About Me
FATLIZZARD is the name for the early experimental projects of Michael Alan Riech a singer songwriter, Multi-instrumentalist, Producer and Arranger.
The tracks Weirdness, Space Cats and ATSBITP were recorded using only the Maestro USS1 and an Echoplex with either a "65" Gibson Firebird or "63" Fender Strat. with a Ric. 4001 Bass,Love You Dealt also uses the USS1,to hear the USS1 used in a more conventional song please go to www.mysapce.com/michaelalanriech and listen to the track Time and Again
The early material was recorded on either a Sony 2 track with S.O.S. using track bouncing to acheive multi track recordings or an early Teac 4 track,
the basic instruments were a Gibson J-55 ,"65" Gibson Firebird ,"63" Fender Strat, Gibson EB0, favorite effects were a Maestro U.S.S.1 synthesiser and an Echoplex.
In the mid seventies Michael began pursuing other 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 with musicians such as Peter Banks (Yes, Flash, “Two Sides Of†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 (Fat Lizzard Records). The album was recorded in five weeks at Devonsound Studios and released in December 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. The album was never completed but three singles were released 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, Eric Burdon And The Animals, Johnny Winter, Dave Alvin, Mountain and Colin Hay, Since English Motorbike disbanded Michael has been performing occasionally in 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 experimental reel to reel tapes of original material, some of it featured here. "Put on some headphones and enjoy !
