Awsome Car Funmaker

Awesome Car Funmaker was formed in Madison, Wisconsin in 2003 by UW-Madison Journalism major Brendan McCarty and History major Ryan Corcoran and UI-Champaign finance major Justin Taylor and Ward Brodt Sales Rep Andy Iordachescu and UW history major Casey Brown. At the time the premise was to write catchy pop songs and to play a show at the Electric Earth Cafe with other bands that wrote catchy songs. After reaching this goal, they went through an existential crisis, the why are we doing this and what is the point variety. Casey quit the band, Andy quit showing to rehearsals, and Ryan joined another local band called Kingfinger. Ryan was quite embarrassed about joining Kingfinger, and he did not tell anyone because of how bad he thought they sucked, but he was bored, homeless, unemployed and they practiced 5 days a week and Ryan liked to practice because it gave him someplace to go in the afternoons. Kingfinger had scheduled their first show in Madison at the Orpheum Stage Door with a band from California named Smoke. Brendan at the time worked at Qdoba under the management of the Lead Singer of Kingfinger Alex. Ryan found out that Brendan was going to that show to see Smoke so he felt obligated to tell Brendan that he was playing guitar for Kingfinger. After the show Brendan told Ryan that he would "kill him" if he didn't quit Kingfinger and solely focus on Awesome Car Funmaker. The next day Brendan quit Qdoba and Ryan went to Qdoba to tell Alex that he was quitting Kingfinger. Awesome Car Funmaker subsequently played roughly 500 shows across Midwest and the East Coast releasing two full length albums, 2004 “Green Means Go” and 2006 “Of Lovers and Monsters” and finished tracking for a third album "Hot Hot Horses", gaining 80,000 plays on MySpace and making enough money on the road to finance their tours and album making costs. In January of 2006 ACF signed to Cancer Records. In October of 2006 Andy Iordachescu quit Awesome Car Funmaker and UW-Madison psychology major Adam Monos took up drum duties. In 2004 Awesome Car Funmaker was selected by the Madison Area Music Awards as best Rock Artist. In August 2007 ACF was selected as the number two favorite local rock band by the Independent weekly, The Isthmus Reader's poll. Currently, for day jobs, Brendan is in Grad School at UW for Library Science and works for Wisconsin Public Television, Justin works as a claims adjuster for Progressive Insurance and Coaches a Kickball Team, Ryan is a home care worker for the developmentally disabled and part-time barista and frequently reads wikipedia, and Adam works as a Behavioral Therapist and watches Brewer Games.