The Media
After more than a year of packing Los Angeles’ hottest and most trend-setting clubs playing hits from the critically adored Classic FM, Aussie singer-songwriter and cult hero Andy Clockwise is set to release The Socialite.The album fully embodies his creative firepower and diverse musical influences.
The Socialite is rock n’ roll pop candy; Clockwise wrote, played every instrument and co-produced the album.
Andy shares producing credit with Daniel Rejmer, whose recording credits include The Kills, Billy Bragg, Björk, Nick Cave and Goldfrapp.
The album focuses attention on Andy’s experience in Los Angeles. He had only planned to stay in LA for 2 weeks, “…but [I] ended up finding LA incredibly interesting,” Clockwise has said.
Known for his live performances and on-stage energy, Andy has been garnering a loyal following of Angelinos since his arrival on the scene. Selling out venues across Australia, London, New York and most recently some of Los Angeles’ most iconic venues: The Hotel Café, The Viper Room and Spaceland.
Single-handedly writing, recording and producing his debut EP in 2002, the release of Song Exhibition spawned a couple of high rotation singles on Australian national radio station Triple J ('Song for the Unemployed' and 'Every Song'), a healthy dose of critical claim and an army of new fans. The mini-album reached number three on Australian indy music charts, and spent seven months in the Australian Independent Record charts’ Top 20.
“Ambitious”, “thrilling” and “unpredictable’’ are just a few of the superlatives critics reached for to describe Classic FM, a double concept album written, produced, engineered and mixed by Clockwise in his own studio and released in 2006.
Written about an imaginary radio station, Classic FM quickly became one of the highest rotating albums on Australian independent radio, with hit singles including ‘Alice May’, ‘Mr. Taste Maker’ and ‘Taking Over the World’.
The success of Classic FM led to Clockwise touring with INXS and former Stranglers front man Hugh Cornwall, before headlining his own national tour.
After sell-out concerts in Australia, Clockwise left to play New York, Texas, London and Los Angeles, where he now based, and where he has recorded, co-produced and mixed his new album, The Socialite.
The new Clockwise album was recorded at the iconic New Monkey Studio in LA’s San Fernando Valley.
Owned by Elliott Smith for three years before his death in 2003, New Monkey has become a mecca for artists pursuing the kind of big, round rock sound associated with the studio’s treasured recording gear, including a rare console made in the early ‘70s, rumored to have been used by George Harrison on his “All Things Must Pass” album.
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What the critics said about Classic FM:
“This is an incredibly audacious, prodigious, powerful debut double album from a local indie artist with talent to burn. There is a word that starts with ‘g’ and rhymes with ‘abstemious’. It’s in the range of his voice, his multi-instrumental expertise and the sheer scope of his genre-hopping swoops from satirical jester to sentimental bloke and back again … The man also known as Andy Kelly can do just about anything … He’s so good, it’s almost unfair.”
~ The Daily Telegraph
“Andy Clockwise doesn’t know any backwards steps … Classic FM is the sort of double-disc set that’s easy to put on and disappear in.”
~ Rolling Stone
“This one-man band has multiple personalities, all of them listener friendly.”
~ Who Magazine
