About

The First Go

Growing up surrounded by music and gear, it was impossible to not want to be a part of it. My father taught my brother and I how to play the guitar, drawing chord diagrams and tabs for the licks of classic songs by the Who, Santana and the Beatles. The drum set was also there to smash on for a few minutes after school before everyone else got home. Around this same time, I began to write original songs, and by the time we were juniors in High School our own first band had formed.

XKJ

The band was called the Xylophone Killed Jazz, a name that came from a wacky little book written by a wacky little man that we all read in school. It was in science class, and our lead singer at the time, who looked and sounded like Janis Joplin, offered it up as a good band name, and we all agreed.

Later in life, as I dove head-first into collecting jazz records. Something about the sentiment stuck with me, and to this day, I do not own any records with a xylophone on it. Eventually, the drummer left to college and soon we all would do the same.

Turns out I would follow in the drummer's footsteps and head to Virginia for college. On my college application I wrote that I "liked music". This one little seemingly innocuous comment would have a major impact in my life. To the credit of the college staff, they assigned me to a roommate who also "liked music". Thus, on the first day of school entered Nordhaus WarriorHead. In his wake came a bass guitar, a stereo and 20+ years of continual musical collaboration.

We soon resurrected XKJ with the original drummer, and a wonderful new lead guitarist. I played the acoustic guitar and sang lead, with Nordhaus on bass. The band had two recording sessions. The first was self-recorded in a house with an old Tascam Portastudio. The second we saved up enough cash from playing around town to book time in a real studio outside of Washington DC.

Noiseland

Eventually, the drummer and the lead guitarist both graduated. During our senior year, Nordhaus (whose real name is Josh) and I started a new experimental project called Noiseland. Nordhaus started producing electronic music in Fruity Loops, while I had set up a little studio space in my room to record with ProTools. We were both exploring what music could be and pushed ourselves in new and exciting directions. There were some good musical ideas scattered among the noise and we ended up releasing two albums as Noiseland. Some of these songs live on to this day.

The Alphabetically

After college people moved on, moved out and moved up. A few years later by some cosmic orchestration my brother Jason, Josh and myself ended up in SE Portland, Oregon. We formed a band called "The Alphabetically" and practiced every Thursday night. A tradition continued to this day. Wherever you are in the world if it's Thursday night, we are practicing with a hard stop at 10:30 PM in respect of the neighbors. We soon self-recorded an album with Josh handling production, mixing and bass, Jason on electric lead guitar and myself on acoustic and lead vocals.

Ellington Willoughby and the Andrew Jacksons

Josh switched to electric guitar, I switched to piano and production and Jason jumped on the synthesizers. I had been working at my day job with a killer musician and after a few practices Jon joined the band. The drums and bass were all programmed in Ableton Live and we had a programmed light show synchronized to the full record. We did full light/laser shows in our basement studio pumped with fog and bliss. Our first album "Moonflower" was recorded at the Hallowed Halls in FoPo and we kept playing around town, everywhere from the Star Theatre to the Bunk Bar. We also started helping throw a DIY music festival called "Buddystock"

Ellington Willoughby and the Mythical Squid

Eventually, Jon asked if he could invite a friend to practice, and that friend was Adam. By chance, Adam happened to be my neighbor and a fine musician and a wonderful human. So after a few practices Adam joined the band. First on bass then moving on to Drums. We ditched the computer and went all live. Jason picked up the congas and then the drums. Rounding it all out we brought Jesse in on Bass (best Craigslist score), who played with a number of groups around town and led his own group: Neptune Groove Orchestra. Soon Jesse moved to Seattle and we brought in the amazing bassist, and all around great guy, Dan.

20 plus years of music brings us to the present. Still lots to learn and still fun as hell. We're continuously recording in our home studios and play out every few months or so. Our shows are getting bigger and our sound is getting tighter. It's been a journey and we're nowhere near the destination.