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Ottawa Buzz: Spying On The Reverb Syndicate

ChartAttack.com, 22 Sep 2006.

By Caitlin Crockard

Another Ottawa Buzz, another three new album releases to celebrate. So let's not waste any more time with small talk.

First, we have a band who play "the soundtrack to '60s-era spy movies that don't actually exist." This would be The Reverb Syndicate, a fairly new group whose members use instrumental surf music, fake spy monikers and a shared love of campy B-movies to create a fun set of danceable and retro-sounding songs.

Bassist Jeff Welch (a.k.a. Agent Ampeg) explains that the band members all came from fairly traditional musical projects, but guitarist Mike Bradford (a.k.a. Agent Vic 20) who came up with the idea of playing surf music with a spy theme. "The origin of each song usually stems from how we feel a scene in a spy movie would play out," Welch says.

"We think to ourselves, 'Spy movies usually have a car chase, let's write a song for a car chase,' or, 'When the hero meets the villain at the casino for the first time and they have a showdown at the card table -- let's write for that.' By having the spy theme, it gives us a wealth of imagery and scenarios to draw from."

But The Reverb Syndicate aren't just content to create groovy tunes for pretend films. "We wanna make the effort to find new platforms to explore," Welch says.

In that spirit, Welch created a radio drama for the band that they performed on local campus station, CKCU. Next, Welch muses, they'd love to be the house band for a late-night talk show, create soundtracks to children's cartoons or -- surprise, surprise -- craft the soundtrack to a real, live spy movie.

In the meantime, the band have a much simpler goal. "The music comes before the spectacle or gimmick," Welch says.

"No one leaves a Reverb Syndicate show talking about the concept. They leave talking about how they danced their butts off."

So go ahead, dance away at the CD release party for the Reverb Syndicate's Operation: Jet Set! debut. The band will set the tone at Zaphod Beeblebrox on Saturday.