Andy Chase is an American producer and band member of NYC band Ivy. In 1994 he and his girlfriend and Ivy singer, Dominique Durand, were asked by Keith Cullen to host Neil Hannon in their flat in NYC for a couple of weeks.

Andy: “We were working on our first EP in 1994 and we got a call from Keith Cullen asking if Dominique & I would put Neil up for a few weeks, as he wanted to come to NYC, hang out, and write a bit. As we were huge fans of Liberation and the more recent Promenade we agreed. This very boyish looking, shy Brit shows up at our Upper West side Manhattan 300 sq ft apt with a little bag and that was it. We hung with him non stop for the 2 weeks he was there. We had dinners. Neil spent much of his time writing songs on our couch with my acoustic guitar… I think some of those made it on Casanova, as we recognized a few familiar melodies and lyrics when that album came out. Ivy had an early show at some underground club in NYC whose name I can’t remember… we let Neil use my guitar and open for us, solo acoustic. I think there might have been 8 people watching, including the three of us in Ivy. I had a recording studio back then called The Place, which later became Stratosphere Sound. I was just learning how to become an engineer and producer, by default on my own Ivy music… and Neil asked if I could record something he had been working on. The studio was in the Meatpacking District of West Village, which today is pretty sheik but back in ‘93 was a hell hole, mostly frequented by transexual hookers and drug dealers. Very sketchy neighborhood, but quite stimulating and exciting if you were young musicians like us looking for an edginess to the world around you. The session with Neil might have taken less than 2 hrs. All we recorded was this one song – ‘The Dogs And The Horses’.”


Andy Chase’ website: http://www.andychase.com/