play the music live as people came up out of the audience and
sang.” The novel idea went
over very well with local club owners and with karaoke singers. Thus the
band maintained working status while auditioning a wealth of regional
singers live on stage. It
was after just such a “gig” at the Stardust Lounge in Merrillville,
that Couch came to join the group.
“It
was actually my second time singing with them and it must have been fate
or something,” he laughed
while explaining how a year earlier while on his way to a Halloween
party, he misread directions and somehow wound up the wrong party.
“It was a happening party so I just stayed and they (Jump In
The Dumpster) were playing and inviting people to come up and sing. I
went up and people started dancing and they told me to stay up there
with them for a while.” When he got up with
them again at the Stardust and the same kind of enthusiastic response
from the audience happened, the band made him an offer he could not
refuse. Couch not only
sings and writes for the band, but handles their day to day business.
“I also book and manage things for the band,” he said.
Those duties came naturally to Couch, but fronting a rock band
was a scary experience at first. His sole night club
experience prior to fronting Jump In The Dumpster had been as part of a
short-lived original acoustic duo called Existence,
who played infrequently and recorded a full length local CD.
“That
started out as a four piece rock band, but only two of us ever showed up
to practices, so (guitarist/vocalist) Jeff
Ashby and I just started doing the duo thing,” he explained,
adding that Existence still perform a few times a year.
A novice singer could
not have fallen into better company than that of bassist Roy Robley and guitarist Bruce
Cogdill, two long time local music veterans who’d been playing
together well over 20 years.
Starting in the 1970s, the two have jammed their way through such
bands as Master Saint, Merge and Issue
Two before the journey lead them to drummer Doug Tharp in 1997, when the first incarnation of Jump In The
Dumpster formed. An energetic fireball
while performing, the once unplugged Couch has taken to loud, sweaty
rock ‘n’ roll like a duck to water. Couch spends as much on the
dance floor with his microphone interacting with his audience as on
stage with his band. This
is especially true during their take on Weezer’s, “Hash
Pipe,” which really gets things movin’ and groovin’.
Other bands covered are –– Three Doors Down, Machinehead,
Bush, Stone Temple Pilots and Green Day.
“We
mix things up a lot and do a wide enough variety to keep a lot of people
happy,” said Couch. Along with the newer material, they also perform plenty o’
rock standards like Creedence Clearwater’s “Have
You Ever Seen The Rain,” the
Beatles “Come Together”
and Tom Petty’s “Last Dance
With Mary Jane.” “We spent our first year getting used to each other, but we are start working on some original music,” concluded Couch.
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