Avi Fox-Rosen

Avi Fox-Rosen grew up in the 80s and 90s in Los Angeles. He first started to play the guitar and sing as a 12 year old kid at Jewish summer camp. At camp he was surrounded by quirky Jewish guitar players who all idolized the classic singer-songwriters of the previous 30 years. He fit right in. In his teens, Avi immersed himself in every musical opportunity that presented itself: studying jazz guitar, singing in the high school choir, studying classical theory and arrangement, playing klezmer with a family friend, leading bands and dissolving them, singing around the fire at summer camp, and playing in Jewish religious services while secretly not believing a single word that was uttered. In his late teens, Avi began to smoke pot and write songs. He soon realized he wrote better songs when not smoking pot. there's more. Avi moved to New York to attend NYU in 2000, and try to be a jazz musician. He quickly realized that every working musician in New York was a much better musician than he. Sad face. He was so sad he stopped singing and writing songs for several years. Avi began to rectify this situation by spending many hours doing guitar calisthenics. This was time well spent. Avi also started to get involved in New York’s downtown music and art scene, taking in many shows. He got involved with the vibrant Klezmer and Yiddish arts scene, and began to make friends in the Balkan music scene. Meanwhile, he was falling in and out of love, traveling various places in and out of the US, making excursions in, out, and around gender and sexuality, and teaching small people various things. Avi’s brain was expanding. Also his heart. Around 2005, Avi emerged from his “no-singing” funk. He started writing songs again, and realized that instead of trying to be a jazz musician he should do what he really loved. He should be a singer songwriter. Avi independently released 2 demo recordings of original songs in 2006. He released his first full length album, “One”, in 2007, receiving a handful of positive reviews. Avi released “The Amazing Frozen String Quartet”, a live in studio Americana inspired album in 2008, receiving no positive reviews. In 2009, Avi released “Welcome to the Show”, a rock record with a carnivalesque and absurdist bent. “Welcome” was nominated as an Independent Music Award Eclectic Album of 2009. The album received many positive reviews. This one is particularly tasty: “With a noir undercurrent matched by vividly aphoristic black humor, guitarist Fox-Rosen sings with a cool, suave, deviously jazzy vocal delivery that’s well-suited to the lyrics – think Donald Fagen’s equally gifted, more ill-at-ease bastard stepchild.” When “Welcome to the Show” failed to launch him to superstardom, Fox-Rosen took 2 years off of performing as a songwriter. He devoted himself to collaborative projects, and building his own project studio. He continued to write songs, and develop his unique songwriting perspective. All these songs still live in several little black books. In late 2011, Avi got slowly back on the music horse, performing locally in Brooklyn. He formed a rock band called DoubleDouble. The band encouraged his writing and performing. Life was good, if uneventful. Then, the summer of 2012 kicked Avi’s puny little Jewish ass half way to Wyoming. After months of mismatched cohabitation, his lady friend moved out in a huff. Shortly thereafter, his cushy job teaching small people to sing to a god that he ironically did not believe in suddenly evaporated (divine retribution?). Shortly thereafter, he contracted a stomach virus that sent him to the hospital for a week, and took many weeks to recover from. Shortly thereafter he broke his foot. Let us now imagine a limping, hungry, single, and frustrated Avi Fox-Rosen in the fall of 2012. After having the shit kicked out of him, there was no more shit left in him. There was only him. And his home studio. And a vast stretch of time. Avi stumbled upon a project. He would release an EP a month through 2013. And that brings us to now. And that is what he is doing. April 3rd - "Where Is My Parade?" Album Release! The Cake Shop www.avifoxrosen.com