LFAQ

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• What are you?
  Left Field plays an eclectic mix of traditional and modern music and other self-inflicted material. They believe, along with countless others, that the best way to solve a problem is to write a song about it. They like to think of themselves as aging adolescents on a perpetual double date. Like other musicians, they resent their day jobs but earnestly desire world peace. They will play almost anywhere, and have.
  
  
• Who are you?
  • Bill Neely (Nemo) plays the guitar, writes a lot of the songs, and does all the talking. He grew up north of Pittsburgh. He gets paid to chop up videotapes for corporate giants.
  • Liz Emmert (Rabbo) sings and plays percussion of dubious pitch. She grew up in northern Long Island. She has paid for two Master's degrees, and is presently on an indefinite leave of absence.
  • Deborah Griffin Bly (Debbo) plays the keyboards, writes the other songs, and sings real loud. She grew up in southern Long Island. She reads theological books for a living and for fun.
  • Bill Bly (BBly) plays the guitar and the Strad-O-Lin. He grew up south of Pittsburgh. He got a Master's degree for nothing, and now teaches college kids how to write and talk good.
  • Mark Dann (DrDann) plays the bass, guitars, and recording studio. He was dragged up in Brooklyn, where he nearly blew the roof off his parents' house during one of his early audio experiments, an enterprise that continues at his recording studio in TriBeCa in NYC, and new upstate facility where he is being held indefinitely. Mark also tours regularly with Rod MacDonald and the Dharma Bums.
    
    
• How did you all get together?
  Emmert met Bly in 1966 in Pennsylvania. Bly met Neely in 1972 in the same place. Neely met Emmert in 1975 in New York City. Bly met Griffin in 1980 in the same place. Griffin met Neely and Emmert in the same year in Connecticut. In 1984 Left Field broke out in New Jersey. Griffin and Bly live in New York City. Emmert and Neely live in Pennsylvania. All enjoy this challenge to the rehearsal process.
  
  
• What's the story with infomonger?
  We know precious little about infomonger, except that it was somehow in charge of this project (and there are rumors of others). But here are the facts we do have:
  • In June 1996, Harbor Repertory Theatre, a once-vigorous Staten Island-based semi-professional theatre company that had fallen on hard times, was acquired by infomonger. Though dormant for the better part of the 90s, and having no home but a tiny office/storage space at Snug Harbor Cultural Center, Harbor Rep did have a small hope chest -- i.e., in the hope that a worthy project would one day come along.
  • Shortly thereafter, The Center for Peripheral Studies, the world's first recreational think tank (and apparently a subsidiary of infomonger) hired Left Field as house band, and commissioned us to begin recording the music that would be used in a three-pronged initiative. The prongs:
    • an interactive web site featuring, among other things:
    • a regular webcast of music and commentary, and:
    • a line of non-virtual intellectual property vehicles such as CDs, CD-ROMs, hypertexts, books, pamphlets, and the like.
    • Progress on the prongs:
      • Yer lookin at the web site
      • We've done four reports for the CfPS on John Weingart's "Music You Can't Hear on the Radio"
      • We've made two CDs -- Extra Innings and Still A-Live!, a compendium of live performances from the 1980s, before recording studios were invented (both are available from CDBaby).
  • infomonger has a number of mottos:
    • Everything. Everywhere. All the time.
    • Fine intellectual property since the night of the Watergate break-in.
    • We mong so you don't have to.
    • What shall we do -- what shall we do -- with all this useless beauty?
  • These mottos rotate on an irregular basis, and we never know which one's going to come up when. Don't ask us what they mean.

• What's with the electric guitars & synthesizers?
  What are you, a communist?
  

• What happened that fateful night of 26 April 1996?
  • The short answer: Left Field attempted to launch the Center for Peripheral Studies at the Folk Project's Minstrel Coffeehouse. The response was mixed.
  • The long answer: (under construction).

   

• Who, or what, are:
  • Steve Holley?
    • Steve Holley (or, as he is known in this context, the Great Steve Holley), has played drums for Wings, Elton John, Joe Cocker (great stories!), and countless other elite musical enterprises. We don't know how Dr. Dann got him into this, but it's not possible to thank either of them enough. Steve is called Stivoly in Japan.
  • Ana Hernández?
    • Co-founder, with Deb, of the late and greatly lamented Miserable Offenders.
  • Neil Thomas?
    • A gentleman (see M.C. Darling, below) who happened to be recording in Studio B whilst BBly, DrDann, and Stivoly were taking their hacks in Studio A. When Neil's gig was finished, Mark invited him to tickle the (real!) ivories on his old Hammond B-3 sitting out in the hall.
  • Jack Bashkow?
    • According to Mark, who grew up with him, "...he was just the kid in the neighborhood who played the sax."
  • The PDAAs?
    • Personal Digital Audio Assitants.
  • Sir Sixteen?
    • The Alesis SR-16 drum machine, used by Captain Nemo to create the original percussion tracks for nearly all his songs. In most cases (except for "AlGoreRhythm.2000" and "Science & Technology"), these tracks were intended for development purposes only.
  • D.M. Five?
    • DrDann's feature-laden rack-mounted digital sampling unit, used on this recording to tart up Sir Sixteen's rather prole functionality.
  • The New Luvins?
    • In the 1930s, Ira & Charlie Luvin made country tunes respectable on the radio, most notably with such hits as "Insured Beyond the Grave." They also heavily influenced the Everly Brothers, Don & Phil. Spanky & Alfalfa Luvin, grand-nephews of Ira & Charlie, turned up in the rhythm section of the Western Pennsylvania roadhouse band, The ChowHounds, who play regularly at the Foundry Lounge at the downtown Ground Round (Jist off Boolvard DeAllies on Smiffill Street).
  • The Swama Sisters?
    • A 1980s vocal duo originating in Staten Island. They specialized in standards such as "Begin the Beguine" and "The Jealousy Duet" from Threepenny Opera.
  • Ima Hagstrom & Dirk?
    • A 1980s cabaret act, consisting of a killer soprano and her unprepossessing accompanist. Their biggest hit was "Two Cigarettes in the Dark." Prior to this project, it had never been noticed that Dirk could sing.
  • M.C. Darling?
    • A definitive gentleman, which, as everyone knows, is a man who can play the accordion, but doesn't.(We'll forgive his single lapse, just this once.)
  • The Trapped Family Singers?
    • In February of 1983, a blizzard stranded three members of the Bly family on a hilltop in Staten Island for three days with a brand new cassette recorder. The rest is musical history.
  • Rabbo LaLune?
    • The muse and conscience of the enterprise, hopeful yet skeptical, and not immune to sentiment, but prominently displaying the motto "Show me the money" on her sleeve at all times.

   

• What is a musical virus?
  • A strand of musical DNA we've customized to act like scrubbing bubbles that eat away the sludge from the contact points in your brain. Why?
    

• Just what does a "house band" do at a think tank?
  • Pretty much what every "house band" does: we play requests.

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Last updated 6/3/02.