Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Then There Were Two: Freezepop's Duke Departs

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This past Sunday, June 7th, marked a sad event in synthpop history as it was revealed on Freezepop's MySpace blog that the Duke of Pannenkoeken (Kasson Crooker) will be leaving the band to focus on his other solo projects, as well as his career at video game developer Harmonix.

The Duke (Crooker) has been one third of the synthpop trio, consisting also of vocalist Liz Enthusiasm and synth-player/guitarist The Other Sean T. Drinkwater (yes, people, these are pseudonyms!), since the band's formation in 1999.

Crooker explained that his choice to leave the band wasn't due to any dramatic reasons, and that the decision was made gradually, stating, "The details leading to my decision to leave aren’t terribly interesting or dramatic as it's been something that I’ve been thinking about for a year now. My responsibilities at Harmonix making games continue to increase which takes away from my time and energy to compose and go out on the road to play shows."

The announcement sparked bittersweet feelings for both the band members as well as fans. Fortunately, Crooker's departure does not mark the end of Freezepop - both Liz and Sean will be sticking around and the band will go on with the show! Still, neither remaining band-mates had any resentment or ill-mannered words to speak of Crooker, claiming that they "were very proud of him in what he has already accomplished." Liz and Sean also had this to say on the blog:

"As for the future, well, we're very very excited about the album we've been working on... We're not really looking to totally reinvent the band, but there are obviously going to be some changes... Freezepop is very lucky in the sense that we can lose a major piece of our band and still have enough strengths to make an exciting new album that we're proud of. We will keep making music as long as we feel like we're making music that is still vital..."

It looks like despite the Duke's saddening departure, the future is still bright for Freezepop - now a duo! The popular synth-pop band, known for contributing their "sweet, cold, fruity, and plastic-y" songs to many video game soundtracks, is currently working on its next LP which will be sure to be just as fun and soundtrack-friendly as 2007's 'Future Future Future Perfect' album.

If you'd like to see the group in its original condition - as a trio - you can catch Freezepop on one of it's two 10 year anniversary shows this summer and fall, where the Duke will be playing as a Freezepop member for the last time.

The dates are as follows:
July 25th, 2009 - Harper's Ferry - Allston, MA
September 5th, 2009 - Penny Arcade Expo! - Seattle, WA


You can check out Freezepop's awesome synth-candy sounds
here on their MySpace! Also, you can visit their official Web site here.

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