When I first heard that Amy Klein joined Glen Rock’s finest, Titus Andronicus, I’ll admit it caught my attention. While there had always been some female presence in the band, it never seemed that prominent to me, and the word went that this would change with Amy. So I kept my ear to the ground. Then, passing along The Monitor (TMT Review) to a certain friend from nearby Basking Ridge, who possesses the most extreme feelings one could have about the Garden State, he mentions after a playthrough, “Wait a sec…I know Amy!” This is not the first time this has happened to me, but it was still pretty awesome. Continuing onward, I kept apace with her work, especially as she developed her personal Tumblr into one of the finer personal blogs I have read in quite some time. I was really looking forward to her contributing to the next Titus Andronicus album, whenever that will be.
So I am rather let down by the news that Ms. Klein has now left Titus Andronicus at the end of the current tour, well before they have begun recording their next album. Thankfully, according to both parties, the split was among the more amicable I have seen in a while: “No, there was no big fight or anything — no wild partying, drug, or alcohol addiction leading to me getting fired — no dramatic story — nothing like that. It is just time for me to move on.” Liam Betson, who played guitar on The Monitor will take her place, at least for the time being. Both Ms. Klein and Patrick Stickles of Titus Andronicus have posted their pieces on the matter, and the band has also posted some of Amy’s greatest hits, including her live cover of X-Ray Spex’ “Oh Bondage, Up Yours!”
It is, admittedly, a shame we will not see her in the next album. But this is not to say that what she is doing now is insignificant. In fact, she has done quite a lot of amazing things in the last year alone: she posted her first solo album, started up two bands (one of which features our former writer Heidi Vanderslice on cello), and established a new feminist arts and activist organization, Permanent Wave. Ms. Klein is doing a lot of good out there already, and I will not be surprised in the least if, in the coming years, she becomes someone especially integral and important to the music community at large. Keep at it, Amy!
• Amy Klein and the Blue Star Band: http://www.facebook.com/AmyKleinandtheBlueStarBand
• hillyeye: http://hillyeye.bandcamp.com
• Titus Andronicus: http://www.titusandronicus.net