The Franchise (band)

The Franchise is a Washington, D.C.-based rock band. Their music has been described as "geek rock", delving into the harrowing world of pet monitoring devices, comic books, and Middle Eastern food. Influences include what used to be called “college rock,” alternative rock, and New Wave—things along the lines of Talking Heads, R.E.M., They Might Be Giants, U2, The Cure, XTC, Cake, early The Police.

The Franchise
OriginWashington, D.C., USA
GenresRock, geek rock
Years active2004–2008
WebsiteOfficial website
MembersDavid Barak
Noah Kaye
Jackson Maier
Patrick Nolan
Past membersAnna London
Jerry Marzouk

Patrick Nolan played drums in the Jazz band Kurds and Whey from 1991–1993, and then released a solo album, Gone Astray in 2003.

David played guitar in the rock band The Sunmasons from 1989–1992, and released one cassette, It's OK, I'm with the BAND in 1991. He then went on to sing in the a cappella group Makela along with Jerry Marzouk.

Noah and Jackson were both singers in the Spizzwinks(?).

Patrick and David started playing together in 2003, and in 2004 invited Jerry to join them as a keyboard player. They then asked their friend Anna London to join them as she learned to play bass.

Demolition

Shortly after forming, they recorded Demolition at Hit & Run Studios in Gaithersburg, Maryland. Demolition had three original songs, Aliyah L'Regel, Post-Apocalyptic Love Song, and Cyrano, and a cover of The Police song Message in a Bottle.

Cover art for Demolition was created by Patrick.

Shortly after releasing Demolition, Noah Kaye joined the band after attending one of the early performances.

The Sound and the Furry

In early 2005, they recorded most of the tracks for The Sound and the Furry, live at Avalon Recording studios in Bethesda, Maryland. Two of the songs, Lojack and King of Falafel, were recorded at the Brass Monkey Saloon in Baltimore, Maryland, and Late Summer' was recorded at Umbrella Studios in Arlington, Virginia.

The cover art was an homage to the Beatles album Let it Be, featuring the band's pets.

Almost immediately after Figmental Records released The Sound and the Furry, Jerry left the band, and Noah took on primary vocal duties.

To the Rescue!

In 2006, they decided to record another album with a more 'produced' sound, and returned to Hit & Run Studios to do so. DC comic artist Jake Warrenfelz was commissioned to design the cover, which envisioned the band defending the US Capitol from attack by a giant squid.

Before the recording was finished, Anna left the band, and the other members took turns filling in for her on the CD. Jackson Maier replaced her shortly before the CD was released, but after the recording was finished.

Lingua Franchise

In 2008, they completed another album and hosted their launch party at The Grog and Tankard in Washington, DC on June 7, 2008.

gollark: It's more a thing of random BIOS additions and making compatibility with potatOS more annoying.
gollark: I like the websocket chatbox idea, but please don't add the event conversion thing as yet another background coroutine.
gollark: Real OS dev is very hard. Bodging together other work is ez.
gollark: Anyway, I don't think most of the comments are very passive aggressive, though I'm always up for improvements.
gollark: A Linux distribution bundling Xorg, java and some autologin thing, so it can run CCEMUX on boot.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.