This morning, a
vigorous jump out of bed... another day of confinement and teleworking for the
reason which has kinda been a bit the worldwide reason for a few weeks:
Coronavirus.
Preparing
morning tea (nope, still haven't fallen for "morning coffee" like
millions of normal people), opening the laptop, Outlooks and the Internet world
where we lay our eyes are on a multitude of information. This morning thoug,
one of them catches my eye and makes me shudder... At first, I don't believe
it. I'm checking the information... which unfortunately turns out to be true:
Adam Schlesinger, co-founder of the Fountains of Wayne, died on April 1st of
complications due to this f**ing Coronavirus.
I can't remember the exact year I heard the Fountains for the first time. Most likely in the late 90s since I remember I was still at college. However, one thing is certain: on every laptop, on every device I use to listen to music "on the road" that I have had since, there is systematically all Fountain of Wayne albums. Why? Because they are one of those artists whose melodies are made of both "good vibes" and whose melodies remain in your head for a good time... A hint of pop, a few notes of rock for songs which, despite the passing years remain timeless. When you have a strong Beatles influence in your blood, difficult to do otherwise, you will say…
Summarizing Adam Schlesinger's career is extremely complicated because the musician is a multifaceted artist and a workaholic. Songwriter, musician, producer, sound engineer, etc. are all the caps he wore - sometimes simultaneously - in his career.
Here, in
Belgium, only a few connoisseurs or fans know his name and the huge CV behind
the New York man… but I can guarantee you that you have more than certainly
already heard if not one of his songs, at least one artist with or for which he
has worked.
If we withdraw
his bands from the equation his bands Fountains of Wayne, Ivy, Tinted Windows and Fever
High, we can - for example – write a few things about his career as a
songwriter for... cinema.
Do you remember
That Thing You Do!, Tom Hanks’ first
directorial movie - for which he also wrote the screenplay - about the
tribulations of a young band from the 60ies whose first song - the title of the
film - was a dazzling success? Schlesinger is the father of this pop song, for
which he got an Oscar nomination.
He’s also the
man behind several songs from Music and
Lyrics, with Drew Barrymore and Hugh Grant, released in 2007, including The Way Back Into Love. Certainly a sweet
one but once again a melody that stays in your mind…
In 2012, he
also wrote The Master of the Seas song
for the animated movie Ice Age:
Continental Drift, sung by some of the usual characters of the series but
also by Jennifer Lopez and Peter Dinklage, our favourite dwarf from Game of Thrones.
Through his
work with Ivy, a friendship was formed with the Farrelly brothers. Proof of
this are the band songs that appeared in no less than 4 films of the brothers: There's Something About Mary (1998), Me Myself and Irene (2000), Shallow Hal (2001) and Fever Pitch (2005).
In 2007, he works on a musical based on John Waters' great classic Cry-Baby, which starred a young Johnny Depp. The musical will get several Tony Awards nomination.
In 2015, he
also wrote I Have Faith in You for An Act
of God, a play whose hero was played by Jim Parsons. Yes… THE Sheldon
Cooper of The Big Bang Theory.
Speaking of television,
he has worked on a few things too and his experience in musicals has often paid
off: in addition to compositions for ceremonies such as the Tony Awards (It's Not Just For Gays Anymore - 2011,
sung by Neil Patrick Harris), Billboard Music Awards, The Howard Stern Show,
Sesame Street (which won him an Emmy in 2011), Saturday Night Live, his
compositions were also sung by Elvis Costello in the special program A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of
All!, in 2008.
Another
visually impressive moment was the opening scene for the 2001 Emmy Awards, sung
by Jane Lynch, for which he wrote the song TV
Is A Vast Wonderland. This opening provides a few good and well-known faces
of TV, starting with Leonard Nimoy, the late Mister Spock from the Star Trek series.
If he was
known for his qualities as a bass player, the first instrument he learned to
play as a kid was actually… the piano. He later learned the bass because he had
"a hard time being that kid behind the keyboard that you put in the back
of the stage." Yet it was the piano that Schlesinger played on The Bells, B-side song of the Smashing
Pumpkins’ 1996 single Thirty-Three. That
was also the beginning of Schlesinger and James Iha’s friendship and the latter
invited him later to play on each from his solo albums (Let It Come Down, 1998 and Look
to the Sky, 2012).
Being under
contract under the same record company, Schlesinger ran into Taylor Hanson in
the 90’s but the general public would still have to wait another decade before
this trio finally added a drummer and form Tinted Windows to release in 2009
this awesome album that is... Tinted
Windows.
Adam
Schlesinger also wrote or produced songs for other artists such as Crash Test
Dummies (Laid Back, 2008), Dashboard
Confessional (Alter the Ending,
2009), Chesney Hawkes (Stay Away Baby
Jane, 2008)… He also entirely wrote and composed Emmanuelle Seigner’s third
album, Distant Lover. A little gem
that I recommend to you... If I weren't a fan of Mr Adam, I surely would never
have found out that Seigner was a singer.
The Fountains
of Wayne have come to Belgium four times over the course of their career. They
are therefore part of these groups which, if you are a fan, you must secure
yourself a ticket, just to make sure you’ll be at this concert. This is exactly
where I was on November 7th, 2011 : at the Botanique in Brussels. An experience
I wrote about (in French) in one of the very first articles of this blog.
 |
| 2011-11-07th Adam Schlesinger at Le Botanique, Brussels (Belgium) |
Little did I
knew, when I bought my ticket and spent time with the Bota audience, was that
fate was going to play a nice trick on me after the last music note was played.
By hanging out a bit after the concert, our little group had the chance to see Jodi
Porter, the guitarist of FoW and... Adam approaching. An opportunity coming up
like this, one has to take it. So I approached Adam to ask him for a photo with
him and Jodi, whom he accepted with good grace, and we started to chat…
I have since have
been extremely lucky to meet some artists, some actors and actresses but this
meeting is a one of a kind because Adam and Jodi are in fact the first two
“celebrities” I took a photo with.
Beyond this
"first", I especially have a fond memory of this discussion with Adam.
Despite an already impressive career, Adam was extremely kind to us and, with a
very good sense of humour, told us – to explain the long gaps between two
Fountains of Wayne albums - that he was a "lazy" musician. Great
irony when you know... that he never stops working.
That he never
stopped working.
It still seems
surreal to me, here and now, to use the past tense but with Adam’s death, it is
clear that now, it is the only conjugation which turns out to be correct to
speak of the Fountains of Wayne, of Ivy, Tinted Windows or Fever High, his
side-projects.
As far as I
can remember, I can’t recall hearing him singing anything other than choirs.
Adam Schlesinger has always been a discreet artist who expressed himself
through his musical notes and the lyrics he let others sing. With one exception...
Between 2015 and 2019, Adam brought his music
touch into the Crazy Ex-Girlfriend TV series, a slightly offbeat comic-musical
series. In 2018, he joined the TV cast during a mini-tour where fans could finally
listen to composer's voice and... the crazy lyrics of the Crazy Ex-Girlfriend songs. Last September, Schlesinger received an
Emmy for Antidepressants Are So Not a Big
Deal, written for the show.
Someone’s Gonna Break Your Heart is another FoW song that I really love… It’s true,
there’s always someone to break your heart. Today, it is you, Adam, who broke
mine by joining other people, anonymous and other artists, following
complications from this bastard virus… Here, I am still writing in the present
tense. Because I still don’t want to write in the past tense.
But
nevertheless, life will definitely go on, in a world... without you, man. But
thank you for these great and amazing songs that I’ll always keep around my
household. Definitely.
