JEFF DRAKE
According to the promotional material by Bomp! Records for the band’s EP, Amanda Jones, Amanda Jones was born in March 1995 as a collaboration of Amanda (Mandy) Brix and Jeff Drake, previously in the punk rock band the Joneses. The combination of her first name and his former band name clearly brought about the band name Amanda Jones, but they were almost certainly mindful of the Rolling Stones connection also: Their sound has the same kind of playful spirit as early mid-period Stones albums like Between the Buttons (released in January 1967); besides “Miss Amanda Jones” and “Ruby Tuesday”, the album also includes the song “Let’s Spend the Night Together” that got the band into so much trouble with The Ed Sullivan Show – Mick Jagger sung the title lyric as “let’s spend some time together” as Ed Sullivan insisted, though he and bassist Bill Wyman were rolling their eyes at the time. A few months back, I discussed the controversial lyrics in their first big hit “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”; the Rolling Stones were able to sing that number on The Ed Sullivan Show with no censorship.
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Jeff Drake was the lead singer for a punk rock band called the Joneses; another of their bandmembers was Paul Mars Black, who was a bandmember in the past UARB Dead Hippie. This is not the same band as the 1970’s Boston hard rock band called the Joneses or the Pittsburgh R&B band also called the Joneses that was part of the Philly Soul scene of the 1970’s. This band called the Joneses was formed in 1981 and was active in LA through the end of the decade. They have a Wikipedia article but no notice in Allmusic, while the Boston and Pittsburgh bands have Allmusic write-ups but nothing in Wikipedia. The Joneses released several singles and EP’s but only one full-length LP, Keeping up with the Joneses (not surprisingly I suppose, the Pittsburgh band also released an album called Keepin’ up with the Joneses).
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Amanda Brix and Jeff Drake rounded out Amanda Jones by adding the rhythm section from the early LA punk rock band called the Skulls – their first release, “Victims” was on only the third single from What Records? – Keith Michael on bass (who had been a good friend of Jeff Drake from Huntington Beach) and Sean Antillon on drums and percussion.
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In an interview for SugarbuzzMagazine.com, Jeff Drake mentions that Brian Walsh was also a sometime drummer for Amanda Jones; he was previously in teen heart-throb Leif Garrett’s band and was also in Slow Motorcade, who recorded a cover of one of my favorite New York Dolls songs, “Vietnamese Baby”. The Slow Motorcade version of “Vietnamese Baby” was included on a New York Dolls tribute album called Jetboys of Babylon (2005).
Jeff Drake also mentioned that Greg Shaw of Bomp! Records signed Amanda Jones after he saw their first show at Coconut Teazser, a Hollywood rock and roll club located at the eastern end of the Sunset Strip, where they became the house band for a while.
Mandy Brix of Amanda Jones shows up in a lot of Internet searches because in 1988, she married bass guitarist Duff McKagan of Guns N’ Roses. She is now happily married to a recording industry executive named Steven Toland; Jeff Drake says that Mandy is “[j]ust being a very glamorous housewife . . . with a couple of kids.”
(December 2015)
