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For the record, this is the Frederick Productions/Red Newt Records MySpace profile, but it all begins with Jeffrey Frederick. He's no longer with us in person, but his music remains as alive as ever and you can still find people dancing and laughing to it around the world. Jeffrey (1950 - 1997) was charismatic, charming and had the sexiest grin you ever laid eyes on, usually with a Camel straight, a 'hump' to him, hanging out of the corner of his mouth. When he climbed on stage and started to sing you just had to dance, his music penetrated the soul. Jeffrey oozed talent. To quote Dave Reisch, "Jeff could take something as mundane as a pencil and make a song out of it." Jeff's middle name could have been humour, but it wasn't, he was Jeffrey Sutton Frederick and according to him he could do "any fucking thing he wanted" and he did. This included sometimes performing in a tutu and cowboy boots, or decorating the stage with a flock of hand-carved pink flamingos.

After many years creating havoc in Vermont, musical and otherwise, Jeffrey moved to Portland, Oregon in '75 and started the Clamtones. Or rather, the band in hand was the Clamtones when Jeff was the frontman and the Holy Modal Rounders when Steve Weber fronted... These "two bands in one" often shared the same stage. They soon became "the best fucking bar band in America" as one reviewer put it, and ruled the Portland music scene for years.

In '76 they took off on a 9,000 mile tour of the perimeter of the States, which included such memorable moments as Jeff & Lonesome Wayne being arrested in Texas for their antics, and getting run out of Alabama for making fun of Fundamentalism in Let Me Down.

For stories of their road trip and more about Jeff, check out our web site and also go to the Freak Mountain Rambler's web site and read Dave Reisch's "A Piece of Work" (www.freakmountain.com/davebook) .

During the tour, Jeffrey recorded Have Moicy!" ("best album of the year," Village Voice,"the top folk album of the rock era" Rolling Stone) with Michael Hurley, Peter Stampfel, Dave Reisch, Jill Gross, Robin Remaily, Paul Presti, Wax Iwaskiewicz and Robert Nickson. Jeffrey's only full-length album,Spiders in the Moonlight was recorded in '76 after the completion of the tour and a live radio show broadcast from Rohan's Road House in Vancouver B.C. ( the source of the two disc set, Clamtones B.C). To borrow a phrase from Red Newt Records artist Teddy Deane, they weren't making a lot of money, but they sure were making a lot of good times!

In 1983 Jeff moved to Silver City, Nevada. There he gathered the cream of the crop of Northern Nevada's musicians and ooh la la! the Jeffrey Frederick Band was in motion. Among them was Johnny Fingers, guitar, and BB Morse, bass (who later joined Willy Nelson's band). The guys had them dancing at the infamous saloons of Virginia City, the clubs of Reno and Lake Tahoe, and the bars of Dayton, Yerrington and Fallon, as well as back in Portland town.

Jeffrey's music was zany, hilarious and soulful. He wrote about the people he loved and those he tried to hate, Rotten Lettuce; he wrote about family (he was Jeffrey SUTTON Frederick, after all) and criminal activity, Robbin' Banks; he wrote about broken hearts, life and death, What Made My Hamburger Disappear; he wrote about brawling on Saturday Night and the possible consequences of playing guitar on the Toilet too long... always in a way that made us laugh and feel good. Hilariously, one day a friend called me and said that he had just heard "Hamburger" on Sesame Street (they must not have been paying attention to the lyrics)!

To Jeffrey it wasn't a successful show unless he "made 'em dance" and he always had us dancing.

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In 1997, Jeff left us wanting more.  Frederick Productions began as my way to keep Jeff's music alive and get it into people's ears and minds.  Starting with The Jeffrey Frederick Band Live At The Icehouse, continuing with Ooh la la... Les Clams and the two-CD set, Jeffrey Frederick and The Clamtones B.C., we have been releasing the best of his live performances. We've also released on CD for the first time ever "the greatest album ever released" according to Portland's music and brewpub mogul Mike McMenamin, The Resurrection of Spiders In The Moonlight. The sound has been corrected (the band was never happy with that) and it has a new cover by Jeff's lifelong pal, Michael Hurley. Plus we've thrown in three unreleased studio tracks recorded in Reno, Nevada with Jeffrey Frederick Band for a rock and roll album he was never able to complete.

In addition to Jeff's own work, we have been releasing music from his friends and proteges such as Jim Boyer, ace guitarist and singer with Portland's Freak Mountain Ramblers (Time Spent), Vermont hipster pal, Sisco (End of the Trail), and the notorious psychedelic folk legend Steve Weber (Holy Modal Rounders B.C. ).

We started the Red Newt Records label for new music that turns us ..ing with eating that way by Portland's fabulous Alexa Wiley (check her out by clicking on her profile in our Top Friends). Next is Teddy Deane's eclectic new album So Far So Good, now available around the world (you can, of course, also get it through our websites). It has everything from romantic new "standards" and danceable swing, through a great song about his years with the Clamtones/Rounders.

And there's still much more to come from Jeff, his friends and others who keep alive the tradition of good-time Americana. There's St. Jeffrey's Day: The Songs Of Jeffrey Frederick, a multi-disk tribute, with Volume I about to be released this Fall. Then we'll be back in the studio for new records from the amazing Lex Browning (Freak Mountain Ramblers, Austin Lounge Lizards) and Jim Boyer (Freak Mountain Ramblers, the Jim Boyer Band), and the premiere album from Jeff's son, Jake Ray. Also, we'll be publishing Jeff's songbooks.

We invite you to check out the MP3s on this profile and click on the following link to our website for more music and stories and other goodies (www.jeffreyfrederick.com). We're continually adding new content, so check back from time to time. You can hear Jeff's songs most every week here in his adopted hometown of Portland, sung by the Freak Mountain Ramblers, Lewi Longmire, the Piano Throwers and others, as well as from Ekoostik Hookah and others around the world.

By the way, if you're a musician or broadcaster, we'd be thrilled if you would share Jeffrey's songs with your own audience. Musicians, we'll gladly give permission to record covers, or if you play his tunes, just let us know and please send us a tape or MP3 or CD or whatever. Who knows, it might end up on St. Jeffrey's Day... If you're a broadcaster, email us and we'll get you some tunes to play on the air (or net). And whoever and whatever you are, we'd love to hear from you!