Freddy Moore
Encyclopedia
Frederick George "Freddy" Moore (born July 19, 1950) is an American rock
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...

 musician.

History

Moore was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...

. He grew up obsessed with the newly popular Beatles, and moved to San Francisco, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

 in June 1964. "I didn't have any friends and really didn't want any. I just sat in my room and played Beatle songs and wrote my own." Moore poured through rock fanzines, absorbed and dissected every Beatles album that came out, and listened exclusively to the Fab Four and the Kinks
The Kinks
The Kinks were an English rock band formed in Muswell Hill, North London, by brothers Ray and Dave Davies in 1964. Categorised in the United States as a British Invasion band, The Kinks are recognised as one of the most important and influential rock acts of the era. Their music was influenced by a...

. By October 1964, he had unequivocally decided his vocation was playing rock and roll music and he started writing. "I noticed that the Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...

 wrote their own songs, so I figured that to be a rock musician you had to write your own songs."

"In the summer of 1964, right after 'A Hard Days Night' came out, my cousin Danny and I spent two weeks making wooden replicas of the Paul McCartney
Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE, Hon RAM, FRCM is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Formerly of The Beatles and Wings , McCartney is listed in Guinness World Records as the "most successful musician and composer in popular music history", with 60 gold discs and sales of 100...

 bass, the John Lennon
John Lennon
John Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...

 rhythm guitar, George Harrison
George Harrison
George Harrison, MBE was an English musician, guitarist, singer-songwriter, actor and film producer who achieved international fame as lead guitarist of The Beatles. Often referred to as "the quiet Beatle", Harrison became over time an admirer of Indian mysticism, and introduced it to the other...

's
lead guitar, and Ringo Starr
Ringo Starr
Richard Starkey, MBE better known by his stage name Ringo Starr, is an English musician and actor who gained worldwide fame as the drummer for The Beatles. When the band formed in 1960, Starr was a member of another Liverpool band, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. He became The Beatles' drummer in...

's drums. We used to lip-synch to records. Danny and I wanted to play real music, the others wanted to lip-synch, but we finally got them going. We learned 'You Really Got Me' by the Kinks
The Kinks
The Kinks were an English rock band formed in Muswell Hill, North London, by brothers Ray and Dave Davies in 1964. Categorised in the United States as a British Invasion band, The Kinks are recognised as one of the most important and influential rock acts of the era. Their music was influenced by a...

, the Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...

' 'And I Love Her' and my first original composition 'Baby Be Mine'."


By the age of thirteen, Moore formed his first bands and started teaching reluctant copycat cohorts to play his songs. His narrow interests and extreme diffidence made finding other players difficult. Throughout his teens, he worked on his guitar and arranging skills.

He graduated from Richfield, Minnesota High School
Richfield High School (Minnesota)
Richfield High School is the only public traditional high school in Richfield, Minnesota, and also the only public high school in the area that is a college preparatory school. Richfield, MN, a suburb of Minneapolis located directly south of the Minneapolis city limits...

 in 1968. Fearful that he would be drafted to serve in the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...

, he enrolled at the University of Minnesota
University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, United States. It is the oldest and largest part of the University of Minnesota system and has the fourth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 52,557...

 to study Music Theory
Music theory
Music theory is the study of how music works. It examines the language and notation of music. It seeks to identify patterns and structures in composers' techniques across or within genres, styles, or historical periods...

 and Composition
Musical composition
Musical composition can refer to an original piece of music, the structure of a musical piece, or the process of creating a new piece of music. People who practice composition are called composers.- Musical compositions :...

 under composer Dominick Argento
Dominick Argento
Dominick Argento is an American composer, best known as a leading composer of lyric opera and choral music...

.

At the University of Minnesota, Moore met organist Randy Pink, who both taught him to play the organ and invited him to join his band, The Pink Project. Although the Pink Project never made it beyond the rehearsal stage, Randy Pink did introduce Moore to the influential music of Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Sphere Monk was an American jazz pianist and composer considered "one of the giants of American music". Monk had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including "Epistrophy", "'Round Midnight", "Blue Monk", "Straight, No Chaser"...

 and other Jazz musicians. Another professor, Argento
Dominick Argento
Dominick Argento is an American composer, best known as a leading composer of lyric opera and choral music...

 increased his interest in another influential band, The Mothers.

By the age of 19, Moore–a prolific writer–had written out the chords, melody and lyrics for over 90 songs, forgotten or lost perhaps 90 more, and learned to arrange, score, play guitar, piano, organ and drums. He still wanted to be a rock star, but had rarely played in front of an audience.

Early professional days

Moore's first professional band, An English Sky, was invited to play at an Edina, Minnesota
Edina, Minnesota
Edina is a city in Hennepin County, Minnesota, United States, and a first-ring suburb situated immediately southwest of Minneapolis. Edina began as a small farming and milling community in the 1860s. The population was 47,941 at the 2010 census.-Geography:...

 junior high school's music festival. The other members of An English Sky were uninterested, so Moore decided to play the gig himself with backup from the band Euphoria; this would be his first official performance as Skogie. After unsuccessfully attempting to integrate An English Sky, Euphoria, and Skogie into a ten-person band, Moore wrote a letter and fired everyone but himself and Goldstein, hired 3 people back, and formed Skogie and the Flaming Pachucos phase I.

Skogie
Skogie (band)
The Nu Kats were a popular original music rock group from Minneapolis in the 1970s, 80s and 90s. The band performed under many other names, including Skogie, Skogie and the Flaming Pachucos, The Kats, Boy and The Kat Club....

 rehearsed obsessively—usually from 10:30 to 12 a.m., and sometimes would go all night. Most of their rehearsal time was spent on creating complex song arrangements. Moore offered up thirty songs from the two hundred he had already composed and each week drew a new song out of a hat for the band to rehearse. A song was usually ready for performance after one week of arranging and an additional week of rehearsal.

Skogie
Skogie (band)
The Nu Kats were a popular original music rock group from Minneapolis in the 1970s, 80s and 90s. The band performed under many other names, including Skogie, Skogie and the Flaming Pachucos, The Kats, Boy and The Kat Club....

 released a single in June 1972 with the help of producer/manager David Zimmerman (Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...

's brother), and released a follow up album in 1974. Creem
Creem
Creem , "America's Only Rock 'n' Roll Magazine," was a monthly rock 'n' roll publication first published in March 1969 by Barry Kramer and founding editor Tony Reay. It suspended production in 1989 but received a short-lived renaissance in the early 1990s as a glossy tabloid...

 magazine later named Skogie one of the first power-pop bands.

Hollywood days

In 1976, after extensive national touring and recording experience at three Minneapolis studios, Skogie decided to head to Los Angeles. "We were in the right place at the right time - making bad business moves.

Moore soon became the San Fernando Valley
San Fernando Valley
The San Fernando Valley is an urbanized valley located in the Los Angeles metropolitan area of southern California, United States, defined by the dramatic mountains of the Transverse Ranges circling it...

's answer to England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

's Jeff Lynne
Jeff Lynne
Jeffrey "Jeff" Lynne is an English songwriter, composer, arranger, singer, multi-instrumentalist, and record producer who gained fame as the leader and sole constant member of Electric Light Orchestra and was a co-founder and member of The Traveling Wilburys together with George Harrison, Bob...

, the guiding influence behind the Electric Light Orchestra
Electric Light Orchestra
Electric Light Orchestra were a British rock group from Birmingham who released eleven studio albums between 1971 and 1986 and another album in 2001. ELO were formed to accommodate Roy Wood and Jeff Lynne's desire to create modern rock and pop songs with classical overtones...

. Although ELO's orchestrated pop style bears absolutely no resemblance to the rocky bebop sound of Moore's group, The Kats, the two bands have one thing in common – strong leadership. Like Lynne, Moore functioned as his band's lead singer, rhythm guitarist, sole composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

 and conceptual designer.

Moore invented an on-stage persona—a cat named Freddy. Buoyed by the band's good-natured rock 'n' roll vibes, this song pattern eventually evolved into a rock opera of sorts. Moore took his on-stage persona very seriously and often pantomimed being a cat. Young girls responded by enticing Moore toward them with promises of cat food tidbits from Purina and Friskies boxes and pelting the other Kats with handfuls of dry kibble.

The Kats signed their first recording contract with Infinity Records
Infinity Records
Infinity Records was a short-lived subsidiary of MCA Records established in New York City in 1977. The label was conceived by MCA president Sidney Sheinberg as a way for the Los Angeles-based entertainment conglomerate to improve its presence on the East Coast...

; they rushed The Kats into Shelter Studios on Sunset with Tom Petty
Tom Petty
Thomas Earl "Tom" Petty is an American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He is the frontman of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and was a founding member of the late 1980s supergroup Traveling Wilburys and Mudcrutch. He has also performed under the pseudonyms of Charlie T...

's production team. Just as final mixes were being completed Infinity Records was dissolved by its parent company MCA Records
MCA Records
MCA Records was an American-based record company owned by MCA Inc., which later gave way to the larger MCA Music Entertainment Group , of which MCA Records was still part. MCA Records was absorbed by Geffen Records in 2003...

. There was no one left to pay the Shelter Studio bill so "The Kats - Get Modern" became known as "The Great Lost Kats Album". The master tapes remain locked in the Shelter Studios vault.

Shortly after the Infinity Records fiasco lead guitarist Pete McRae
Pete McRae
Pete McRae is an American rock guitarist.Born Robert F. McRae, Jr. in Austin, Texas in 1955, McRae and his family moved to California when he was aged ten. Pete graduated from Terra Linda High School, in Marin County, in 1973. He began serious guitar studies with Paul Miller, in Terra Linda, and...

 departed. The four remaining Kats renamed themselves The Nu Kats, fired their management, signed with Rhino Records, recorded "Plastic Facts
Plastic Facts
The Nu Kats - Plastic Facts recorded at Studio Orange, mixed at The Music Grinder Hollywood in 1980. Produced by Larry Lee-Side one:#"It's Not A Rumour" #"Out Of The Combat Zone"...

" and filmed the video "It's Not A Rumour" featuring actress Demi Moore
Demi Moore
Demi Guynes Kutcher , known professionally as Demi Moore, is an American actress. After minor roles in film and a role in the soap opera General Hospital, Moore established her career in films such as St...

, who had married Freddy Moore in February 1980 at the age of 18 (they divorced four years later).

The Nu Kats dissolved in 1981. Moore moved to the Upper West Side
Upper West Side
The Upper West Side is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan, New York City, that lies between Central Park and the Hudson River and between West 59th Street and West 125th Street...

 of Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...

 and joined local NYC band The Dates. "I answered an ad in the Village Voice that read 'Wanted: Lead Singer/Lead Guitarist influenced by Squeeze and The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...

'". Moore became a Singer/Guitarist/Composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

 of The Dates.

After an illness in the family brought him back to Los Angeles, Moore remained in LA and formed a new pop-influenced band called Boy. Boy released a record on Radioactive and Freddy received a Screen Actors Guild
Screen Actors Guild
The Screen Actors Guild is an American labor union representing over 200,000 film and television principal performers and background performers worldwide...

/AFTRA card while portraying 'Arn' in the 3-D film 'Parasite'; the music of Boy can be heard on the soundtrack.

Boy disbanded in 1983. The Moore brothers continued writing, arranging and recording new material for approximately another year. They played a few industry showcases under the name BFM (Bobbyzio and Freddy Moore).

Back to the studio

In 1990, Moore started writing again. He and several ex-bandmates began recording and releasing CDs of the new material under the name The Kat Club.

Discography

  • Skogie and the Flaming Pachucos: Call Me Crazy - North Country Music – 1972
  • Skogie
    Skogie (band)
    The Nu Kats were a popular original music rock group from Minneapolis in the 1970s, 80s and 90s. The band performed under many other names, including Skogie, Skogie and the Flaming Pachucos, The Kats, Boy and The Kat Club....

    : The Butler Did It - Mill City Records – 1973
  • Skogie: There's A String Attached... - General Records  – 1974
  • Various: L.A. In
    L.A. In
    L.A. In is a compilation of studio recording by various artists. It was originally released in 1979 as an LP by Rhino Records.-Track listing: Side One1.The KatsI Can't Have You2.Oingo Boingo I'm Afraid...

    - Rhino Records featuring The Kats – 1979
  • The Kats: Get Modern
    Get Modern
    The Kats - Get Modern was recorded at Shelter Studios, Hollywood in 1979. The album was produced and engineered by Noah Shark and Max Reese. It was originally intended for release on Infinity Records but the label went out of business before the album could be released...

    - Infinity Records
    Infinity Records
    Infinity Records was a short-lived subsidiary of MCA Records established in New York City in 1977. The label was conceived by MCA president Sidney Sheinberg as a way for the Los Angeles-based entertainment conglomerate to improve its presence on the East Coast...

     – 1979
  • The Nu Kats: Plastic Facts
    Plastic Facts
    The Nu Kats - Plastic Facts recorded at Studio Orange, mixed at The Music Grinder Hollywood in 1980. Produced by Larry Lee-Side one:#"It's Not A Rumour" #"Out Of The Combat Zone"...

    - Rhino Records – 1980
  • Various: Yes Nukes - (compilation) Rhino Records with The Nu Kats – 1981
  • Film Soundtrack: Parasite
    Parasite (film)
    Parasite is a 1982 horror/science fiction film starring Demi Moore in her first major film role.-Plot:In the far future, an atomic disaster has reduced the world to poverty. Instead of a government, America is run by an organization called the Merchants, who exploit the degenerate remains of...

    - featuring Boy – 1982
  • Boy: Next Door
    Next Door EP
    Next Door is an EP by the American rock band Boy, released in 1983. The tracks were recorded at SoundCastle Studios, Los Angeles in 1983, produced by Mark Goldenberg, and engineered by Larry Hinds.- Track listing :Side one...

    - Radioactive Records
    Radioactive Records
    Radioactive Records was an American record label. It was formed as a joint venture between talent manager Gary Kurfirst and MCA Records, and it is now out of business....

     – 1983
  • Film Soundtrack: Scarred
    Scarred (1984 film)
    -Cast and crew:Directed by: Rose Marie TurkoStarring: Jennifer Mayo, Jackie Berryman, David Dean, Rico L. Richardson-Synopsis:Shot in a cinema verite style, perhaps because this film about teenage prostitution began as a project while director Rose-Marie Turko was a student at UCLA, the format...

    - featuring Boy, The Nu Kats – 1984
  • Film Soundtrack: Spring Fever
    Spring Fever (1982 film)
    ----Spring Fever is a 1982 independent film, set in the world of competitive tennis. It was produced with the participation at the Canadian Film Development Corporation and Famous Players Limited.-Plot:...

    - featuring The Nu Kats – 1985
  • Film Soundtrack: Loose Screws
    Loose Screws (film)
    -Cast and crew:*Bryan Genesse ... Brad Lovett*Lance Van Der Kolk ... Steve Hardman*Alan Deveau ... Hugh G. Rection*Jason Warren ... Marvin Eatmore*Annie McAuley ... Nikki Nystroke*Karen Wood ... Gail Poulet*Liz Green ... Tracey Gratehead...

    - featuring The Nu Kats – 1985
  • The Kat Club: House Combinations
    House Combinations
    The Kat Club - House Combinations recorded at Rockin' Kat Ranch Studio, Chatsworth, California between 1993 and 1997. Produced by D.J.Peters.- Tracks :#"It's Not A Rumour" #"California Here I Come"...

    - General Records – 1997
  • The Kat Club: Source Mississippi
    Source Mississippi
    The Kat Club - Source Mississippi recorded at Rockin' Kat Ranch Studio, Chatsworth, California between 1996 and 2000. Mixed at Kat Club Cabaña Studio, on Santa Monica Bay 2001...

    - General Records – 2001
  • The Kat Club: los Angelenos
    Los angelenos
    Los Angelenos recorded at The Kat Club Cabaña Studio, on Santa Monica Bay 2007. Produced by D.J.Peters. There is a song by Billy Joel with the same name, made some 40 years before this album.- Track listing :#"Lavanderita"...

    - General Records  – 2007

Filmography

  • I'm A Kat (1979), United Artists Pictures
    United Artists
    United Artists Corporation is an American film studio. The original studio of that name was founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charles Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks....

     – Using an experimental 70mm 3D filming technique.
  • It's Not A Rumor (1981), Director: Philip Brewin Cheney, Cinematograher: Jan de Bont
    Jan de Bont
    Jan de Bont is a Dutch cinematographer, producer, and film director.-Early life and career:De Bont was born, one of 17 children, to a Roman Catholic family in Eindhoven, Netherlands. His earliest work after studying at the Amsterdam Film Academy was with the Dutch avant garde director Adriaan...

  • Parasite
    Parasite (film)
    Parasite is a 1982 horror/science fiction film starring Demi Moore in her first major film role.-Plot:In the far future, an atomic disaster has reduced the world to poverty. Instead of a government, America is run by an organization called the Merchants, who exploit the degenerate remains of...

    (1982), Director: Charles Band, Cinematograher: Mac Ahlberg
    Mac Ahlberg
    Mac Ahlberg is a Swedish film director and cinematographer.The first feature Ahlberg directed was the Danish erotic classic I, a Woman which went on to international success, especially in the United States...


Videography

  • Lost My TV (1979), Hollywood Heartbeat – Pre-MTV
    MTV
    MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....

     rock television series.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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