Adam’s Underrated Records #8
“LP” by Ambulance LTD
Adam’s Underrated Records #8
Stories of Criminally Overlooked Albums
By Adam W. Fitzgerald
adamfitzsmith@gmail.com
@adamwfitzgerald
https://adamfitz.medium.com/
Quells @quellsfitz
“LP” by Ambulance LTD
Best songs: “Stay Where You Are” — “Anecdote” — “Ophelia” — “Michigan” — “Primitive (The Way I Treat You)” — “Sugar Pill”
Genres: shoegaze, indie rock, alternative pop, folk
Influences: Velvet Underground, Spiritualized, Television, Elliott Smith
Before the Dirty Projectors were the coolest band in New York, before The Killers were the biggest band in the world, they were both tied to a beautiful boutique band: Ambulance LTD.
In the fall of 2004, The Killers were only popular in Europe. They had just signed to Island, so the re-recorded music video for “Mr. Brightside” (which helped their sky-rocket ascent to fame in 2005) had not been released yet. I wore a “The Killers” shirt to school and was teased for it, then by early 2005 everyone in school had Mr. Brightside as their ringtone.
But before that, it was college kids and crate diggers (and the odd middle-school aged deep diver like myself), murmuring about a new band from Vegas similar to Duran Duran but with potential of New Order, following in that era’s tradition of The Strokes and Interpol, giving a new take on beloved sounds from bygone people, places, and spaces. I bought their CD the day it came out that summer. “Hot Fuss” indeed. The UK broke them.
I couldn’t wait to see them live at St. Andrew’s Hall in Detroit that October for my birthday (20 years ago I was 13, about to turn 14.) My father and oldest sister went along with me so they could hang at the back and sip beers as I fought my way to the front of the sold-out crowd.
The first band was finishing as we arrived, a bizarre Euro-trash outfit with clashing everything, typical of those years. An overweight guitarist with a too-small blazer and Jack Black guitar moves, a woman screeching in a leotard with wannabe-Bowie face paint, a rhythm section that sounded like instruments being thrown down stairs.
The audience was still just arriving, but St. Andrews had become at least half-full. As I was pushing to the front, I looked up and saw the female singer turn against the crowd.
“This is supposed to be Detroit Rock City? More like Detroit Shit City!”
This was at the exact point when the majority of the audience was just beginning to arrive. The hall instantly grew tense. By the time the four casual, non-intimidating members of Ambulance LTD walked on stage, the Detroit crowd was twice the size and poked like a bear. Ambulance and their dreamy soft indie rock didn’t stand a chance against the rowdy Detroit crowd. People were literally throwing bottles, but they played on.
This was back in the days when cigarettes were still allowed indoors so the clubs were always a smokey shitshow, hazy and stinky, but it did add to the mystique of Ambulance’s sound. They just looked like cool, chill dudes. And eventually they won over the audience as their soft rock sound swelled to shoegaze heights. Well, somewhat. That audience was rough, they just wanted The Killers, which they eventually chanted like drunken sports fans.
The singer of Ambulance wore a velvet blazer with regular jeans and looked half asleep as he put his guitar on. The lead guitarist also wore an old-school jacket, but I was more mesmerized with how lost he got in his atmospheric playing, like he was having an OBE. The drummer sounded incredible, and he looked rad with his long hair and ripped jeans. The bassist had these intricate basslines that kept moving, but smoothly and warmly, plus the dude was singing perfect back up vocals and harmonies. The arrangements were sublime, as was their live performance.
Ambulance LTD blew my mind. They had an incredibly badass rhythm section, but an incredibly melodic sound, they were melding so many things I liked from different genres. I bought their CD that night, the album which this article is about: “LP by Ambulance LTD”
Clearly they had an effect on me, but never could I have understood then the lasting effect. I never could’ve known then that “LP” would become one of my favorite albums of all time, otherwise I probably would have talked to the band longer when I bought the record. Their performance that night left a lasting impact on me, but the album and the band itself would go on to become a thing of personal identity for me. Weirdly, that night shaped me, shadows of my future and years to come. In many ways, I’ve never been able to shake the want of more music like Ambulance, whether made by others or by myself — catchy yet deep indie rock that only rewards further with repeated listens.
The Ambulance LTD line-up that made “LP” was frontman, singer-songwriter, and guitarist Marcus Congleton, lead guitarist Benji Lysaught, bassist and back-up vocalist Matt Dublin, drummer Darren Beckett, and keys player Andrew Haskell. I saw them as a quartet without Haskell, as he had already left. The beginning of their demise. Now half of these talented dudes are hired guns for Brandon Flowers’ solo band and also for the Father John Misty live band.
So let’s talk about the music. This album is special. The simplicity of the cover art and album title only add to the mystique of a band who only really got one album and two EPs out. The sequencing of the songs, the variety of the material, the consistent quality of songwriting…
Ambulance LTD are criminally underrated, and most who know of them feel this way.
“LP” is a special achievement of musical alchemy from musicians who at one point felt like this was their vehicle. Clearly an especially talented group of musicians, firing on all cylinders.
The record begins with “Yoga Means Union” — a slow burn build-up jam that cooks into a bangin’ rock song that doesn’t evoke the wrong shit — this isn’t Dad-rock or “butt-rock” but polished indie. The dream pop and shoegaze influences are felt instantly, but as the record unfurls, the songwriting and range really start to dazzle.
Track two is their indie-sleaze sexy single “Primitive (The Way I Treat You)” which evokes the classic city slicker cool of their heroes Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground, complete with the perfect stupid-simple brilliant Stooges piano part, crossing their inspirations from the UK, to Detroit, and back to New York. This song made it onto some compilations at the time, later my oldest sister worked for one of the big name-brand stores at a mall and I think she had a mix with Interpol, The Strokes, Hot Hot Heat, Cass McCombs, and Ambulance — all artists I love. “Primitive” has a very simple yet slick video with the whole band in nifty vintage threads, which made them look cool yet also like working-class casual second-hand store shoppers. The video was also shot in what looks like a modeling agency, featuring pretty ladies, mirroring their “model-esque” vibe. It should be noted this album closes with a cover of the Velvets’ “Ocean” — which sticks pretty damn true to the original but still sounds fresh.
Track three is the insatiably catchy indie-folk-pop jam “Anecdote” — which I remember was used in some sort of car or phone commercial around this era, and, I believe, set the entire template for catchy indie-folk pop songs being used in soulless corporate ads. But I digress… What a song “Anecdote” is. By this point in the album, Congleton’s songwriting and voice are center-stage and his wry, humorous, observational, and ironic lyrics shine through. The honesty and empathy of his lyrics still hit me now, even having heard these songs hundreds of times.
The production of this record is impeccable. Every instrument sounds fantastic, every guitar note and chord, every bass walk, every cymbal crash and drum hit, every key or bell, the perfectly mixed vocals, the swirling ambience of the full band at work… Ambulance LTD achieved rare results.
“Heavy Lifting” is the fourth track, and this song would also go on to get featured in one of my favorite movies, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, written by one of my favorite dudes in Hollywood, Jason Segel, one of the only stars I’ve ever actually randomly met in person. Nice guy. “Heavy Lifting” is more of a chugging shoegaze rocker, an empowering one at that. Appropriate that it soundtracks a triumphant surfing moment for Segel’s character in the film.
“Ophelia” is another addictive track that starts to showcase the bands versatility, blending clever lyrics with unique arrangements played both at full-tilt and thoughtful deftness. The way this band seamlessly mixes riffs and chords is special in itself, the genre mashing, the tightness. The jams within songs, like during the ending refrains of “Ophelia” are special in themselves — this was clearly a band that rehearsed, re-hashed, and thought deeply about their songs.
“Stay Where You Are” is another single from this record, with a wonderful split-screen video that perfectly encapsulates that era. There is a shorter, EP / radio version of this track, which is also great, because it gets right to the point — a masterpiece of an indie pop rock song. But the LP version of this song is the masterpiece to me, because it encapsulates what the band achieved at their live shows, a heavenly vibe. The intro of guitar layers, delayed and reversed, swelling up to the opening chords kicking off one of the best bops you’ve ever heard… It’s a masterpiece.
Track seven is when things get dancey and sexy with “Sugar Pill” — a dark banger with a bass line that does all the talking and all the walking. Probably alluding to the druggy, seedy underbelly of late 90s / early 2000s New York City and Williamsburg where they lived, the song has a moodier tone that still glows with the sweetness and catchiness of the arrangement, digging its way deep into memory. Again, the mix of elements here — dance rock bass that almost feels Motown in its center-focus and when the bells come in, it offsets the almost Western guitar. Congleton’s vocals and story-telling tie it all together.
“Michigan” is as mysterious to me as the band itself. As far as I know, none of the members of Ambulance are from the Mitten, but clearly they found something special in the Great Lakes State, commenting as many do how the coastlines of any Great Lake are just like “traveling seaside Michigan.” This song is more of a sweet ballad, starting slowly with an acoustic, spooling out smoothly like looking over one of the majestic Great Lakes during dawn calm. Another honey-sweet arrangement.
“Stay Tuned” is another catchy little indie rock jam, complete with jangley and jagged guitars trading between chords and riffs, with more subtle yet genius production flourishes throughout. The rhythm section keeps this one tight, with additional guitars overlaying as it goes on. This song always cracked me up; it made me feel like the band was taunting me as the months turned to years and then to decades as I waited and “stayed tuned” for new music from this band, which never really arrived.
“Swim” is another song that could be overlooked by the unscrupulous. It’s another great deepcut, and another aqueous song in the often misty Ambulance catalog. As an avid swimmer from Michigan, some of these songs have felt weirdly poignant my entire life.
“Young Urban” is a great New York rambler folk-rock tale, half Lou Reed, half Bob Dylan, half marijuana, half heroin, fully looking for the brighter side of life through the city grime. Softer arrangements of songs like “Young Urban” and “Michigan” and “Anecdote” feel especially airy in light of their more tempestuous shoegaze-y counterparts, but it’s this counterbalance that makes Ambulance the actual perfect band. It’s insane they didn’t catch on. Maybe if they would’ve stayed together… who knows.
I can only imagine that everything went from going really right to really wrong for this band. They went from touring with The Killers just as they were blowing up, to half the band leaving to form their own band (which did nothing.) Marcus Congleton legally acquired the Ambulance LTD band name and went on to go out to LA to record with living legend (and his hero) John Cale — but none of that material ever surfaced.
Most of this momentum halt is due to the band’s label at the time TVT Records going belly-up — which resulted in records getting shelved and several underrated bands from ever getting their due justice — including Ambulance LTD and the Polyphonic Spree. Ah bankruptcy. Capitalism breeds innovation, right? That’s why no musicians or artists can make a living anymore… please read my other pieces on the collapse of empire.
What’s wild is a few years later in 2008 I would see my other favorite forgotten indie band French Kicks play where I’ve played many times upstairs in The Pike Room at The Crofoot in Pontiac, Michigan — and the Stumpf brothers, Josh Wise, and company played “Michigan” by Ambulance LTD from “LP” — a truly surreal full-circle life moment for me, criminally overlooked and sadly underrated heroes of mine covering other heroes of mine, singing about my home state, where none of them were from, while in the Great Lakes State itself. As Carl Jung would say, synchronicity.
There are also tales of heroin and drug abuse, wherein despite Congleton’s smooth voice, sly style, memorable songwriting, and male-model-esque looks, Ambulance just couldn’t hold together. Years later Congleton would reform Ambulance, a few times actually, but nothing every seemed to hold. Each time I was hopeful for new music, but nothing seemed to arise. I am grateful however, because although I never got to see the reformed versions with other members when they played a few gigs, one of these short tours of the East Coast led me to my now-friends Bear Hands.
Marcus Congleton would go on to form Drug Cabin with fellow former frontman of the 2000s, Nathan Thelen of Pretty Girls Make Graves. Both Darren Beckett and Benji Lysaught went on to become players in the live bands of Brandon Flowers’ solo project and for the critically-acclaimed Josh Tillman project Father John Misty.
The EPs and lost demos and other recordings of Ambulance are worth checking out. Specifically the tracks “Helmsman” and “Country Gentlemen” but also the very yacht rock “Arbuckle’s Swan Song,” in which a guest vocalist sings openly about “coke on the table” in Steely Dan fashion.
This is a band that deserved a career every bit as much as The Strokes or Interpol, in fact Ambulance LTD offer a wider array of sounds and influences than either of those bands, with a range more akin to Phoenix or Arcade Fire or Beck. Ambulance has audible influence from 60’s Motown, 70’s AM rock, 80’s college radio alt-pop, and 90’s shoegaze. The Velvets and Big Star can be heard, but so can Elliott Smith and Spiritualized. But they were their own band, with their own brew.
Ambulance had their own sound, and they deserved more. Maybe it was bad timing, maybe bad attitudes, or failed contracts, or fallouts, or the crashing music industry, or bankrupt and folding labels, maybe it was drugs, maybe just bad luck.
Whatever the story was, the story remains, Ambulance LTD are one of the most criminally overlooked bands in history. Check out Drug Cabin, and listen to the few Ambulance songs that eventually made it out from their never-released follow-up second album, like the banger “Focus” — part of which became reused / repurposed for the beautifully mellow soft-country-rock jam “California” by Drug Cabin.
Luckily there are other fans just as dedicated to this blissful band from a bygone era, a band who somewhat epitomizes the ephemeral nature of all being, the existential struggle to create something of meaning with what time we have on this planet. Ambulance is a rare art project that has lasted through the years, because the realness and the empathy is felt in the music. Thanks to whatever legends put together these “LP II” mixes online.
Yours truly,
