Jeff Adams – For Real ®

Here’s some bio material from the Jeff Adams – For Real Facebook page (found http://www.facebook.com/JeffAdamsForReal) – click on it & click “Like” on the page please. Help the Jeff Adams – For Real Viral Music Project by telling people about the free music & then requesting radio stations all over the world to play this music. Thanks!

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Jeff Adams began playing a classical guitar in 1983, spontaneously, behind an abandoned school building in West Chester, PA; the muse had plagued him for years earlier with melodies running tauntingly through his brain. He then moved on to performing in back alleys, basements, garages, parties, dinners, school assemblies, then taverns and clubs. Jeff Adams recorded his first demo in 1984 at the age of 16, at AdZe MiXXe Studios in West Chester, PA.
Chris McDonough and Jeff Adams met in the Spring of 1990 and began jamming together very shortly afterwards, an association (accompaniment plus a great friendship) that has lasted over 20 years — having yielded the fruit of many, many song performances, productions, and hangovers.

In the beginning of their public performing, Jeff & Chris referred to themselves as “Tabula Rasa”, from a song of the same name (a Jeff Adams composition which spawned the original use of the band name in ’87 and carried over into the new decade with new players). By 1992, Jeff Adams & Chris McDonough were performing in a four and five-piece band — first with Dennette Myers on drums and Tom Zartler on bass, while Chris & Jeff handled the guitar arrangements. In ’92 they briefly toyed with the band name “Prescott Alley” by which they recorded a decent analog demo. By 1993, they were “Frozen Pop“, with George Kalman on the 6-string bass guitar, and Carlyn Hutchins (née Hurwitz) on the keys & harmony vocals. The original incarnation of Frozen Pop “disbanded” in 1994, six months after their first digital recording, “Meltdown: Live At The Parlor”, with everyone going their separate ways – except Jeff Adams & Chris McDonough, who remained together as a performing act with the help of some awesome local West Chester talent. Jeff & Chris, under the Frozen Pop name, jammed with the likes of well-known and very talented musicians such as Michael Rast, Kevin Hughes, Joe Habel, and a variety of others, prior to and along with keeping the name for the acoustic act from 1995 until 2000. Jeff Adams and Chris McDonough produced their first full-length CD (still recording as Frozen Pop) in the beginning of 2000 and received local radio airplay on WXPN (Philadelphia, Baltimore, from the University of Pennsylvania) as well as WSTW (Wilmington, DE) during that summer.

From there the momentum slowed a bit!  Chris McDonough changed jobs, cut his hair, and became a family man.  Jeff Adams also became a family man and then went on a compulsory extended fishing trip a while. Jeff was allowed back in 2003 and continued to write & record.Jeff & Chris began playing again sporadically, although not performing, thoughout the first decade of the new century and finally began recording again in 2009 under the label and title “Jeff Adams – For Real”.

Today, all of the music Jeff Adams could find from the recordings of yesteryear have been remastered and then published via the blog/feed Jeff Adams – For Real.

Jeff Adams is interested in procuring a recording conttract, with the inclusion of his peop’s, in order to do justice to his catchy and melodious compositions; he would like to perform again too at some point. If there are any musicians, bands, A & R people, advertisers, and the like, who may be interested in obtaining the rights to the music of Jeff Adams – For Real, please contact him at jeff@jeffadams.info .

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And, some first person prose for y’all. As you undoubtedly have guessed by now, my name is Jeff Adams.  I use the title “Jeff Adams – For Real” as a means of identification amidst the plethora of folks named Jeff Adams in this world. Now this differentiation is also Jeff Adams – For Real ®: blog/syndication publishing platform

I started writing poetry in 1979 at the age of 11, at my mother’s chagrin and balking disbelief.  From there, I had music running in my brain all the time.  I had hundreds of songs written, including brain melodies prior to having learned to play any instrument.  I did take some violin and piano lessons in my younger years, which may very well have led to some subconscious and subliminal motivation…although my attention span was far too limited (at least that’s what Amadeus told me).

I started writing actual music as I was teaching myself tablature on the guitar whilst laid up with pneumonia in 1983.  It was a classical guitar given to my father as a Christmas gift years prior, but my Dad never took to it – so in the closet it sat, collecting dust.

It was a Beatles music book where I first learned many chords; once I had chords, I could develop melodies to go along with different progressions.    It was really the impression the music of The Beatles left on me that actualized a waxing dream of being a professional musician and recording artist. Musical inspirations were varied: The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Jim Croce, Tom Petty, ELO, Roy Orbison, Bob Dylan, (prior to Wilburys attainment, although that stuff was cool too), The Rolling Stones (because I have sympathy for the drag it is gettin’ no satisfaction), The Grateful Dead, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Johnny Cash, Dave Grisman, Doc Watson…and influences of the like stemming from the beginnings of recorded music itelf.

I grew up in the 1980s…that’s right, I’m not that frickin old, but my musical interests leaned towards my parents’ time – the mid- to late-1950s and 60s – as well as my grandparents’ time – the ’30s and 40s. You can hear some stylized sound from the earlier eras and identify distinctly where certain styles were invented – Jazz, Blues, and Rock & Roll.     But, in getting back to the 1960s - it was a different era, to say the least – and I was only born in it; I didn’t have to smoke any of that old-school weed (except perhaps second-hand).  Anyway, in the summer time when my parents were away at college or work, I would raid their record collection and blast their old tunes on a floor/console radio.  My Dad had every single Beatles 45 in something like like a book designed to hold multiple records.  By the way, for some of my younger fans that may actually not know, a 45 is not just a weapon. At one time in recent memory they were also known as the record, which was a pre-CD archaic small disc with grooves in it which, when a tiny needle with a tiny diamond is applied to it and it is moving on a flat rubber-matted roundtable moving at 45 RPM (Rotations Per Minute – ergo 45), transmits the sound imprinted in the grooves of the record through the means of the literally crystal clear vibration of the tiny needle in the grooves attatched to wires which transmit the vibration. The CD, or Compact Disc, was a brilliant innovation…ANYHOO, When he caught me listening to his records he told me to quit it and  get my own…so I did.  I also happen to have a pristine vinyl copy of Abbey Road…

As soon as I was learning guitar, I was performing.  International Club Dinners, talent shows…ah, the days of being utterly afraid of rejection.  I suppose that doesn’t really change, we just grow thicker skin – figuratively speaking of-frickin-couse.  But rejection is the name of the game being a musician.  It’s not exactly an easy row to hoe, as it were.

By the late-1980s, I was writing material that I thought could be suitable for public consumption.  These were the days of figuring out with whom I was compatible musically, which was basically no one!  There were a couple of friends from high school with whom I philosophied the band Tabula Rasa into existence.  To those people we were just playing around. To me, it ignited the spark that propelled that dream into outer space.

I met Chris McDonough in mid-year 1990 by way of mutual friends.  As we talked upon first having met, I discovered he was a gradual student at West Chester University.  Well, shucks.  It just so happened that I had written a song called Tabula Rasa - also the name of my first band – which focused on the premise of the philosopher John Locke.  So I piqued Chris’ interest and we made arrangements to get together the following week, as he was moving from the place where I’d met him.

Our first meeting musically was not exactly congenial.  First, he had forgotten that I was coming over and I woke him up at 12:30 pm.  So with a groggy, slightly baffled disposition, he invited me in to his apartment and we strummed a little.  He was a much better guitar player than I was.  I learned later that he had been classically trained.  When I played the songs I was interested in seeking accompaniment to, he called my music ”kinda Sesame Street”.  I was insulted.  Upon leaving, I vowed to myself  not to seek out his opinion or help musically.

Well, my best friend Tom (through whom I met Chris indirectly) ended up being Chris’ roommate and then I ended up moving across the hallway from the both of them.  One evening I was hanging out with Tom, when Chris came in and told me that he had been thinking about one of the songs I had played for him and thought he had something for it.  I sighed.  ”Alright,” I said, “let’s see what you got.”  The counter guitar melody he wrote atop my tune wasexactly what I was looking for in an accompaniment sound!  My attitude towards Chris warmed from there, naturally.  Since I was right next door, Chris and I started jamming all the time, nearly everyday.  He inspired me to write more and our jamming turned us both into better musicians.  We achieved a tightly knit sound with two crappy guitars, using dynamics and nerve to carry us forth.  We started playing open mic nights all over the place – the first one was at Rosie O’Grady’s (a building that was once the police station in West Chester in the mid 70s), and I must say that someone should have stopped me from playing some of the things I was writing at the time.  Ahem, Chris.  We still called ourselves Tabula Rasa at that point

Chris and I still played open mic nights all over the area as Tabula Rasa.  We made a demo tape in 1992 by that same title.  I still had my cheese-slicer of a guitar, the Kay guitar with the worst pick-up and Chris was still playing with his classical guitar, mic’d.  Chris was working as a news correspondent for WCHE AM radio in West Chester.  It wasn’t that prestigious of a station, but Chris had the keys to it and we were able to master our demo tape there.  Some songs have survived from those days – at least one that I know of right off the bat.

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I believe that music offers humanity a unique relationship with the infinite.  Music is a connection with ultimate spirit.  And, I also believe that music must needs be shared.

-Chris McDonough

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