Artist Description
Spottiswoode grew up in London. He was a good boy. He started playing guitar at the age of twelve. It took him about ten years to write a halfway decent tune. Since then he has written hundreds and hundreds.At the end of the last millennium, he moved to New York City. The New Yorker once called him a “genius” but now describes him merely as a “downtown ringleader.”
Spotty’s songs have been covered and recorded by numerous East Village and Williamsburg musicians, and featured in a variety of mainstream and independent films. His early solo record, Ugly Love (Groovetown 1999), earned rave reviews and comparisons to Leonard Cohen, as well as an invitation from ASCAP to play at the Sundance Film Festival. His duo collaboration with Riley McMahon entitled S&M (New Warsaw 2006), was included in Performing Songwriter’s recent list of top 12 DIY releases – “delightfully wacky vignettes!” – and nominated for an Independent Music Award.
However, Mr. Spottiswoode’s proudest accomplishment is the decade long personality cult known as Spottiswoode & His Enemies. Somehow Spottiswoode has been able to hold together a gang of seven of New York’s finest musicians, put out a string of acclaimed records, perform residencies at New York’s best clubs, play Lincoln Center, tour the country, cross the ocean… all without paying his collaborators much more than a few dimes each.
It isn’t easy to describe the music they play. He composes songs of all genres, and his band of multi-instrumentalists is ready and willing to switch instruments and gears in the blink of an eye. A single show may include a delicate folk ballad, a balls-out rocker, a hilarious cabaret ditty, and a neo-gospel lament. But Spottiswoode cringes at the word “eclectic.” “We are expressionists!” he pleads.
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