Flamingo Matrix started in the spring of '06 when Alex Johnson called Alex Miller to play guitar on some songs he'd written. Alex Miller agreed after hearing some demos, and began composing and practicing regularly. With Patrick Chapman on the bass, FM was a trio for some time, occasionally auditioning drummers, rhythm guitar players and multi-instrumentalists to fill out the sound and enable the band to perform live. After many less than successful auditions, it was decided that Miller was to be the only guitarist in the band, and that the only necessary addition was a drummer.
After a period of about a year, FM found their first drummer, Jake. Jake played with the band for about a year, which allowed them to gig for that time at various small venues around Reno. They gathered a small following, at first consisting mostly of an extended network of friends, then slowly expanding via word of mouth, playing with and/or opening for bigger bands, and radio interviews. Due to growing tensions and frustrations in the band, Jake left and was soon replaced with Todd Hayes, a student at UNR who contacted the band through an online ad.
FM had always been a creative project focused mostly on composing and performing original music, with a few scattered covers decorating the set lists of live shows. During the midwinter of '08/'09, Miller had been out of the country for several weeks, and came back to Johnson's decision to leave the band, thus rendering FM an instrumental trio. Johnson and Miller had built up a considerable catalogue of original material which would have amounted to one or two LPs, but no professional recordings had ever been made, and the band was left with only home-studio closet recordings of those songs and no singer with which to make plans for a future professional recording session. Most of the original songs that had been composed during this time were set aside until another vocalist would join the group, and the trio began working immediately and intensively to build up a new repertoire of instrumental music, consisting mostly of Miller's compositions and group improvisation.
Todd played with the group until the spring of '09.
Currently, Flamingo Matrix is at a point of transition and will probably be back in action by the fall. Collaborative summer shows are in the wind. More updates to come.
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Patrick Chapman- ChapdawG09
Alex Miller- theyellowleaf626
Alex Miller of Flamingo Matrix jamming "Hey...Olivia" at XOXO Bar Jan. 2008
Flamingo Matrix on Adam Squared (3/12/2008)
