Meet T.V. Doctors and Heal Your Musical Soul -By: Amy Modesti

Not feeling well. Get a prescription from T.V. Doctors who will heal your soul. T.V. Doctors are one of several musical acts to perform at the Listen Up Awards Show Friday, June 17 at Lark Hall and their mix of electronica, fusion, and improvised grooves will bandage your sour notes fast. 

The Xperience witnessed this experimental trio at Rare Form Brewing Company and got to speak to members, Evan Conway, Bob Morris, and Josh Witmer. 

RRX: What’s T.V. Doctors about?

EC: The band started out about a year and a half ago. We were in my garage when it started. We were jamming before the pandemic, but we didn’t have anything going on. 

JW: I’m very blessed. I met Bob while we were both trying to play in another band and that didn’t work. I think like wild in these situations. I just recognized how awesome he was and how incredibly dysfunctional he was. He was like, ‘you and I should talk and then possibly never talk to these other people again but that’s fine’. We played in many different things and I tried to pull him into a lot of my lame-brain ideas. Finally, he came along with one and after it was not super terrible, brought Evan in. 

EC: During the pandemic, we couldn’t go out anywhere, weren’t able to play anywhere out. Even though we were together it was dicey. We didn’t want to spread anything, so I cleared out my garage and we just stood in one of the corners of the garage and played. 

RRX: How did you come up with the name, T.V. Doctors?

JW (to EC): I thought of it?

EC: No, that was Bob. Bob is usually our name man. I think he came up with that one because during the pandemic, you turn on the T.V. and you’ll see some doctor; Doctor Oz, Doctor Drew, Doctor Phil, whoever it is saying, ‘You gotta watch out for the pandemic. You always put your mask on.’ It was endless.

JW: Yes, people’s brains are looped in this weird mobius nonsense. People were freaking out a little bit. What we add too is satire. There are some weird bulls**** in here but it was key. I found old weird-like 50s hospital footage.

RRX: And then you had Evan Garvy that was pretending to be a doctor. 

JW: He’s a facilitator. He does sound, lighting, and our videos. You need him to do things with his hands. 

EC: The other thing too is he’s willing to dress up which is great. 

RRX: It’s perfect. You can tell he’s part of the crew. He’s writing out a script, bouncing along to the music, and having a good time.

EC: He is. 

RRX: You have something good that works. This is something I have never seen and experienced. You have no words as to how you put it together without experiencing it.

EC: That’s been our biggest setback with the band is describing the people exactly what it is. So, because you can describe it, a lot of it is improvised. More than half of it is improvised. The songs that we do regularly don’t always sound the same. To try to sell that to somebody and say, ‘Oh but it sounds good.’

JC: Limit things that your mind deals with, right? Like everything you can describe it to somebody, it’s psychedelic, improvised, and a lot of robot voices. 

EC: It was awesome that Shane took a chance on us without even hearing us. That was the best part. He just told me, he goes, ‘I’m in love with the idea, let’s just do it.’ Okay. 

RRX: That’s awesome. How did you get involved with getting Super Dark Collective on board?

EC: Holly (Evans) and I used to play at the One Caroline in Saratoga and Shane (Sanchez} used to be the bartender and booking agent there. He used to give us shows and I remember it was just when the band was ending, he started the Super Dark Monday’s and that was where the first one was, which was at One Caroline. I think they had a few of them and then they closed the place. They moved it across the street to Desperate Annie’s. I’d known Shane for quite a few years. He was always a great dude to talk to and takes chances on music which is awesome. 

RRX: And those are the types of people that you want to have behind your back. 

EC: Uh huh. 

JW: Yeah, you need those people. You need somebody to take a chance on your nonsense. See if it floats on water also. 

EC: Yeah, it helps. 

RRX: Would you be willing to bring your music more into the Super Dark Collective sphere at No Fun Troy or Desperate Annie’s? 

EC: Oh yeah, absolutely. We’re gonna do an entire tour of all the Super Dark’s facilities. 

RRX: That’s good because you haven’t played too much in Troy. You’re usually in different areas most of the time. 

EC: Yeah, yeah.

RRX: It’s extra-terrestrial, that’s for sure.

JW: Thank you. I think we encourage people to get into a better mindset. It will only help us. 

RRX: And you can groove along to it.

JW: That’s a good observation. 

BM: In contrast, what these guys are doing, which is super, super modern. I really tried to tap into 60, 70 years of drumming. I really tried to cover the whole gamut and not feel like there’s any drummer or any beat or anything that isn’t within my limitations. And I just try and tap into something that isn’t super modern, that isn’t super old, jazzy, or going all the way to the big bands. 

EC: Everything that the song needs. 

BM: You gotta have the psychedelic, hip-hop, jazz kind of thing to it. 

RRX: I was hearing psychedelic, jazz, and progressive rock influence. 

BM: If you’re gonna play jazz or progressive, you really have to be able to have the facility to play just about everything at your fingertips. 

JW: So good at finding the root of the thing where you find yourself and that makes it so good. You always try to find the gnarly accidents in the music department. 

RRX: When you guys played with Holly, it was original music.

BM: Yeah, it was soul and jazz. This is more fusion, reggae, and smooth jazz. It’s all the flavors that I can get in. We must play the full spectrum of music and sound to people. 

Follow T.V. Doctors on Facebook and Bandcamp. Get your musical meds from them at Lark Hall on June 17th as they play at The Capital District Digital Listen Up awards!