Michael Alan Riech

Michael Alan Riech is a singer songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer and arranger, Father Bert was a semi-professional musician himself and encouraged Michael in his early musical pursuits.
One of Michaels first groups was Methylene Blue which included Dan Van Patten a future member of Berlin on drums, most of Michaels early groups were influenced by English Blues-Rock which even at an early age was the type of music that held the most attraction for Mike who quickly adopted the playing styles of Pete Townshend, Jack Bruce, John Entwistle, David Gilmour, Syd Barrett and Ian Anderson.
In the mid seventies Michael began pursuing his own experimental Art-Rock projects, one such project was a group known as Zicko Glick whose members included guitarist Chris Velasco and drummer Dan Van Patten, when Michael departed to pursue his own musical directions the band added Terri Nunn and became the techno pop band Berlin. but not before Mike departed to pursue his own musical directions.
Around this time Michael began to do a lot of session work working with such musicians as Peter Banks (Yes, Flash, “Two Sides Of Peter Banks” with Phil Collins and Steve Hackett of Genesis, Jan Ackerman of Focus and John Wetton of King Crimson), Al Stewart (Year of the Cat) and Dominique D’amico of the progressive rock band PFM.
Between all of this session work, Michael found time to work on his own projects and released the solo album Within Riech (Fatlizzard Records). The album was recorded in five weeks at Devonsound Studios in Pacific Beach Ca. and released in Dec. of 1979, All songs were written, performed, arranged and produced by Michael with Herb Nation on drums. To this day Within Riech is still sought by collectors and earned Mike a local cult following after being featured on underground radio programs.
Time following the promotion of Within Riech was spent working on "Out of Riech" at the Casbah Recorders sharing production duties with John St. James, The album produced three singles including the apocalyptic I.C.B.M (A Matter of Time), Out of Riech, and .38 Kill the Pain. Michael also produced a video for the latter.
Michaels last working group English Motorbike opened shows for many classic acts such as THE ZOMBIES, THE SEEDS, JOHNNY WINTER, DAVE ALVIN, MOUNTAIN, COLIN HAY and ERIC BURDON AND THE ANIMALS, Since English Motorbike disbanded Michael has been performing occasionally with The Band of Brothers with his brother Craig Riech (who has played with the John Nichols Band and the Malt Men fronted by Rusty Anderson of Paul McCartney’s Band). When not playing live he stays busy writing and recording new material in his home studio and restoring his collection of 30+ year old reel to reel tapes of original songs and experimental material, some of it featured here.
E.M.B. performing "Born Under a Bad Sign" opening for Johnny Winter at the Galaxy