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This is the Frederick Productions/Red Newt Records profile, but it all begins with Jeffrey Frederick. He's no longer with us in person, but his music remains as alive as ever and you can still find people dancing and laughing to it around the world. Jeffrey (1950 - 1997) was charismatic, charming and had the sexiest grin you ever laid eyes on, usually with a Camel straight, a 'hump' to him, hanging out of the corner of his mouth. When he climbed on stage and started to sing you just had to dance, his music penetrated the soul. Jeffrey oozed talent. To quote our pal, Dave Reisch, "Jeff could take something as mundane as a pencil and make a song out of it." Jeff's middle name could have been humour, but it wasn't, he was Jeffrey Sutton Frederick and according to him he could do "any fucking thing he wanted" and he did. This included sometimes performing in a tutu and cowboy boots, or decorating the stage with a flock of hand-carved pink flamingos.
After many years creating havoc in Vermont, musical and otherwise, Jeffrey moved to Portland, Oregon in '75 and restarted the Clamtones. Or rather, the band in hand was the Clamtones when Jeff was the frontman and the Holy Modal Rounders when Steve Weber fronted. These "two bands in one" often shared the same stage. They soon became "the best fucking bar band in America" as one reviewer put it.
In '76 they took off on a 9,000 mile tour of the perimeter of the States. During the tour, Jeffrey recorded Have Moicy!" ("best album of the year," Village Voice,"the top folk album of the rock era" Rolling Stone) with Michael Hurley, Peter Stampfel, members of the Clamtones and Unholy Modal Rounders. The next year he recorded his only full-length album, the legendary (or is it notorious) Spiders in the Moonlight. Between these two recordings, the Clamtones/Rounders did a live radio show broadcast from Rohan's Rockpile in Vancouver B.C., which is the source of the two disc set, Clamtones B.C and Steve Weber, Holy Modal Rounders B.C. (from the middle set). Jeff morphed the Clamtones into Les Clams and kept the magic going. To borrow a phrase from Jeff's horn player, Teddy Deane, they weren't making a lot of money, but they sure were making a lot of good times!
In 1983 Jeff moved to Silver City, Nevada. There he gathered the cream of the crop of Northern Nevada's musicians and ooh la la! the Jeffrey Frederick Band was in motion. The guys had them dancing at the infamous saloons of Virginia City, the clubs of Reno and Lake Tahoe, and the bars of Dayton, Yerrington and Fallon, while Jeff returned to Portland and the Northwest from time to time, drawing fanatical crowds with Les Clams.
Jeffrey's music was zany, hilarious and soulful. Not that he didn't write some straight-out romantic songs, but always in a way that made us laugh and feel good. The tunes and videos up here on MySpace give you a feel for that ol' Clam music as Jeffrey performed it over the years. To Jeffrey it wasn't a successful show unless he "made 'em dance" and he always had us dancing.
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On "St. Jeffrey's Day" 1997 (the uninitiated call it St. Patty's Day), Jeff left us wanting more. I started Frederick Productions as my way of fulfilling my promise to Jeff to care for his music. Beginning with The Jeffrey Frederick Band Live At The Icehouse, continuing with Ooh la la. Les Clams and the two-CD set, Jeffrey Frederick and The Clamtones B.C., we've been releasing the best of his live performances. And we remastered and released for the first time on CD The Resurrection of Spiders In The Moonlight, "the greatest album ever released" according to Portland's music and brewpub mogul Mike McMenamin. It has a new cover by Jeff's lifelong pal, Michael Hurley along with three unreleased studio tracks recorded in Reno, Nevada with the Jeffrey Frederick Band for a rock and roll album he was never able to complete.
In addition to Jeff's own work, I started releasing CDs from his friends and proteges like Jim Boyer, ace guitarist and singer with Portland's Freak Mountain Ramblers (Time Spent), Vermont hipster pal, Sisco (End of the Trail), and the notorious psychedelic folk legend Steve Weber (Holy Modal Rounders B.C. ).We've got more original Jeffrey material planned, but we're really proud of St. Jeffrey's Day: The Songs Of Jeffrey Frederick, Volume 1, first of a multi-disk tribute, with contributions by all the living Clamtones, Freak Mountain Ramblers, Michael Hurley, The Piano Throwers, Lewi Longmire Band, Bingo Dream Band, Lynn Conover and Little Sue, Billy Kennedy, and Jeff's son, Jake Ray (we'll be putting out a solo album of his in the near future). And, at his request, we put out Billy. the Anthology, a "musical autobiography" of the late, great washboard genius Billy Hults' 40 years of playing with the very best Northwest musicians of all genres (including Jeffrey, the Holy Modal Rounders, Michael Hurley and the Fly By Night Jass Band). We've decided to reserve the Frederick Productions label for Jeff, his friends and others who keep alive the tradition of good-time Americana.A couple years ago, we started the Red Newt Records label for other new music that turns us on, beginning with eating that way by Portland's fabulous Alexa Wiley (check her out by clicking on her profile in our Top Friends). Next was former Clamtone and founder of Portland's Swingline Cubs, Teddy Deane's eclectic new album So Far So Good. It's closer to novelty and jazz than most of our other records, and it's hot. Then came came Good Rain by Jeff's protege, the amazing multi-instrumentalist Lex Browning (Freak Mountain Ramblers, Austin Lounge Lizards, Trail Band, Great Plains), which has been called "one of the best, if not THE best album to come out of Portland in many, many years." For more about Jeff and our music, stories, tunes, reviews and lots more, click on the following link: Jeffrey Frederick Website. Our CDs are available directly from us at our website and, in both hard copy and for download, anywhere around the world fine music is sold.
And here is something truly unique, Outertainment , two masterful/zany American treasures recording together for the first time -- Peter Stampfel (Holy Modal Rounders, etc) and Baby Gramps (you might have seen him on David Letterman). Check out the live video up here on our profile. This is the REAL freak folk. Worldwide release in August, now available from www.frederickproductions.com.
Musicians, we'll gladly give permission to record covers, or if you play his tunes, just let us know and please send us a tape or MP3 or CD or whatever. Who knows, it might end up on St. Jeffrey's Day. If you're a broadcaster, email us and we'll get you some tunes to play on the air (or net). Heck, whoever and whatever you are, we'd love to hear from you!
Kathryn Noel Frederick
music@jeffreyfrederick.comwww.frederickproductions.com
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