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Let’s
Make a Deal
Heavy
airplay on local radio gives small-town punk act F-Timmi a
shot at stardom—just months after a recording contract slipped
through their fingers
By
Peter Hanson
Photos by Mandy Crabtree
Things
were going well for F-Timmi that day last fall. The four lads
who comprise the band’s current lineup had been playing together
for only a few months, but they already had a head-turning
performance at a major music conference under their belts.
So when they crammed into a small room to play a showcase
for Atlantic Records executives including Craig Kalman—the
label’s vice president in charge of signing new bands—they
felt like they were on a roll.
“There’s
15 people in suits—it’s pretty stiff,” recalls drummer Chad
Davis. “We played really great, and everybody was juiced.”
“Kalman
came up to us and said two words,” says front man Mike Biggane.
“He said, ‘Good job,’ and he walked out.”
The label execs and F-Timmi’s reps exited the room for a quick
discussion, then returned to give the expectant musicians
the verdict. “The guy was like, ‘Let’s give these guys a record
deal and a development deal,’ ” says Biggane. “That night,
we all go to sleep thinking our dreams have come true. And
then the next day is Sept. 11.”
Guitarist Douglas Palmer picks up the story. “I’m laying in
bed sleeping and I hear our friend Amanda pounding on the
door and she’s yelling ‘They’re bombing the World Trade Center!’
” he says. “She’s like, ‘Band meeting! Mike’s room! Now!’
”
Davis, Biggane, Palmer and bassist Brian Springfield recall
this sequence of events with a mixture of clarity and wonder.
On the evening of Sept. 10, they drank themselves silly and
looked forward to touring Atlantic’s offices in the morning.
But on Sept. 11, they found themselves stranded in a locked-down
Manhattan, unsure how to balance the fear and anxiety of that
dark day with their euphoria at the impending Atlantic deal.
“We
were walking through Times Square and everything was closed,”
recalls Biggane. “The fucked-up thing was we were eating in
the hotel restaurant and the bomb squad ran up to this van
across the street. The police towed the van right by the window,
and we were sitting there with our $20 hamburgers going, like,
‘What the fuck?’ ”
F-Timmi eventually made it out of Manhattan, but the eerie
vibe of that morning lingered for the next two weeks. For
while the world grappled with the enormity of the tragedies
in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania, four punk-rockers
waited for contracts that never seemed to arrive. Finally,
the band’s lawyer informed them that Atlantic had withdrawn
its offer of a record deal, but still wanted to give F-Timmi
a development deal—meaning that the quartet would have to
settle for the vague promise that they might be offered a
recording contract again somewhere down the road.
“They
backed out because they didn’t want to commit to an unknown
band in a falling economy,” Davis says.
“After
that,” Biggane adds, “we got really depressed.”
 F-Timmi
aren’t depressed anymore. While they still don’t have a deal
with a major label—they turned down Atlantic’s halfhearted
offer in the hopes they could do better elsewhere—they do
have a song in heavy rotation on local hard-rock station the
Edge (WQBK/WQBJ, 103.5/103.9 FM). The song, “Speechless,”
is a pop-tinged number that recalls the cheerful energy of
Green Day’s early hits, and it’s been hotly requested since
the Edge began playing it earlier this month. The radio play
has garnered F-Timmi a new wave of major-label interest, and
a brief profile of the band appears in the current issue of
well-read industry mag Radio & Records. Whereas
most bands spend their careers hoping in vain for a single
shot at the big time, F-Timmi are poised for their second
such shot in less than a year.
This is a heady time for Biggane and Davis, both 23, and Palmer
and Springfield, both 22. The four all have day jobs—from
carpentry to car detailing—and their collective financial
resources are so humble that they shop at Salvation Army stores
and trek to gigs in a caravan of used cars. It’s understandable
why they’ve got so much invested in the idea of turning their
local success into national notoriety.
Davis describes the band’s current sound as “melody-driven
rock with punk influences,” which represents a substantial
change from the F-Timmi style of yesteryear. When the band
formed in 1996 under the auspices of lead singer Tom Brennan—a
friend of the current lineup who’s still Biggane’s roommate—they
played simplistic, hard-driving music that was heavily influenced
by the neo-punk heroes of the last decade. (The band’s name,
by the way, is a tongue-in-cheek reference to former member
Tim Booth, and the “F” stands for just what you think it does.)
Biggane says that he played guitar as a child, then abandoned
the instrument until Brennan taught him to play Green Day’s
“When I Come Around.” And Davis says he became a punk fan
because he digs the music of blink-182. In the band’s early
days, however, these young players discovered that punk-rock
purists don’t think highly of musicians steeped in the sounds
of contemporary alternative-rock radio.
“We
used to open for Trauma School Dropouts,” recalls Springfield,
referring to the defunct area band known for their adherence
to old-school values. “We thought we were punk, but we’d have
kids with Mohawks spitting on us.”
In addition to playing music that’s not punk enough for some
punks, F-Timmi don’t feel obliged to develop dangerous reputations.
“I got arrested last year on the way to a Wait show for driving
with a suspended license,” Biggane says. “I felt, like, all
badass ’cause the Wait were like ‘Mike from F-Timmi just came
straight from jail.’ When people asked me what I got arrested
for, I was like ‘Shut the hell up.’ My license is clear now,
by the way.”
F-Timmi place so little importance on appearing disreputable
that they even clean their room for visitors. The group’s
rehearsal space is a dark, plain room on North Pearl Street
in Albany—in a crowded building employed for similar purposes
by numerous other local bands—and the musicians explain that
the night before this interview, they carted away what they
describe as an ankle-deep mess of beer bottles.
In terms of their music as well, cleaning up their act has
done wonders for F-Timmi. The band recall that after Biggane
wrote the first version of “Speechless” last fall, they were
noncommittal about including the track on the EP they were
recording. But after tinkering with the tune in the studio—and
cutting off a long acoustic intro that Biggane had written—the
band turned the song into a polished pop tune.
“I
said, ‘Dude, “Speechless” has “single” written all over it,’
” Davis recalls. “What I love about it is the chorus: It’s
hooky as hell.”
“It’s
one of those songs that’s almost so cheesy it’s fun to play,”
Springfield adds. “I smile all the way through it.”
“Whatever,
man,” Biggane says with a contented shrug. “We’re on the radio.”
F-Timmi will celebrate the release of The Shocker,
the EP featuring “Speechless,” with a show tomorrow (Friday)
at Saratoga Winners. And while it may seem that the band are
taking the no-brainer route to success—record a single, get
it on the radio, then play live once it’s a hit—the band’s
members explain that it didn’t quite work that way.
The current F-Timmi lineup took shape in January 2001, and
not long after, band pal Dan Neet—front man of late, great
Capital Region rock act the Clay People—helped F-Timmi land
a showcase slot at the Philadelphia Music Conference, which
is attended by scores of industry types thirsty for new talent.
The band’s gig at the June 2001 event caught the ears of a
lawyer named George Stein, who discovered Jeff Buckley, and
Frank Chackler, whose father was instrumental in Fleetwood
Mac’s career. Chackler wanted to ink a deal predicated upon
F-Timmi working with onetime Guns N’ Roses producer Mike Clark,
but the band signed with Stein instead.
“George
was right up front with us,” Davis says. “First thing out
of his mouth was ‘We’re gonna make some money.’ ”
“He
said, ‘You better hope I can buy a house because then you
can buy five,’ ” Palmer adds.
Stein helped set up the fateful Atlantic showcase in September,
as well as a showcase for RCA Records in October that
didn’t go nearly as well—the band members say they were so
jaded by that point that they didn’t play well. In fact, it
was disappointment over the whole Atlantic situation that
led F-Timmi to record The Shocker.
Prior to this year, the only recorded F-Timmi products were
low-budget demos cut in local sound guy John Delehanty’s basement
studio. But in January, F-Timmi traveled to Woodstock for
six days of intensive work with Conehead Buddha member Chris
Fisher serving as producer. The band say they told Stein to
lay off the label showcases until the recording was done,
because they wanted to refocus their energies on the music,
not the music business. “It was basically ‘Play for us and
the kids that are at shows, and not worry about which label
is gonna be there,’ ” Davis says.
The come-what-may attitude remained after the last recording
session was over. Before the band even got completed discs
with artwork and liner notes, they sent a copy to Dave Hill,
the Edge’s program director, so a radio ad for an F-Timmi
concert could be cut together with snippets from the disc.
Hill liked what he heard, then added “Speechless” to the station’s
playlist—as Davis says, “It got on the radio by accident.”
By mid-February, the track was featured in a top-of-the-hour
montage describing which tunes are about to be played.
“It
was, like, Creed, us, Godsmack,” Biggane says, the surprise
of the moment still clear on his face.
“I
almost pissed myself when I heard that,” Springfield says.
The radio play has given the band’s quest for a major-label
deal considerable momentum, and has even won them new allies:
Last week, they were signed to the roster of Los Angeles-based
concern Rebel Management, whose clients have included Christina
Aguilera.
A poster of Aguilera hangs in F-Timmi’s rehearsal space, and
the musicians get pretty animated when discussing the slinky
outfit that the comely pop star wore during her performance
at the closing ceremony of the winter Olympics on Sunday.
Despite their savvy attitude about the music business and
their intense focus on hitting the big time, the members of
F-Timmi are still skateboarders who like to hang out with
each other, drink copious amounts of beer, smoke pack after
pack of cigarettes, and talk about pop-music hotties. As they
interact in their smoky little room—the decorations of which
also include a giant Taxi Driver poster, a Spider-Man
kite, and flyers for bands F-Timmi have played with—the band
members give the impression that they’re happy just to have
come as far as they already have.
They joke easily, for instance, about having emerged from
the small town of Kinderhook, Biggane’s hometown and Davis’
home of many years. (Palmer is from Greenville, Springfield
from Nassau.)
“ ‘We’re F-Timmi from Kinderhook, New York’—that’s how every
show starts out,” Springfield says.
“We’re
from the only town where the eighth president is from too,”
Palmer chimes in. “Rock out!”
The way the members riff on how 19th-century commander in
chief Martin Van Buren might be integrated into their stage
patter seems typical of their loose vibe, and the musicians
insist that they’re friends first, a band second. To back
up this claim, Palmer describes how F-Timmi took a fishing
trip last year to get away from the distractions of the rock
lifestyle: “We went to a lake with no fish and spent two days
throwing lines in to catch rocks.”
They add that their camaraderie extends to their devoted fan
base, which includes folks such as “Crazy Eddie,” the guy
who drives all the way from Buffalo to catch the band in Albany,
and the two kids from Cairo who invented a handshake inspired
by the band’s logo. The group even balk at describing their
listeners as “fans,” preferring to characterize their supporters
as members of an extended musical family. Palmer says that
he and his bandmates know most of their listeners by name,
and he describes gigging in the Capital Region as “like playing
a big house party with all your friends.”
Yet the band admit that they’re itching to welcome people
in other parts of the country into the F-Timmi fold. “Everybody
wants to get out of their hometown,” Springfield says. “We
just want to get in a van and play wherever we can play.”
F-Timmi
will celebrate the release of The Shocker with a show
tomorrow (Friday, March 1) at Saratoga Winners (Route 9, Latham).
The Stryder, Coheed and Cambria, and Prevents Falls also are
on the bill of the all-ages show. Doors open at 7 PM, and
tickets are $10 advance, $12 door. For more information, call
783-1010.
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