Automatic Pilot

Automatic Pilot was born in 1980 when members of the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus did a punk rock parody for a skit, writing original songs by Karl Brown, piano and Matthew McQueen lead vocal, with Tom Gschwind, violin. More voices were added, particularly Tony Kramedas, and more songs written; AP performed in public at Chorus events, and other gay community venues.

Joined by a string bass player Steve Graham, and drummer John Orlando from the SF Gay Freedom Band, and John Selby, a sax / flute player with a jazz background, AP built the original punk parody into a unique sound, an all acoustic rock band with no guitar, and complex vocal arrangements of risque, gay lyrics. Late in 1982, the bassist and drummer left, and were replaced by our straight boys, Jeremy Rexford (drums)and Dave Moseley (bass guitar) who were available and interested in our music. We continued to perform live though mid 1983, most often at the Valencia Rose and the On Broadway where we made the only live recording. We also did some studio demos along the way.

After the live band's last performance, singer Tony Kramedas undertook to produce (and finance) professional recordings of AP's songs, with a decidedly more electric sound featuring some of the Bay Area's best studio musicians accompanying the voices of Matthew, Tony and Karl, and Karl's keyboards. Four songs were completed in 1984 when Tony became sick from AIDS; two more were completed over the next few months.

During these recording sessions, Matthew and Karl joined several other writers and performers to create Theater Rhinoceros "The AIDS Show" contributing a song in the Automatic Pilot style. Tony was in the audience during the first run. On September 21, 1985, during a recording session for a restaging of The AIDS Show, Tony died. A new song for the show was dedicated to Tony.