Ken Andrews does not need an introduction. If you own A Perfect Circle's album Thirteenth Step then you are familiar with some of his work as they covered "The Nurse Who Loved Me" originally perfomed by Failure. Failure splintered off with Greg Edwards resurfacing as an integral piece of Autolux. Ken Andrews surfaced with his solo project On, and Year of The Rabbit as well as various production credits involving some of my favorite bands like Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. First Wave Hello happens to be a band Ken recently produced and opened his show at the Troubadour. First Wave Hello hail from San Diego and were proper openers as they performed their interesting style of space/prog rock in the vein of Failure, Hum, and a sprinkle of Burning Airlines thrown in. Their setup included two guitarists and two keyboardists which garnered my attention immediately. One side of keyboards involved a Roland RD-700 and a MicroKorg, while the other side had a Korg Triton Studio along with an M-audio keyboard that was hooked to some rack synths that I could not discern. Jacob Turnbloom (Vocals/Guitars) had a Moog Ring Modulator pedal that really tweaked the sound of his Fender Telecaster along with his Deluxe Memory Man Echo/vibrato/chorus. They played a convincing set and I purchased their debut CD "The Lord & Its Penguin". First Wave Hello pulled double duty when they reemerged to be Ken Andrews backing band as proceeded to play a career spanning set that had the crowd enraptured. The set started with the shimmery Failure song "Stuck on You" and made its way thru some of his new solo album "Secrets of The Lost Satellites". Ken was rocking a Boss GT-3 thru his Fender Strat and Telecaster into Marshall JCM 800. The crowd was most responsive to "Sergeant Politeness", "The Nurse who Loved Me" and my favorite Year of The Rabbit song "Absent Stars". His new solo album has been in rotation here at Amateur Chemist headquarters for quite some time and I recommend you spin it as well.
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