AMFM - Getting Into Sinking - Polyvinyl

by BD

Imagine yourself in Chicago, circa: now. You dress in tight clothes, you get by on temp jobs and working the door at the Empty Bottle when you’re low on cash. You love the Beatles, love Wings, hate Beulah cause they’re a cheap rip-off of previously mentioned innovators, and your best friend is the guy from the A-Set.

You play slightly silly, slightly psychedelic pop that could be Elephant 6 material if you grew a neck beard, did more drugs, added a trumpet and trombone player, and didn’t think quite so highly of yourself. You used to be in a semi-popular rock band (let’s call it “Franklin”, for argument’s sake), so you figure, “hey what the hell? I’ve got carte blanche to be ‘experimental’. A little bit ‘crazy’, a lot ‘retro’.”

Who are you? You’re Brian Sokel and you’re half of the duo called AMFM. The geographical references are inaccurate, as are the day / night job references, but the musical references are right on. And that’s not to say your daydream was necessarily a nightmare, because you wrote some real chart toppers, like “Come Suck Down A Cloud”, but for the most part the music you were making was a bit too derivative on more talented song writers long gone for any of your contemporaries to take you very seriously. But hey, there’s always tomorrow. Maybe next time, champ.

Read an interview with The AM/FM here.

Read a review of The AM/FM's Mutilate Us here.

Read a review of the Polyvinyl sampler Redirection here.

Read where The AM/FM got their name from here.

Read where Polyvinyl got their name from here.

See pictures of the AMFM here.