Scandaliz Vandalistz was a project talked about long before it was actually put into action.
A rotating cast of teenaged characters made up the inactive Memphis band. But such a large
number of people proved to be too hard to organize. Eventually, the ambitious Katherine Dohan
bought a bass and began to collaborate with guitarist Alice Buchanan. It was the project they'd been
training for their whole life -- Alice, violinist since age 7, one-time trombone player, and talented
guitarist, and Katherine, oboist since age 12, pianist, guitarist, now teaching herself to play the
bass, put their musical talents and odd senses of humor together to create brilliant songs like "We
Lack Amp."
Meanwhile, middle school band stand partners Alanna Stewart and Katherine had started a movie company, Do You Know Where Your Children Are? Productions. Alanna's obsession with film lead to her composition of an ode to Memphis newspaper movie critic John Beifuss. One day at a practice, Katherine and Alice, in some miraculous, magic moment writ by the hand of fate, came up with a riff and simultaneously began to sing the tune of what was now the song "Hey Mr. Beifuss."
The strong and strange connection between the musical minds of Buchanan and Dohan rivaled that of Lennon and McCartney. They wrote more songs and by April of 2003, in their sophomore year at White Station High School, they played their first show at the school's Battle of the Bands. Though teased and taunted as the only girl band on the bill, SV managed to charm the crowd with songs like "Sophocles Rap" and their cover of Violent Femmes' "Blister in the Sun," and they took home second place as well as the audience participation award. Two of the most exuberant members of the crowd, decked out in SV gear and dancing their brains out, were Alanna Stewart and Brock Terwilleger. Exactly one year later, they would share the same stage as backup singers for Scandaliz Vandalistz at the 2004 White Station Battle of the Bands. Today, they are somehow essential to the feeling of SV, although their parts are not the biggest. This group enlisted White Station drummer Hunter Deacon to record five songs with them to enter Garrison Keillor's radio music contest. Although they did not win, the songs became known as the Rodent Fixation EP, thanks to songs about hamsters and gerbils.
Scandaliz Vandalistz did not really consider themselves something to be noticed and were quite surprised when people began to notice, in the spring of 2005. DJ Hayden from volunteer radio station WEVL found the simple myspace.com account they had created over the summer and started playing the four available songs on the radio. Scandaliz Vandalistz began to gain more attention for their song "Hey Mr. Beifuss" about a local movie critic. As they started to get some gigs around town, they enlisted Hunter Deacon to play drums. In the fall, they had to depart for college. Alice attends MTSU, Katherine goes to Oberlin, Alanna started at Loyola University New Orleans after the city was reopened, Brock joined the class at Clark University, and Hunter plays drums at University of Memphis. Now, the band is preparing to release its first full-length album, I Forgot Where I Was Going, So I Came Back and planning a summer tour for August 2006. Look out!
Meanwhile, middle school band stand partners Alanna Stewart and Katherine had started a movie company, Do You Know Where Your Children Are? Productions. Alanna's obsession with film lead to her composition of an ode to Memphis newspaper movie critic John Beifuss. One day at a practice, Katherine and Alice, in some miraculous, magic moment writ by the hand of fate, came up with a riff and simultaneously began to sing the tune of what was now the song "Hey Mr. Beifuss."
The strong and strange connection between the musical minds of Buchanan and Dohan rivaled that of Lennon and McCartney. They wrote more songs and by April of 2003, in their sophomore year at White Station High School, they played their first show at the school's Battle of the Bands. Though teased and taunted as the only girl band on the bill, SV managed to charm the crowd with songs like "Sophocles Rap" and their cover of Violent Femmes' "Blister in the Sun," and they took home second place as well as the audience participation award. Two of the most exuberant members of the crowd, decked out in SV gear and dancing their brains out, were Alanna Stewart and Brock Terwilleger. Exactly one year later, they would share the same stage as backup singers for Scandaliz Vandalistz at the 2004 White Station Battle of the Bands. Today, they are somehow essential to the feeling of SV, although their parts are not the biggest. This group enlisted White Station drummer Hunter Deacon to record five songs with them to enter Garrison Keillor's radio music contest. Although they did not win, the songs became known as the Rodent Fixation EP, thanks to songs about hamsters and gerbils.
Scandaliz Vandalistz did not really consider themselves something to be noticed and were quite surprised when people began to notice, in the spring of 2005. DJ Hayden from volunteer radio station WEVL found the simple myspace.com account they had created over the summer and started playing the four available songs on the radio. Scandaliz Vandalistz began to gain more attention for their song "Hey Mr. Beifuss" about a local movie critic. As they started to get some gigs around town, they enlisted Hunter Deacon to play drums. In the fall, they had to depart for college. Alice attends MTSU, Katherine goes to Oberlin, Alanna started at Loyola University New Orleans after the city was reopened, Brock joined the class at Clark University, and Hunter plays drums at University of Memphis. Now, the band is preparing to release its first full-length album, I Forgot Where I Was Going, So I Came Back and planning a summer tour for August 2006. Look out!
