Just a couple of days after the beginning of this century I began recording the album that I had been crafting in my head for years - Sun Moon and Heaven.  I wanted a different sound than what Spilled Milk was doing at the time and I was fortunate enough to find Paul Bosco and Anthony Vega.  

Someone told me that there was a good drummer playing at a small coffee shop in Sea Isle City so I drove 20 miles down the Jersey Shore to check him out.  By the second song I could already hear my songs over Anthony’s playing.  I remember driving home bouncing around the car with excitement.  I had my drummer.  Paul called me one day out of the blue as he was trying to hook up his band with Spilled Milk.  It never happened but I did check out his band and spoke with him afterwards and played him ‘Poor Boy‘.  Paul’s playing was rock solid and it’s a good thing, he was the only upright bassist I could find.  We ended up recording the bulk of the album in Paul’s grandmother’s garage on Spilled Milk’s Roland VS-880, a SM58 and a borrowed Shure KSM32 microphone.  We were very nearly strangers in the beginning but after three weeks worth of rehearsing and heart-felt playing we will always be connected.  They knew I was leaving for Minnesota in a few weeks and I am forever grateful to them for their dedication to the songs.  Paul even booked us a couple of shows to help cover expenses (I was completely broke at the time) culminating with an opening spot for outstanding singer/songwriter Ben Arnold in Philadelphia.  There were maybe 15 people in the room including both bands.  We nailed the songs better than we did on the record and Ben’s set was really moving.  We ended the night with both bands playing together.  It was some of the prettiest music I have ever been a part of.  I remember Ben singing Neil Young’s ‘Helpless’ and getting a little watery-eyed.  After the show myself, Paul and Anthony said our goodbyes out front and within the week I was off to the Midwest.

During this period I also raced up to Vermont for some more recording.  My brother Ian Alexy was attending Goddard College and playing in a great band called Dad.  He has always been one of my favorite guitarists and I couldn’t envision making an album without him.  I also left room on ‘I Call You My Girl’ for a saxophone solo by his band mate Josh Stumpff.  On the drive north I came up with a song called ‘Thieves of Babylon’ and after a Dad practice session with the help of a couple of music engineering students and some barebones equipment we laid down the song on the first take.  To finish out the album I had my other favorite guitarist Mike Smith of Seymour Baggs, old friend and Baggs percussionist Jimmy Truesdale, Spilled Milk brothers Angelo DeRosa and Michael Carter and my Mom all contribute to ‘For The Love Of Jezebel’.

It was now March of 2000 and I packed up my things and headed for Minnesota.  I spent the next eight months saving money and cleaning up the recording with Echo Martin at Jungle Rootz Studios in Minneapolis.  In the meantime I had been jamming with the makings of a ska band called No Room To Pogo in Duluth and in the process met bassist Chad Bloodson and percussionist Zachary Kahmann.  Zach started accompanying me at some acoustic shows I was playing around Duluth and Chad soon joined us on bass.  When playing with Paul and Anthony we were billing ourselves as Alexy Bosco Vega.  I came up with Teague Alexy with Medication afterwards so that it would be easier to sell the CD at my solo shows.  After Chad, Zach and myself played our first full set together on Labor Day weekend 2000 at the Baystock Festival in Northern Wisconsin they told me they wanted to be the Medication with charismatic Chad being the upper and the more subdued Zach being the downer.  So Teague Alexy with Medication was born and Sun Moon and Heaven was quietly released in December 2000.

For the next year we worked hard trying to spread Sun Moon and Heaven around Minnesota one person at a time.  Zach’s enthusiasm eventually began to dwindle and I really couldn’t blame him.  We played a lot of shows where we would drive a long way to play to an empty room and make next to nothing.  Chad and I began to look for a drummer and the second guy to audition was Dustin Tessier who at the time was a guitar player in local jam band American Hip.  It was also at this time that we drove to Fargo to buy a van (the Blue Mule) for our road trips.  With Dustin and the Blue Mule in tow it seemed we had reached a turning point.

Dustin’s first show with the Medication was November 16, 2001 at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, MN.  Though it was a little sloppy (the live version of ‘Separation’ on the 2002 UndergroundHog’s Day Compilation is from this show) it was quite obvious even from Dustin’s first audition that the band was ready for a new level.  We sold about 15 CD’s after the show and autographed every single one.  It was a great start and we soon became a family - myself, Chad, Dustin and Jason Hunter who travels with us as soundman, roadie, merchandise salesman, business advisor and friend.  Officially known as our positive vibes coordinator.

With Dustin on drums our live shows were turned into energetic performances going a little more towards our old Spilled Milk shows and further away from the more subdued song-oriented performances with Zach.  I was wrongfully a little hesitant about this at first since I have always considered myself a songwriter above all else but I was quickly reminded how in tune people can be with the music while dancing.  We were soon freely experimenting with our grooves, stretching our songs out and playing with part-time members Jeff Engholm on Fender Rhodes and Trombone and Ian on electric guitar.

In May of 2002 we spent a day in Sacred Heart Studios laying down the basic tracks for the new album The Love and The Struggle.  We sat on these recordings for the rest of the summer waiting for Hans Johnson to finish some projects so we could work with him at his New Finish Studios.  Hans was well worth the wait as from the very beginning we realized that we had something special.  We did another session of basic tracking at Sacred Heart in the fall and five solid months of recording, overdubbing and experimenting with Hans.  We then returned to Sacred Heart so I could do my vocals in the church and Jeff could play their grand piano.  At the end of one session I asked Hans to play percussion and Jeff to play piano on a song I had just written called ‘My Bottle in the Water’.  I played it for them and within the hour we had it down on tape.  We were also fortunate to get Ian, violinist Tanya Van Camp and Hans’ mother Beverly Johnson on the CD.  When it came time for the mixing and mastering we decided to seek out Atmosphere engineers Christopher Blood and Joe Mabbot.  We all agreed that Atmosphere made the best sounding records in the area so we were very excited when Christopher agreed to work with us.

Which brings us up to the present as the album is about six weeks away from its release as I am writing this.  We just kick-started our own label Consider It Correspondence to release the Love and The Struggle as well as Ian’s great CD ‘Rootedness’.  Ian is also moving to Duluth for the time being to help with the label, promote his new CD and to join the Medication.

I apologize for making this so long, I really sat down planning to write a mere paragraph or two.  There is certainly more I could say because we have had so many amazing and memorable experiences on the road with each other and the great people we have met - and that is to say nothing of the great community (and especially music community) of Duluth for being so good to a Jersey/California boy like me from the very moment I walked into Beaner’s Coffee Shop to play an open mic night three years ago.  I also left out many of the hardships that we have endured as a band over the last couple of years (such as the Blue Mule doing a 360 on an icy Wisconsin highway and me hitting a deer following the mule on a trip home from Fargo).  Through and through we are having a great time.  I want to say thank you to the players and everyone who dedicates their time and talent to helping us with artwork, website, hanging flyers etc.  and especially those of you who come to our shows, buy our CD’s and spend time absorbing them, visit the website and read this blabbering surface account of our time up to this point.  So go outside and proceed to live out your dreams because all the love makes it worth the struggle - 1love teague

Spilled Milk:  The Story

     Spilled Milk was spawned when Angelo DeRosa and Teague Alexy met in Somers Point, New Jersey at the age of 12. Their musical relationship took many turns before the milk wagon got its wheels and picked up speed on the highway that eventually led them to becoming the most popular original band ever from the South Jersey area.
     In 1996 after leaving the rest of their companions behind on the east coast, Alexy and Derosa discovered themselves in the laid-back surroundings of Ocean Beach, San Diego. A new environment would help create a new sound. Their new sound would be manufactured by some cheap microphones, an old 4-track recorder that was holding on for dear life and a iron strong will to defy the tired efforts of the mainstream to combine hip-hop with other popular music forms. After recording their initial demo tape and pressing a mere 100 copies (entitled Can You Tell Me Where The Restroom Is which was sold for a modest two dollars a piece), a buzz was created that made a debut CD inevitable. Jive Ass Turkey followed 15 months later and sent a shockwave through the underground San Diego music scene. Their highly original, laid back, bare bones approach combined hip-hop, acoustic soul and jazz in a way that was never deemed possible. “Brilliant, young musician/songwriters… FOUR STARS” raved San Diego music bible Slamm Magazine. Local recognition and radio airplay followed. DeRosa however had returned to the east coast immediately after recordings to begin recruiting a band to take Spilled Milk’s sound through the walls of the cover band dominated South Jersey music scene. When Alexy arrived four months later, the seeds for a musical revolution had been planted.
     Upon his arrival in New Jersey, DeRosa had sold over 150 copies of Jive Ass Turkey out of his backpack. He also recruited old friend BJ Cappelli to play drums and Rich Nehmad on bass to form what would become one of the greatest and hardest-hitting rhythm sections to ever play to a bar crowd. And what a bar crowd it was. After having dozens of friends plead with the owner of The Pearl in Somers Point, NJ to let this “original” band play, Spilled Milk was grudgingly granted a non-paying-no-free-food-or-drinks tuesday night gig. Over one hundred people showed up. Old music partner Michael Carter was invited on stage for an impromptu encore and soon afterwards became a permanent member as trumpet player and vocalist. Word of their electric performance spread quickly. Spilled Milk was granted a free-drinks-only return engagement the following Wednesday. This time over two hundred people showed up. “THE KIDZ CAN‘T PUH-LAY NO MO-HOR AT FARR-LEE FEE-EILD.” The entire bar sang along in unison to Spilled Milk’s song protesting the closing of the legendary local basketball courts. Brownie’s By The Bay, one of the biggest music clubs in South Jersey, was across the street that night with more employees than customers. Spilled Milk was invited to play Brownie’s a month later. Spilled Milk remains the only local, original band in history to perform there. Four hundred people danced, partied, shouted and spilled their appreciation to “The Milk” and after only three shows, a legend had been born.
     Three months later they would steal the show before 3,000 converted “milkheads” as the opening act for Smashmouth in Atlantic City. They signed autographs for over two hours amidst a sea of teeny-boppers who seemingly had forgotten that the MTV band was playing on the other side of the stadium. Three months after that it would all be over. A follow-up to Jive Ass Turkey entitled Small Town Epidemic was rush recorded as record companies were swarming after the Milk’s knockout performance at The Philadelphia Music Conference. Small Town Epidemic ended up an album full of dark, well-written and potentially brilliant songs poorly produced amidst a sea of fighting band mates, law entanglements, egos, nervous breakdowns, departing members, health and money problems, broken promises and stress. The weight of carrying the hopes and dreams of an entire community had been dropped on the shoulders of Spilled Milk all at once. The songs on Small Town Epidemic were vivid and brilliant observations of their hometown and the hardships their quick rise to the top had brought them. The poor sound quality and presentation were evidence that they simply no longer had the will or perseverance to see their quest through. When Alexy left for Minnesota in March of 2000 Spilled Milk quietly faded away amidst rumors, questions and speculation from both their fans, who now measured in the thousands, and the bar owners (Spilled Milk was always grossly underpaid at shows largely due to not having an agent since all the booking agencies in the area dealt exclusively with cover bands), haters, hangers-on and countless big-talkers and swindlers who at the time must have seemed to be in the millions. At the end there was an endless supply of new faces constantly trying to veer the milk wagon far from its original path for their own personal gain. Everyone wanted a piece of The Milk. And everyone took a piece….until there was simply nothing left.
     The doors Spilled Milk opened along with the help and inspiration they provided to other local musicians has hopefully endured as much as their musical legacy. The Milk’s greatest accomplishment seems to have been their unwillingness to compromise or accept things as they were and the deep connection they created with their followers. Spilled Milk remains the loudest form of artistic _expression to emerge from an area so reliant on summer tourism and casino business for economic security that it swallows any form of originality breathed forth from the locals in fear that the cash-holding visitors might not like the taste. Derosa and Alexy’s life-long personal friendship barely survived. Their musical relationship is rumored to be rekindling although nothing has surfaced. (Teague Alexy With Medication is making big waves in the Midwest and DeRosa’s Focus and MichaelAngelo projects still have not been released.)
     On St. Patrick’s Day 2000, three days before Alexy left for Minnesota, Spilled Milk played their last show at Schooner’s in Somers Point (although probably only Alexy and DeRosa knew this at the time). Over 600 people packed into a bar whose capacity is only 275. All of Schooner’s sales records were smashed despite customers having to wait up to an hour for a drink. One friend noted, “I have never seen so many beautiful women in this town before.” The nearest parking spot was six blocks away. Alexy was drunk on stage for the only known time in his career and broke a tuning peg off his guitar on a cymbal among other antics. DeRosa nearly fainted from exhaustion and had to be assisted off stage. They closed the show with the opening track on Small Town Epidemic, Open Up And Say Ahhh. At one point it was reduced to the mere tapping of a guitar string…only to rise to a level that undoubtedly would have shattered the car windows in the parking lot in another second before falling seamlessly back into the song’s medium-tempo funk groove. Before the song even ended, Teague went around and hugged everyone on stage. The show $#@%ing rocked. Outside police were everywhere, but there would be no fighting on this brisk march New Jersey morning. The legendary Spilled Milk had kicked everyone’s ass and the people said thank you, may I have another? Sadly, no you may not.
  -Joe Rehtom