Timothy Monger

Michigan-based songwriter Timothy Monger began playing music in his teens, working on lo-fi recordings with his older brother Jamie Monger and assorted friends in basements and motel rooms, some of which were later privately released on cassette under the name the Original Brothers of Love. The brothers officially formed the Original Brothers and Sisters of Love with a third songwriter, Greg McIntosh, in 1996, and relocated to Ann Arbor, MI, where the group's decidedly creative and postmodern folk-rock approach to songwriting and arrangements earned them a local following. TOBOSOL's debut album, The Legende of Jeb Minor, was released on New York's Telegraph label in 2000, revealing a band with three solid writers who merged a kind of Midwestern Appalachia with solid pop smarts and an offbeat, refreshing lyrical sense. Their second album on Telegraph, H.O.M.E.S., Vol. 1, appeared in 2001, and expanding in a more pop direction, drew comparisons to bands like XTC. The band morphed into the Great Lakes Myth Society in 2004 while maintaining the same fresh musical approach, and released The Great Lakes Myth Society album on Boston's Stop, Pop, and Roll label in 2005. Monger, with a backlog of songs, began working on a side solo project, resulting in the song cycle Summer Cherry Ghosts, which came out on Monger's own No Bitings label in 2004--it was also released the following year in Japan on the Trolley Bus label with additional tracks. Wonderfully orchestrated Baroque pop, Ghosts recalls the great Beach Boys album Pet Sounds in its whimsical, nostalgic, and tuneful recollection of summers past, and includes a version of brother Jamie's delightful "Crime on a Summer Day," which fits seamlessly into the sequence. ~ Steve Leggett, All Music Guide