Meet Scott McPherson
Vocals, Instruments, Recording
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Biography
Writing and performing pop music in Seattle during the age of Nirvana was awkward at best, yet that is what Scott McPherson was doing along side his band mates Jayson Jarmon, Kevo X.Thomson and the rotating drummers in the pop group "Liar's Club". This quirky pop band from Tacoma, Washington would release 4 records before 1995, with every song peppered with influences from XTC, The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Martin Newel, Prefab Sprout and many English invasion and new wave bands. Both McPherson and Jarmon being song writers influenced by not only the pop of the 60's through the 90's, but also by the classic pop from the Tin Pan Alley era. Enthusiasts of The Gershwins, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Rodgers and Hart, Sammy Cahn, as well as Burt Bacharach and Henry Mancini. Those influences shows strongly on the Liar's Club song "Hanky Panky," which featured a real "mini" orchestra.
Liar's Club had a regional hit with the perky pop song "Espresso Girl," and as the tune fought the airwaves for radio space, local grunge bands like Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden and of course, Nirvana were taking the world by storm. Scott McPherson and Jayson Jarmon would split the song writing duties and write most of the material for the group. Liar's Club also spawned a few college radio hits along the way, while opening for bands like "Guided By Voices" at Peter Bucks Seattle venue, The Crocodile Cafe. It was in this band that Scott cut his teeth on performing live and learning the ropes of "Song-writing 101". The band closed up shop in 1995, but they continue to reunite for the occasional gig and they record and release new material when it suits them. Scott joined forces with the Seattle alt/pop band "Haste" for a spell and helped the group record their debut release in 1997. Haste was heavily influenced by Crowded House, Neil & Tim Finn, Elvis Costello and The Church. Most of the material was written by front man Lenny Cimino, who had written many great songs which Scott was delighted to contribute to. Scott also wrote the song "This Side of Stupid" for the bands debut CD. Soon after he formed the group "Tiny Volcano." Wearing many hats for this project, Scott wrote 99% of the material, recorded, produced and mixed the record, as well as sang and played various instruments to boot. "Melodic songs" were the main focus for the Tiny Volcano project and he took his time to craft that 16-song CD. The debut was released in 2003 to very strong reviews and CD sales. A follow-up CD has been in the works for awhile now, but after the band lost their bass player and dear friend, Tony Cooper to cancer several years ago, the idea of a second CD lost its appeal. Still, with half the songs tracked, I suspect we may see that release soon. In 2005 Scott teamed up with Jay Jarmon once again, along with Sean Gaffney and musicians from Liar's Club and Tiny Volcano to release the album simply titled "Vanilla." Though these great songs were written by Jarmon (with help from Gaffney on a few), Scott would lend lead vocals, post production, arrangements, various instrumentation and he would ultimately mix and master the record for Vanilla. Scott writes and records music in his home studio. The Prefab Sprout Project is his current project, and will be for the next 8 months. Scott Links
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Meet Andrea Perry
Vocals
DISCLAIMER
The Prefab Sprout Project is a dedicated fan site. We are in no way connected to the actual band Prefab Sprout. The music created by this fan project was not written or performed by the actual Prefab Sprout or Paddy McAloon. This project is 100% fan created! Click here to be redirected to the Prefab Sprout FB page.
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Biography
Born into arguably the most adventurous year in pop music history on August 8, 1967, and the product of both the weirdness that was the '70s (bubblegum music, Free to Be...You and Me) and two musical parents — her pianist father, a music professor, and her mother, a classical composer and performer as well as the producer and host of KMFA's Into the Light radio program — Andrea Perry was perhaps destined to take up the musical trade. And after hearing her parents' Beatles albums, the sole pop band spotting their LP collection, that is precisely the road she decided to travel, though it took a lengthy gestation period before she finally realized her longstanding aspiration.
When she was five years of age, Andrea Perry's family moved from Ohio to the musical hotbed of Austin, TX, where her father had accepted a teaching position at the University of Texas. Perry tried taking the requisite piano lessons, but soon begged out of them, citing the fact that the Beatles were also unable to read music. Nonetheless, she continued to plug away at the instrument on her own, and by the time she was ten or eleven knew that she wanted to write songs. Perry listened obsessively to Top 40 radio, an avocation that continued until a boyfriend introduced her to the Clash, the Talking Heads, David Bowie, Lou Reed, the Police, and the Pretenders when she was a teenager. With those bands as guideposts and with a borrowed four-track machine, she began making her first recordings throughout the summer before going to college. At the University of Southern California (where her father now taught) for her freshman year, Perry bought her first electronic keyboard from a member of Animotion, as well as a used four-track and a $40 microphone, and continued her progress apace. At Hampshire College, to which she transferred the following year, Perry picked up the guitar and, as keyboardist, joined her first band, the R.E.M.-ish Ice Weasels, which also included in its ranks future labelmate Aaron Tucker (the Sleepwalkers), singer/songwriter Paul Melançon, and drummer, animator, and filmmaker Billy Greene. After graduation, Perry lured all but Greene down to Austin and, with the addition of drummer Mike McElhaney, they formed Wax Elephant. The band developed a small, loyal following throughout 1991 and 1992, even managing the release of a cassette, but ultimately split up due to mutual dissatisfaction with the band's musical direction. Perry returned to her four-track and began making solo tapes and then CDs, printing them up in limited quantities while also finding work writing music for video games and CD-ROMs. She eventually added bass to her list of instruments, switched to hard-disk recording, and enlisted drummer Chris Searles (David Garza, Shawn Colvin), resulting in her first official solo record, Saturday Morning Sweet Shoppe, in 2000 on Trust Issue Records. It included songs that dated back years, but with the newly confident production and its classic pop melodies, the album felt fresh, immediate, and timeless all at once. It met with great reception (thanks especially to the online site www.mp3.com) but disappointing sales. Perry returned with the equally infectious Two in 2002. Andrea Perry Links
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