WELCOME TO THE MODERN FOSSILS WEB SIGHT! You can find where we'll be playing here along with news about the band. So please, bookmark us and check back once in awhile to find out what's happenin'.
MODERN FOSSILS began back in 1993 as a five peice alternative rock cover group performing in and about the St. Louis Metro East area. The East Side had been known throughout the 70's and 80's as a hot-bed for "just like the record" cover bands, several of which sported future members of Modern Fossils. And being one of the first groups in the region to cover the music played on St. Louis's brand new alt. rock radio station The Point, the reception to the band's spot on song rendentions was strait away fantastic. Then a year later, the bug to write our own songs bit and around that time too, we changed singers, ushering in a much more improvisational texture to the band. That fine group of musicians rocked the Eastside for nearly two years before a major lineup change came about in 1995 complete with the addition of two more members making Modern Fossils a seven piece alt. rock cover+originals group which would cross over the bridge to St. Louis and St. Charles.
1996 saw the coming of yet another major lineup change with our lead singer deciding to leave the live music scene behind. Then three other band members decided to form a new group of their own, and all with only the best of blessings from the remaining fossils. Then the three of us that remained decided to change the band's name out of respect for those leaving. And after picking up two new members, that band kept on rocking the Greater St. Louis Area as Rough Grooved Surface until 2001 when they amicably moved on to solo recording projects. Sadly, I had to leave them to carry on without me after I moved south with my family at the end of 1998. But once here, I was very fortunate to hook back up with one of the original Fossils that had already moved to the Northern Alabama/Southeastern Tennesse region. He had a drummer in tow from the band he had been rocking with in Illinois and once we were ready to play out in '99, we decided to revive the Modern Fossil brand in the South.
The Southern formation of the Modern Fossils wasn't completely locked into doing entirely alternative rock music, branching out into a multi-genre format that worked well over a two year run, though that required quite a bit of traveling. There really aren't just a whole lot of bars to rock out at between Nashville and Birmingham. We live in the only wet county around or in-between those mountains so venues here are limited. Then with family obligations pulling our drummer back to Illinois, there was once again just the two of us original fossils left to carry on. We spent the next two years happily holed up in our writing room composing and recording original song demos. We developed a fairly large backlog of songs and then of course wanting to record them well, we had to buy more recording gear, so we got back to gigging. What we did was digitally record all the parts for a complete cover set, but with the parts the two of us would be playing and singing left out. Then we put those recorded parts on a CD and we would perform along with it, which ended up quite the well-fated endeavor.
In '03 and 04, the Building Fairy came to Northen Alabama and a billion and a half coffee houses sprung up, or so it seemed. Suffice to say that Huntsville, AL became and remains the South's foremost boomtown. And with all those coffee houses springing up we discovered that by having the rhythm tracks prerecorded, we could still rock out at low volumes and the coffee house owners just loved it. So these smaller venues became our bread and butter. And best of all, the folks there liked hearing the songs we wrote just as well as our covers. So over the next two years we became progressively more concert orientated as opposed to doing bar styled set lists. But then there was a bit of a disaster. The lead singing fossil ended up having throat surgery.
In the long run that did us a favor, sending us back to the writing room where we crafted some new songs along with an entirely new endeavour. To put less strain on our voices, we made the next logical step of going acoustic. I played guitars and Craig played everything he could get his hands on including his Electronic Wind Instrument (EWI) which thoroughly fascinated and exhilarated our listeners. It was a long refreshing run, always fun and very well received. And... we were able to get some nice new gear to record with.
Then in 2010, the Modern Fossils came full circle. We officially inducted Craig's son Matt into the band as our drumer and co-singer/songwriter. Then once again, we were destined to turn it up and rock. Along with our originals, we hit hard driving multi-genre covers ranging from 70's music to brand new songs gaining a new following of younger listeners out and about the growing number of venues in Huntsville.
But then in 2015 two of us were wanting to scale back on loading and toting equipment around with our aging backs, so we went back to the coffee houses and as such to remain acoustic to date, though we have kept adding all kinds of electronic delights as time goes by, including some cool multimedia visuals. What we'll do is play out for awhile, then you'll generally find us holed up in our secluded southern writing garret working on new songs and trying to climb the learning curve needed to be able to record them for commercial release. It's a really exciting time for us. We feel like we're breaking out a well aged bottle of wine every time we play. And to all our loyal fossil friends and family, rest assured, we are hard at work tooling upon the same sort of thorny tales of redemption and retribution that you've grown to know, love and expect from us in live performance over the past years. Keep faithful watch, we'll be back in your ears within the flutter of but a moment's ascention.
MODERN FOSSILS ARE:
Ric Birdsong - Guitars and background vocals
Craig Boehme - Bass Guitar, Keyboards, EWI, lead and background vocals
Matt Boehme - Drums, other percussion, lead and background vocals
We're taking a Hiatus from playing out whilst we groove toward completion of our new CD project. But stay tuned fossil family; all work and no play... you know. We'll likely be doing a few gigs here and there in the Huntsville area to test out the new material soon. And while you're waiting, I've put some tracks from our first EP on You Tube you can check out below.
COOL LINKS
MODERN FOSSILS - POISON GIRL
MODERN FOSSILS - JIMMY'S SONG
MODERN FOSSILS - YOUR WORLD
MODERN FOSSILS - SHE KEEPS CALLING
Metallic Jazz
Jacob Moon
Always Take Righteous Care of Your Pea Pod
Bambi Meets Godzilla
WBGZ/Alton Daily News Website - Home of RIVERBEND TALENT PODCAST with Johnny Bash
Joe & NHOP
Why oh Why (can't I play like that)
Stars And Stripes
WBGZ RIVERBEND TALENT PODCAST with RIC the Psycotherapist and Johny Bash
Queen on Uke
Chatting up Stongbad
Warped Motivation Reminders
Often Too True
Valley Planet - Huntsville, AL entertainment news, local political commentary, poetry submissions, and general news on the Arts in the Valley
Philosophy Football
Well !@#$
Cottonmouth website - The band's offerings along with Johnny BASH's RIVERBEND TALENT show, Riverbend local band live performances, and many other helpul things for the free-musically orientated
Do we really know what we think we know?
COUNT THEM 9 - Some acoustic covers from our alter ego coffehouse band
