Automatic Pilot, San Francisco's satiric / erotic jazz wave ensemble, was the bleeding edge of the gay musical movement from 1980 to 1985. Born as the first unofficial subgroup of the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus, they soon came into their own as an independent force. Using an acoustic punk rock parody with choralistic settings of nasty gay lyrics as a starting point, the songwriting team of lead singer Matthew McQueen and pianist Karl Brown forged a new musical form incorporating elements of jazz, classical, theater and the avant-garde.
Automatic Pilot played their hits Killer Purses and Sit on My Face at the Kabuki, Fabulous Follies, Palms, I-Beam, Valencia Rose and the Castro Street Fair, venturing as far as the Chute II Bar in Reno. They shared bills with SFGMC, Silvertone with Chris Isaak, Jane Dornacker, Margo Crossman and the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, and made a number of studio recordings.
In 1983, vocalist Tony Kramedas set out to produce an album for major release, with new songs and arrangements featuring some of the Bay Area's best studio musicians. These tracks have a decidedly more 80's, electric sound. Derelict in My Doorway, was played on the nationally syndicated Dr. Demento radio show. Six songs were completed as Tony's health began to fail. The album was unfinished when Tony died in 1985. Five other Automatic Pilot members have died since.
The master tapes sat on the shelf until they were digitized in 2002, and published on the official Automatic Pilot website (www.automaticpilot.org) along with photos, posters, complete lyrics and detailed historical documentation. Two compact discs were produced in 2005: Back from the Dead - the very best of Automatic Pilot's studio works, and Live On Broadway - the historic 1982 concert at San Francisco's On Broadway Theater.
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