My Friend Andy
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My Friend Andy

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"My Friend Andy’s new album was produced by the lead singer’s buddy – Paul Langlois of The Tragically Hip"

Jeff Montgomery got the birth-
day gift of a lifetime a few years
ago: studio time at The Tragi-
cally Hip’s Bathouse Studios. And
the gift’s donor was none other that
the Hip’s own Paul Langlois.
That was the start of a musical
journey that resulted in the debut
CD of Montgomery and his band
My Friend Andy. The CD will be re-
leased on Saturday, Nov. 29, at the
Merchant Tap House.
It wasn’t like Montgomery had
won a contest either. He knew Lan-
come good friends. Montgomery’s
spouse Heather Haynes and Joanne
Langlois wrote and illustrated two
children’s books in 2002 and 2003.
“I got to meet Paul once in a while
and now we’ve become great
friends,” Montgomery says. “He’s
been super supportive and is a great
person on all levels.”
And so Montgomery was pretty
excited when Langlois handed him
an envelope on his birthday in 2006
and said there was studio time
booked for the two of them to work
was in flux, so only drummer Craig
Duff accompanied him into the stu-
dio. Now the band also includes
guitarists Paul Cotman and Joe
Carscallen and bassist Brian White.
As for Langlois he admits, “I’m
not overly ambitious in the produc-
tion department,” although he had
produced the Hugh Dillon Redemp-
tion Choir CD The High Cost of Low
Livingin 2005.
“Sometimes when the four of us
would get together, Jeff would pull
out his guitar and start playing
some songs and they were pretty
good songs.
“We have a studio in Bath so I
thought why not try to record a few
of the songs. And then after a while,
it was ‘Maybe we should start think-
ing about an actual record.’”
Langlois asked to see all of Mont-
gomery’s demos and the latter
hauled 30 of them for the Hip
rhythm guitarist to peruse.
“I tried to choose the ones that
were strongest,” Langlois says. “I
wanted songs that would stand the
test of time. That’s the way we’ve al-
ways done it with The Hip. We’ve
always chosen songs that would
sound good a few years down the
road rather than just now.”
Montgomery asked Langlois if he
wanted to play on the CD, but other
than singing backup on one song,
Langlois declined.
“I tried playing when I was work-
ing with Hugh,” he said, “But I
found I was losing my objective
perspective. It was becoming more
about me than Hugh.
“When I wasn’t playing, just lis-
tening, I found it was easy to get
him to do what I wanted. Mainly I
just tried to get Jeff to get to a place
where I, as a listener, would like
him to be.”
The CD was recorded in three ses-
sions, the last one coming last
Christmastime. And it is being re-
leased on Langlois’ Ching Music la-
bel. The first single, Snakebite, is be-
ing played on K-Rock in Kingston.
Montgomery is proud of all the
songs but especially likesTen Long
Days. “It ended up a lot different
from the demo,” he says. “We had
to work on a lot of different things
to get it right, but it’s become one of
my favourites.”
Another song called You Belong
To Meis based on his observations
of the music business as well as the
modelling business. At the age of
39, Montgomery is enjoying a re-
naissance of sorts: he’s just releas-
ing his first CD and he’s been get-
ting work as a model and commer-
cial actor. He took a course at the
Mode Elle Model and Talent
Agency in Belleville, whose owner,
Audra Anderson, sponsors the an-
nual Canadian Model and Talent
Convention in Toronto.
Montgomery attended that con-
vention and scored his first model-
ling job which involved travelling to
St. Maarten in the Caribbean. He
has since done a few other com-
mercials as well as appearing as an
actor on the Discovery Channel se-
riesForensic Factor.
“My point in the song You Belong
To Me was that modelling and mu-
sic may make you feel so good, but
in the end, they’re run like business-
es,” Montgomery says.
As for Langlois, he’ll get on stage
with Montgomery for a few songs
at the CD launch and hopes to work
with him again, just as he is cur-
rently working on a second CD with
Dillon.
- The Kingston Whig Standard


"My Friend Andy releases debut album"

My Friend Andy celebrates the release of their debut album. “Songs From the Middle” takes you on a rich rock ’n’ roll voyage that is a solid introduction to Kingston-native singer/songwriter Jeff Montgomery.

Other band members include Craig Duff (drums), Paul Cotman (guitar, backing vocals), Joe Carscallen (guitar), Brian White (bass, backing vocals). The band plays at the Merchant Tap House, Saturday, Nov. 29, around 10 p.m.

Montgomery’s music attracted the attention of Kingston’s Tragically Hip guitarist Paul Langlois, who produced and released “Songs From the Middle” on his label Ching Music Records. Langlois established his label in 2004 when he produced, recorded and released Hugh Dillon and The Redemption Choir album “The High Cost of Low Living.”

Montgomery and Langlois met through a business relationship that their wives struck up in ’98, when Joanne Langlois purchased a painting by acclaimed artist Heather Haynes. Later that year, Langlois contacted Haynes about the possibility of her illustrating the now published children’s book Langlois had written, “Bethie’s Got the Blues.”

A few years ago Montgomery asked Paul to listen to some of his songs.

“To my complete surprise,” Montgomery says, “he really enjoyed them and said that he and I should pick three or four and take them into the Bathouse studio.”

They went back to the studio twice more, then decided it was going to be worthwhile to do a full-length album.

Montgomery also does some modelling and acting.

“I just got into this industry this past year or so. It’s also a tough industry to make a living in, but things are going quite well at this point. I’m just thankful that my wife creates awesome paintings that people like to buy.” - Kingston This Week


Discography

Songs From The Middle - 2008
Snakebite - first single from the disc, in regular rotation on Kingston's K-Rock 105.7

Photos

Bio

My Friend Andy is a Kingston based band that started as a songwriting duo in 2006, with Jeff Montgomery on guitar and vocals, and Craig Duff on the drums.

After writing a bunch of songs, they began dropping them off to Paul Langlois (guitarist for the Hip and a friend of Jeff’s) for some comments and feedback. Paul liked what he was hearing enough to
suggest that they go into the Hip’s Bathouse Studio and lay some of these tunes down.

With Langlois producing, and Aaron Holmberg engineering, they began recording what would eventually become ‘Songs From the Middle’.
Paul and Aaron mixed it in Bath, and it was mastered by Andy Vandette at Masterdisk in NYC.

A mix of rock and alt-pop, the album is all about the songs, and the recording process was about how to best serve them, and how to serve them up!

My Friend Andy has since added members Paul Cotman on guitar and back-ups (whom Jeff and Craig had played with off and on for a few years), Brian White on bass and back-ups, and their most
recent addition, Joe Carscallen (Colour, and Chris Koster’s The Lonely) on guitar.

The band has been playing clubs and festivals in Kingston/Gananoque/Brockville area for past couple of years, creating a loyal following, until recently under their old name, the Jeff Montgomery Band. Why the name change? Well, besides Jeff not being totally comfortable with the old name, he and Craig had always quoted lines from films in their daily lives, like most of us do. One of those lines
was from Shawshank Redemption, where Morgan Freeman says ‘My friend Andy..’ a bunch of times
Jeff’s middle name happens to be Andy, and so they agreed that My Friend Andy and Songs From the Middle felt like a natural way to go.

The first single, ‘Snakebite’, is already in regular rotation on KROCK, the Kingston rock station, and word is beginning to spread about its’ appeal.

"Songs From The Middle" is to be released on the Ching Music record label, available online at Maple Music, and distributed by MapleNationwide.