GrooveLily

Campus Activities Today Magazine

December 1997

Nomination for Best Music Act of 1997

…(GrooveLily is) one of the best “finds” of this decade. They simply “blew away” the 1997 APCA National Convention. Valerie Vigoda has to be one of the most amazing musicians of our time and with Brendan and Mac, the group delivers simply awesome music. This is a “no brainer” for a great campus musical event.
–Jennifer Lester

Valerie Vigoda, Brendan Milburn and Mac Ritchey are from all walks of life and from different areas of the country, but among them lies a common thread. They are GrooveLily, and they are burning a streak of fame all across the campus market. What they have discovered is a niche in this highly competitive industry, and they have certainly capitalized on it. Their waltz to the stage makes an interesting story, really, and they tell it with the excitement of a bubbly child, yet are still sincerely modest about the success they have found.

Valerie elaborates, “I started the whole project in 1993 as the Valerie Vigoda Band; I was living in Virginia at the time. Before I had even done any performances, I put together a CD. I was working at a recording studio, so I got some free time there. My father, who is a wonderful pianist, played keyboards; and I got some friends to play in the band and sing backups. Then I moved to New York, and in 1994 began to do showcases with the same musicians. That quickly became difficult, with all the driving between Virginia and New York. At one of our first showcases, Brendan happened to be in the audience, and he loved the music.”

Jokingly, she continues, “Then he started stalking me. We ended up collaborating, and he joined the band. Eventually, all the logistics became too much for my father and the other non-New York musicians, and Brendan became the keyboard player.”

Brendan knew a good thing when he saw it, and he began actively pursuing Valerie, hoping to get her attention. “I started sending her tapes of songs I wanted her to perform. I would leave them with the doorman at her apartment. Eventually she began returning my calls, wanting to know who was sending her all this music. It was then that we started writing music together.”

During the summer of 1995, the band got the opportunity to go to Amsterdam for three months and play at a theatre there. That period was the first opportunity they had to perform full time. They were doing nothing but playing music and forming a very tight, connected band. This was definitely a welcome change, considering that the time they spent in New York was consumed by the day jobs they held. Thus, the summer of 1995 marked the period when they truly became a “band,” and the name of the group was changed to GrooveLily. Their music was no longer just a collection of Valerie’s songs, but a collaboration involving everyone. It seemed to make sense to change their name; so at that point, GrooveLily was born.

About the name “GrooveLily,” Valerie explains, “We wanted to come up with a name that epitomized what we sounded like and was inclusive of all of us. We searched for something that combined a sense of rhythm and lyricism, melody and percussion…and we thought the GrooveLily, a dancing flower, was a good image.”

In December of 1996, the group’s drummer decided to explore other avenues, and shortly thereafter, they gained the musical expertise of Mac Ritchey. “I had met them about one month previous to that, when I was in Boston working on my own musical project. I went to see a band I knew at the Hard Rock Café; GrooveLily performed after that, and I was floored! There was Valerie with this fantastic violin, plugging it into this huge amp, and I remember saying to myself, ‘I’m staying for this set.’ After the show, I approached Brendan and basically started stalking them! Within a couple of months, we got together, they asked me to play a gig with them, and it was then that I joined GrooveLily,” Mac explains. Brendan describes Mac as something of a “musical Swiss army knife.” He plays guitar, bass and drums, and is also experienced in the recording field, which comes in very handy for the band.

In March of this year, GrooveLily appeared at the APCA conference in Atlanta, and the responses from their showcase were phenomenal. They received rave reviews from booking agents and spectators alike, which gained them even more popularity in the campus market. “We were lucky enough to get involved with DCA Productions, a booking agency based in New York. An agent there was a college friend of one of our housemates. She, of course, was barraged by the number of acts trying to get the interest of the agency, and she didn’t really have time to listen to us. Finally, our housemate said, ‘Look”you’ve got to come see my friends’ band!’ Well, she did, and they signed us. We were absolutely thrilled! Prior to that, we had only played a couple of college gigs. We found that it was very difficult to get involved in this market without the support of a booking agent. We knew we wanted to do more gigs like that; with DCA, we have that opportunity and we love it.”

Brendan elaborates, “We had been trying to do this for about a year and a half, and the first conference we actually got into was APCA. We had visited other conferences as guests, just to see how the process worked, but we had never showcased anywhere. The organization and the whole process was very exciting, crazy and truly amazing. We were so pleased to get a good reception there, because we had seen people who we thought were really good go on stage and not impress anyone in the audience. It is a wonderful way for people like us who are virtually unknown or brand new to get exposure. You can’t go around and play clubs and expect to survive”but if you get involved in the college market, you can tour and make a living that way without having to worry about a day job. The college crowd is totally different from the crowds in clubs. Playing to a college audience is playing to receptive ears, people who listen, as opposed to the night club scene. That’s not to say that we haven’t had some bad college gigs, because we certainly have had those, whether it’s because the show was under-publicized or the students hadn’t heard of us before and so didn’t come out to see us. The main problem we seem to have is our show dates not being publicized enough on campus. If the student representatives are excited about us and want to promote us, that’s great! But that doesn’t always happen. Things are much better now that our name is getting to be more widely known in the campus market.”

They feel that the campus market is a good venue for them, because it is a way for groups to bypass record companies, newspapers and other forms of media that are necessary survival tactics for some. Playing the college market does not require bands to entice record company executives to come to their shows; instead, they can get straight to audiences who want to listen to their music. This is a very effective way to find a direct link between a band and its audience”although GrooveLily does not play exclusively at colleges. But even if they were signed with a major record label, the group insists that they would not stop performing on the college level, because they have been very successful in that market so far. Since the 1997 APCA conference, GrooveLily has booked the bulk of their fall schedule and part of their spring schedule at colleges around the United States.

When I ask Valerie about her musical background, she responds whimsically, “I’ve been playing the violin since I was eight years old. I grew up playing classical music through high school and mostly through college, too”but I was also a singer. Those were two separate activities for me. I always wanted to integrate the two together somehow; so when I was in college I started writing songs. I also started playing in bands, where I sang and played some keyboards. I wanted to play my violin, but in order to be in a band, you have to be loud! So I bought a series of electric violins. At that point I was writing songs and integrating some violin playing. Last summer, I found this wonderful instrument that allows me to really sing and play at the same time. It’s shaped like a flying-V guitar, and is harnessed on my body so I can turn my head and sing. It’s a great rock instrument. It’s called a Viper and there are only about fifty in existence. I’ve never met anyone else with one. Now, it’s like a trademark for me.”

Mac began playing guitar at age eleven and then started playing piano, too. He started picking up other instruments until he decided that guitar was the instrument for him. In college, he branched out into recording work and electronic music, production and engineering. At this point, he is primarily an acoustic guitar player, although he is experienced in about twelve other instruments. To GrooveLily, he brings both acoustic guitar and bass, as well as a ton of experience in the recording and engineering field.

Brendan grew up with a sincere love for music, and studied piano from the age of five. When he joined an all-city jazz band in San Francisco and couldn’t read any of the music, however, he decided it was time for some classical training. In college and in graduate school, he studied musical theory, but he says he will always be a “rock ‘n’ roll, honky-tonk piano player.” Brendan met Valerie when he was a student at New York University studying musical theatre and opera composition, and they created a permanent partnership.

When asked about the success of “jungle & sky,” Valerie responds, “The recording process was kind of stressful, because we were doing other gigs at the same time, holding down our day jobs, and recording in the basement of my father’s house! It took a long time, and we produced the whole thing ourselves, which we’re very proud of. Our only regret is that it doesn’t quite sound as good as we sound live; it’s very polished, but it doesn’t capture our live energy. Many people have commented that they love the CD, but REALLY love our live show. Nevertheless, we are still very proud of the album and are glad of its success.”

The new CD that they are working on is packed with energy; it is very effective in capturing the live energy that often gets lost in the recording studio. The band attributes this improvement to Mac, who they say has a real talent for motivating them in the studio and keeping that energy flowing.

Another accomplishment for the band is the recent summer tour Valerie completed with Cyndi Lauper and Tina Turner. (GrooveLily performed at a New York club in December, and Valerie was spotted and asked to audition for Cyndi Lauper’s band.) Millions of people saw the show in arenas and amphitheatres all across the US and Canada; and the exposure has been great not only for Valerie herself, but also for the whole band. “It’s an important credential which is already opening doors for us,” says Valerie. “It was a wonderful compliment, and it was definitely worth doing; but we had a lot of GrooveLily things planned which we had to rearrange. Luckily, it was only three months, so the band was on hold for just a short time.” This fall, GrooveLily will deal with Valerie’s absence for a few more weeks, when she goes on tour to Europe with Joe Jackson.

–Jennifer Lester