The last time I came to Philadelphia pre-pandemic, I went to the Museum of Art. Van Gogh's "Sunflowers" was not on exhibit and I was little disappointed.
But that weekend wasn't a total loss--we still had a concert at The Fillmore with Tommy Conwell and the Young Rumblers to go to.
Fast-forward to 2024 and Van Gogh is here today. Buzz Zeemer was incredible yesterday. Who would have thought that two great artistic experiences could happen in one weekend?
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ENTERTAINMENT | MUSIC
The pandemic made a Philly power-pop band go digging for its old songs. Today, it’s playing its first shows in 17 years.
'Lost and Found' by Buzz Zeemer is an unearthed gem from the 1990s. The group, fronted by Frank Brown and featuring Tommy Conwell, plays two shows at Ardmore Music Hall tonight.
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| Buzz Zeemer, the Philly power-pop band, is led by singer Frank Brown (left) and guitarist Tommy Conwell, seen rehearsing here in Manayunk on Monday, March 25, 2024. Steven M. Falk / Staff Photographer |
The power-pop outfit fronted by songwriting savant Frank Brown and local guitar hero Tommy Conwell grew out of Brown’s previous band, Flight of Mavis, which, like Buzz Zeemer, featured drummer Ken Buono and bass player Dave McElroy.
Buzz Zeemer packed Philly clubs like Upstairs at Nick’s and J.C. Dobbs, played CBGBs in New York, and traveled twice to the SXSW festival. Two stellar albums — Play Thing in 1996, and Delusions of Grandeur two years later — were released on Philly’s Record Cellar label before the group split.
Since then, the band — named after a neighbor of Brown’s in Horsham who frequently operated a chainsaw — has played just one gig, a reunion at the Grape Room in 2007.
Last September, a newly unearthed album of the band’s previously unreleased material was released. Called Lost and Found, its 14 tunes are so good that it’s puzzling why they stayed in the vault so long.
On Friday, a deluxe streaming version with five bonus tracks will be launched by the band’s manager and ardent supporter Pat Feeney, who owns Main Street Music in Manayunk.
The band will celebrate with two shows at Ardmore Music Hall on Friday. First, the quartet will do a Free at Noon broadcast on WXPN-FM (88.5), followed by a full-on performance with the Tisburys opening. The evening show will be streamed on live music platform Nugs.net.
This week, The Inquirer spoke to Brown and Conwell, their guitars at their side — a Les Paul and Fender Telecaster, respectively — at the Manayunk rehearsal space where, along with Buono and McElroy, the band has been working up nearly three dozen sparkling 3-minute pop songs from Brown’s Buzz Zeemer songbook.
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| Philly power-pop band Buzz Zeemer in the 1990s. Left to right, Ken Buono, Tommy Conwell, Frank Brown, and Dave McElroy. The reunited band's new album of unreleased material is "Lost and Found." The quartet will play a Free at Noon concert at Ardmore Music Hall on Friday, March 29, that will be broadcast on WXPN-FM (88.5) and then again that night at the same venue. |
Back in the 1980s, Brown, 59, remembers hearing Tommy Conwell & the Young Rumblers’ “I’m Not Your Man” on WMMR-FM (93.3) while driving to high school when Conwell, the Hooters, and Robert Hazard and the Heroes were Philadelphia’s great rock and roll hopes.
In 1988, Flight of Mavis opened for the Young Rumblers at the Chestnut Cabaret. “They made an impression,” says Conwell, 62, who had a two-album run on Columbia Records that came to an end with Guitar Trouble in 1990.
“I was sitting in my kitchen, and my manager called and said ‘Tom, we got dropped,’ Conwell, who grew up in Bala Cynwyd, recalls. “And I cried.’”
Putting rock star aspirations behind him, Conwell got a degree from Chestnut Hill College and taught third grade for five years while playing locally with his Blues-based combo Tommy Conwell & the Little Kings.
By the time Conwell started playing with Brown, Buono, and McElroy in 1995, the trio who grew up together in Horsham had also been through the music industry wringer.
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| The album cover to Buzz Zeemer's "Lost and Found." The Philly power-pop band plays a Free at Noon show at Ardmore Music Hall on Friday and a second show that evening at the same venue. MSM Records. |
Flight of Mavis first caught Feeney’s attention when he was working at Neil Drucker’s Record Cellar store in Northeast Philly.
The teenage trio gave him a tape, and “I couldn’t get the songs out of my head,” he says. It brought to mind Marshall Crenshaw, as well as Brown’s heroes, Nick Lowe and Terry Adams of NRBQ.
Flight of Mavis’ debut came out in 1989, and the band flirted with big-time success, touring steadily and opening for Sinead O’Connor on a run of dates that year. By the early 1990s, the band was without a deal and frustrated.
“I was tired of it,” Brown says. The band called it quits, but Brown kept writing songs “and they kept getting better,” says Feeney. “More mature.”
“I know it seem ridiculous,” Brown says, “to have two different bands with the same three people in them.” But Brown, Buono, and McElroy started recording new material with producer Adam “Red” Lasus at his Queen Village studio, this time as Buzz Zeemer. When Conwell heard a demo tape, he was blown away. “This is out of character for me, but I said to Ken, ‘This is amazing music. If you ever need a guitar player, give me a call.’”
Before long, they did. Their fourth member, guitarist Kevin Karg, couldn’t make a gig at the Grape, and Conwell stepped in, injecting the indie band with wildcat rock star energy. “I was having a ball,” he says. When Conwell formally joined the band, the band started fresh with Play Thing and left the older tracks behind.
Many Lost and Found songs feature Conwell, like the jangly earworm “Shelly Don’t Mind,” that XPN has been playing regularly. Others feature guitarists like Karg, Kevin Salem, and Philadelphia players such as Andrew Chalfen and Mike “Slo-Mo” Brenner.
Buzz Zeemer flirted with wider success. They “knocked me out the first time I laid ears on them,” Peter Jesperson, cofounder of the Twin Tone label who discovered the Replacements, recalls on the Lost and Found notes. “This is classic power pop!”
But no label deal materialized, and the band — now older, starting families, and no longer committed to relentlessly touring — split up.
Meanwhile, Feeney kept listening to the songs that would become Lost and Found. “I always loved it. I always wanted to put it out.”
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| Buzz Zeemer, the Philly power-pop band, is back performing together. It's led by singer Frank Brown (left) and guitarist Tommy Conwell. Steven M. Falk / Staff Photographer |
Brown and Conwell both stayed active in music. Brown lives in Havertown, teaches fourth grade math in Upper Darby, and fronts Travel Lanes, which released Let’s Begin to Start Again in 2015 and On in 2020.
Conwell, who lives in Oreland, works for his brother-in-law’s company, the Fence Guys. He reassembled the Young Rumblers for 2019′s Showboats & Grandstanders and is headlining the Wayne Music Festival with them on June 8.
During the pandemic, Brown started digitizing old cassettes. He found a rough mix of a song called “C’mon If You Can” to be “just blazing.”
He sent it to Feeney, and the two started digging for songs, turning up 22 that hadn’t been released. “The whole thing has been a labor of love,” says Feeney.
It’s been a challenge pulling a show together with Buono living in Nashville and McElroy in Virginia. But for Buzz Zeemer to get back together, Flight of Mavis needed to reunite first.
So in June of last year, Brown, Buono, and McElroy played a Flight of Mavis date at Wayne’s 118 North. “I hadn’t played with those guys in forever,” said Brown. “So that was really the first step.”
The show sold out the 180-capacity room, gathering old fans to sing along, and pointing ahead for Friday’s show at Ardmore, a venue three times the size.
Conwell is “really excited” to be back on stage with the band. “Buzz Zeemer is some of the best music I’ve ever played. There’s craftsmanship to Frank’s songs. But a lot of art there, too.”
Going forward, one gig a year sounds good, he thinks. “I don’t see why we couldn’t do it again.”
But first things first, says Brown. “This is a big deal. We’ll see if we can pull it off.”
“It won’t be flawless,” says Conwell, with a laugh. “But it will be fun. The spirit will live.”
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Dan DeLuca
I cover pop music, from what's happening in the local scene to national trends and touring acts.
