Andy Sturmer - Holding Out for Something Better (1999)

I recently posted two stray tracks albums from the early 1990s band Jellyfish. They're great. Andy Sturmer was the main singer for Jellyfish, as well as one of the two main songwriters. Since Jellyfish broke up in 1994, he's kept an extremely low profile. He hasn't joined any other bands since then, and he's never released a solo album, or even a solo single. But... there's this. If you're a Jellyfish fan, you definitely need to hear this. It's the closest thing to another Jellyfish album after the band broke up.

So what is this, exactly? That's complicated. Let me explain. I found these recordings from an Internet page that has ceased to exist. I went looking around for more information, and came up with very little. So what I'm writing now is based on what I remember from when I found this material years ago, plus, what little I could find out in a recent search.

Andy Sturmer was a great singer-songwriter in Jellyfish, as well as being the band's drummer, but apparently he's an introverted person who didn't like being a star. So, while he continued a music career, he chose a behind the scenes role. Apparently, in the years since Jellyfish broke up, he's had a successful career writing catchy songs for other bands (especially the Japanese duo Puffy AmiYumi) and TV shows and movies. I plan on posting another album just of his TV show and movie songs after 2000, when that aspect of his career started to take off.

But he hadn't had much success with that at the time of these recordings, which I think is around 1999 (though I could be off by a year or two). The last two songs were done for "Gregory and Me" a children's TV show that came out in 1996. But the others are demos for a solo album he was working on. He's kept such a low profile that he almost never gives interviews. But in 2002, a Jellyfish archival release mentioned he was working on a solo album that was due to be released soon. It's over twenty years later, and there's still no sign of it. 

I could be wrong, but I think what happened was he sent out a tape of these demos around 1999 to people in the TV and movie industries to show his continued ability to write excellent songs years after Jellyfish broke up. Somehow, the recording got to the wider public, although these are still very obscure. I hope by posting this album here, they'll get more attention, because this is very good stuff. There are two obvious covers: "We Are the Champions" by Queen, and "Turn, Turn, Turn (To Everything There Is a Season)," made famous by the Byrds. Other than that, I believe all the songs are originals, and this shows he still had the same songwriting talent he had in Jellyfish (not to mention the same singing talent).

As far as I know, everything here is still technically officially unreleased in the sense that it's never been for sale. However, it all sounds as good as you'd expect a studio album to sound. One song, "Liquid Casanova," was performed with the band Sugarbomb, which put out a few albums in the late 1990s and early 2000s, but I believe that song remains unreleased as well. 

There's never been any name to this album. I picked the title "Holding Out for Something Better" after the first song here. I thought that was fitting with the fact that he's never released his solo album after so many years. Also, the song order is basically the same as the order I got them. But I don't know if that was random or if it was done intentionally by Sturmer or anyone else.

Again, if you like Jellyfish, you need to hear this. It's in a very similar style, with very similar quality.

This album is 37 minutes long.

01 Holding Out for Something Better (Andy Sturmer)
02 The Angel Made Me Do It (Andy Sturmer)
03 Widowers Song (Andy Sturmer)
04 Turn, Turn, Turn [To Everything There Is a Season] (Andy Sturmer)
05 I Built Me a Bridge (Andy Sturmer)
06 Sweet Wingless Angel (Andy Sturmer)
07 Love So Pure (Andy Sturmer)
08 We Are the Champions (Andy Sturmer)
09 The Beginning of the End (Andy Sturmer)
10 Liquid Casanova (Andy Sturmer & Sugarbomb)
11 Commercial Spot (Andy Sturmer)
12 Gregory and Me (Andy Sturmer)
13 Underneath the Sea (Andy Sturmer)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15992069/AndyStrmer_1999_HoldngOutfrSmethngBettr_atse.zip.html

Because Sturmer has kept such a low profile after Jellyfish, I couldn't find any photos of him that are definitely from after his Jellyfish years. This one is probably from his Jellyfish time. But I picked a dark and moody photo out of many more options because it seemed fitting to his reclusive behavior.