Hailing from Boston, the band has three members who all answer to their respective stage names: Liz Enthusiast (the vocalist/fashion plate), The Duke of Pannekoeken (programming) and The Other Sean T. Drinkwater (synthesizers and vocoder).
This concert should be a real treat for those around campus who consider themselves synthpop aficionados. Freezepop is known for their highly entertaining melodies that sound deceptively simple on the surface but actually incorporate a good deal of complex programming and synthesizer work.
One of the most intriguing things about the group is that The Duke of Pannekoeken exclusively uses the handheld Yamaha QY-70 MIDI Sequencer to create the song patterns for all Freezepop tunes. For those not familiar with this particular piece of electronic music equipment, the Yamaha QY-70 is slightly larger than an old Nintendo Gameboy and comes equipped with the capability to create patterns using the full spectrum of the general MIDI sound bank. Essentially, it's a very basic, small, handheld synthesizer, with which The Other Sean T. Drinkwater is able to create remarkably well-programmed music, as reflected in the albums that the group has released.
"Freezepop Forever," their debut album from 2001, was met with mixed reviews, but their follow-up album, "Fashion Impression Function," helped to solidify their ever-growing fan base and netted them a Best New Band award at the American Synthpop Awards. Both these albums contained relatively simple synthpop tunes that didn't really go beyond the sounds provided by the QY-70 but still managed to attract the attentions of the audience with catchy, upbeat melodies.
For their 2004 release, entitled "Fancy UltraFresh," The Duke and Drinkwater expanded their sound base and created a much fuller synthpop sound without overstepping the basic limitations of the QY-70 and basic keyboard synthesizers. Fans of Freezepop should be expecting this sound to be present at Fuel this Friday, but those who are looking for the original, stripped-down atmosphere of the first two albums will probably be satisfied as well, as many of their fan favorites come from these releases.
Recently, Freezepop has expanded into the realm of musical videogames, contributing to popular Playstation and Playstation 2 titles like "Amplitude" and "Guitar Hero." Fans of these games may well recognize some of Freezepop's work in this medium rather than their conventional releases.
The show, co-sponsored by Coed Council and Programming Board, will open with UV Protection at 10 p.m. on Saturday.