If you've gotten this far, you've probably checked out just about every other link on this page. So I'm willing to guess you dig lambchop. If you want to find out who I am and how I came to listen to lambchop and do this page, read further. Otherwise, go back to the main page. Again, this page was created to help out the band, but some enquiring minds want to know who I am and how I came to do this page.

I lived in Nashville, TN for four years because I went to college at Vanderbilt University. The academics are great, but the social scene leaves a lot to be desired. Bottom line: go there at your own risk. As Woody Allen commented in "Everyone says I love you," republicanism can only come as a result of a brain clot. Discuss amongst yourselves.

Beginning with day one of my college career, I started hanging out at Vanderbilt's 10,000 Watt station: WRVU. If you haven't visited the web site, do so. You'll thank me later. By the end of my senior year, I had been training director, business manager, and general manager of the station. It was there that I was exposed to everything under the sun. I entered the station thinking that Jane's Addiction and Smashing Pumpkins were the end-all in music. I left realizing that Jim O'Rourke and Albert Ayler were only a small piece of what music seeks.

My first exposure to lambchop was not in hearing their music, but meeting one of the members. My friends and I from the radio station saw the Pavement/David Kilgour show at 328 music hall during the fall of my freshman year (1994). At the end of the show, the only people hanging out to talk to Bob Nostanvich were my friends and only one other person. The next week, I saw that one other person while shopping at Lucy's record shop and started talking to him about the great pavement show. At that point I found out that this guy was in a band called lambchop, and his name was Jonathan Marx.

My friend who hosted the Let's Go Bowling show on WRVU lent me a copy of Jack's Tulips/I Hope You're Sitting Down while my other friend, then host of the Scott the Monkey Boy show, indoctrinated me with the history of Lambchop. A few weeks later I went to see Lambchop opening for another band (which I think was nashville's own crop circle hoax) at Lucy's. One by one, they all filed onto the stage until a total of 12 of them were ready to play. Everyone in the audience sat in quiet around the edge of the room on the carpeted floor whilst my friend from Let's Go Bowling stood in what he considered respect for the best shit out there. He was right.

They built layer after layer of sound in the room. The drummer (Allen Lowery) did not have a drum set; he had a bass drum set. All four of his drums were different sized mismatching bass drums to complement the tarnished and ripped cymbals. Another (C. Scott Chase) played a set of open ended wrenches suspended by rubberbands and fishing line from a strip of moulding--when he wasn't beating on a lacquer can. Another (Paul Burch) played fiddle, or the drums, or both--whichever he chose at the time. An old farfisa organ (which I had never seen or heard before) droned and whistled in the background (played by John Delworth) while the Fender lap steel player (Paul Niehaus) gave his own ghostly creations with a little help from his friend Jim Dunlop. The singer (Kurt Wagner) was as the same time humorous and depressing, ornery and jovial and it fit the music perfectly. I was blown away by this band which could coherently bring a seeming cacaphony to embrace a quiet wry voice whose only protection was a bright blue lectern with a giant red "L" on it. Never before had I even considered a lap steel to have any use outside of Alfred Apaka or some country crap I always turned off when it came on the radio (at that point I had never listened to Hank Sr. or Johnny Cash to give any legitimacy to that genre). At that point in my life (I was 18), if it didn't have a strong beat and a distorted guitar with it, it usually didn't do a whole lot for me live. This was very different and surprisingly enough, I really dug it. At that point lambchop had only released the Moody Fucker/Nine 7", Jack's Tulips, and the Posterchild/Crop Circle Hoax 7". I quickly bought all three and everything else as it came out subsequently.

Throughout my four years, I saw lambchop as often as I could, which ended up to be around 20 or 25 shows. I'm currently trying to figure out exactly which shows i went to. I saw them play with Doo Rag, Spent, Calexico, Crop Circle Hoax, Paul Burch and the WPA Ballclub, Vic Chesnutt, Bugskull, Blonde Redhead, CYOD, and I honestly forget the rest. In my own humble opinion, my favorite shows were the Mergefest at Exit/In which featured Lambchop/Spent/Superchunk, the first show with DooRag at Lucy's, and Lambchop's last show at Lucy's, which was with Vic Chesnutt shortly after they finished recording "The Salesman and Burnadette." Lucy's was a very intimate setting, but because it was very difficult to get twelve people all at the right levels on the microphone, the sound sometimes was hard to discern. The full sound at Exit/In overcame any sound problems as everyone had their own mic. I still don't know how they did it.

Even though their music kicks my funky booty, I think the best aspect of the band is the people. The members of Lambchop are some of the most genuine people I've met. They were always appreciative of their fans at the shows and always were willing and always seemed to want to talk to fans, including myself. On top of that, Nashville is a small enough town that you could see the members throughout town on a somewhat regular basis, if you just kept your eyes peeled. I'm not talking about seeing the Kentucky Headhunters at the Longhorn, I'm talking more about seeing the quiet goofy old man from the Ernest movies in his sunday best with a bible in hand at the baskin robbins on 21st (no joke). I suppose he was praying for a dying Jim Varney at the time.

The members are regular people, regular musicians working either odd or just irregular jobs to make it through to their dream. One was a carpenter/floor finisher, one is a newspaper editor, one worked at tower records, one works in the english department at vandy, one works at a bagel company, one works at a thrift store. But they all love to talk about their music. I even saw one of them at a tortoise show in athens, GA and the person seemed to really enjoy talking to me about lambchop, even though we had never met before. Jonathan was so kind as to take time out of his schedule to help me interview spent on the radio because I didn't have a clue what to ask them.

Bottom line: I could not wish success unto a group of nicer, more genuine, hard-working group of people. I do this web page for free. I have had no prior html training. I just decided to do this on a whim in the summer of 1998 because I had nothing better to do.

Unfortunately, I do not live in Nashville anymore. After graduation in May '98 from Vanderbilt with a BS in Math and Chemistry, I was thankfully accepted into Emory Medical School. Thusly, I am currently finsihing up medical school there. It was the only place out of twelve that I got into and I could not be happier. I recently matched into a neurology program at Columbia University and should be heading there soon. I'm also happily engaged and am getting married soon after graduation.

So, if you live in Nashville, or know something about the band that I don't, please send it my way and I'll gladly add it to the page.

Jamie