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P eter Alvanos clearly remembers the moment
he realized he wanted to become a musi
cian. 'I was stopped at a traffic light, and
there were these four girls in a car next to me,"
he says, "singing along with that Superdrag song
'Sucked out the Feeling.' They were just scream
ing at the top of their lungs like no one was
listening. I wanted to get that kind of reaction
so badly that I felt like going and turning in my
resignation so I could put together a rock and
roll band."
Alvanos got into the game at the relatively
late age of 23. Always the entertainer, he first
tried his hand at acting, and has had near en
counters with both Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes.
"I had Tom Cruise's old job as a super of the
Luilding on the Upper West Side," says Alvanos.
"He'd left this letter from his mother to the
landlord letting him know that Tom had left for
L.A. for his screen test. Then many years later,
I worked as the prop man on ’Dawson’s Creek' in
Wilmington."
With the amount of
hours in the workday
running well into the
double digits, days in
the movie business
took too much time
away from his music,
and in 2000, Alvanos
moved to Athens.
"I was a big music
fan and dreamed of
playing full time,"
he says. "I couldn't
ignore it anymore so
I moved to Athens. I
knew the move here
was valid soon after I
moved when I went to
Borders because I was
burning up and needed
some AC. I was flip
ping through Mojo and
they had a big write
up about Olivia Tremor
Control. I knew then
that if a British pub
lication was writing about a band from Athens,
then it was a good decision to move here."
Though much of his rock-and-roll career has
been behind the drum kit, over the past year,
Alvanos has been singing and playing guitar as
frontman in his band Fabulous Bird, a somewhat
psychedelic rock band composed of a revolv
ing cast of characters. "Going on tour with the
Sunshine Fix [filling Kevin Sweeney's guitar
slot] really boosted my confidence as a front-
man," says Alvanos. "I got the bug to do my own
thing."
He named his band Fabulous Bird after a
painting by his uncle, Hermon di Giovanno, an
artist who received some acclaim in the Boston
art scene of the 1960s. Alvanos has always con
sidered his uncle as a great inspiration, in part
because he too took up art later in life: "He
started drawing pencil sketches when he was 40
years old. He didn't let anyone tell him that he
was too old to pursue his art."
As a musician, Alvanos is living out a child
hood dream shared with his closest childhood
buddy Jamie Lorenz, who recently passed away in
a car accidert. "We used to spend all our time in
the tree house," says Alvanos, "listening to re
cords his sister would send us from college: Led
Zeppelin, The Beatles. We dreamed of being Elton
John and David Bowie with platform shoes in the
mid-'70s. We were rock and roll."
Alvanos began his musical career as a drum
mer, playing in Good Sam, a band heavily influ
enced by Pylon and Let's Active. However, he
never was in the Brian Jonestown Massacre, a ru
mor traveling the Caledonia one recent night he
and Fabulous Bird were performing there. Alvanos
recalls his BJM encounter with a grin. 'I met
them when I was touring with the Modfathers,
who were opening for them. One night, the gui
tar player pulled us aside, put his arm over my
shoulder and gave us 'the talk.' He was like, 'Hey
man, you’re in a rock band, you've got a record
deal. You're touring, you'll be meeting lots of
women. You're still young. Don't get tied down.
Don't have a steady girlfriend."
Alvanos managed to keep a straight face, and
said, "Hey man, how old are you?"
"I'm 34," responded the Massacre guitarist.
"I had a hard time not laughing at him," re
calls Peter, "because at
the time, I was 39."
Fabulous Bird re
leased one EP in late
2004, A Tribute to You.
"It's a swatch of every
type of song I write,"
says Alvanos. "Happy,
sappy, melancholy,
indie and '60s folkie.
When I put it out, my
principal goal was to
get something out
before Christmas."
Recording often gets
put aside because
Alvanos wants to play
live shows, because
"I want that reac
tion from people, the
Superdrag reaction."
This month, how
ever, he will begin re
cording with Bill Doss,
hopefully capturing
the spirit of his live
shows. '[They Might
Be Giants collaborator] Danny Weinkauf wants to
mix some tracks, and I'm hoping I can get Mike
Viola, the voice of the title track from That Thing
You Do to sing backup, since he and Danny have
played together in Mike Viola's band the Candy
Butchers." The current lineup of Fabulous Bird
includes Bill Doss on guitar, Brian Smith on bass,
Trey McManus on guitar, Taylor Coggin (Annie &
Her Guns) on drums, Dan Geller (I Am the World
Trade Center) on tambourine, and J.S. Dillard
on shakers. Alvanos, ever the music trivia buff,
err. nds me the date the band will be playing
--nch Paper—Feb. 9, 2006—is precisely 42 years
after Tnc Beatles premiered on "The Ed Sullivan
Show." You can see where his mind is, and it's
a good indication of where you'll find his music
as well
Deirdre Sayre
r
WHO: Fabulous Bird, Kilroy,
Sleepy Horses, The Octa P.A.
\
WHERE: Lunch Paper
WHEN Thursday, Feb. 9
HOW MUCH: Call
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FEBRUARY 8,2006 • FLAGP0LE.COM 33