The music of Michael Cohen, Liz Sumner and friends
Michael Cohen is a composer and lyricist. Liz Sumner is a singer who gets first choice of all his songs. We have made beautiful music together since 1987.
Many talented people have joined us along the way. We’ve performed as Lip Service, Fuzzy Logic, and now Complicated People.
We are thrilled to continue the music-making here in Le Marche, Italy now with Chris Khamis, Mauro Mencaroni and Peter Scharf. We are occasionally joined by guests Elena Zito, Cinzia Pianelli, Marco Agostinelli, and others.
The name, Complicated People, comes from a song Michael wrote in 2008 for the musical Transference. Later it became the title of a series of concerts featuring many performers singing his songs.
Pictured are Mary Armstrong, Liz Sumner, Elizabeth Nieckoski, Cynthia Rodier, Cindy Choate, Chris McCartie, Mia Moravis, Michael Nieckoski, Michael Cohen, Steve Armstrong and Steve Bourque. Not pictured: Casper Bemis, Lindsay Bartlett, Traci Booth, Eleanor Martin , Ray Mahoney.
Also in the productions were Fireside Winds featuring Julie Armstrong on flute, Mary Seaver on clarinet, and Sue Henkel on oboe.
Fuzzy had various iterations between 1996 and 2017. Early members included Gina Chase-Pinkney, Gil Chase-Pinkney, Heather Herring, and Mike McGowan. But the ultimate version was:
1 – Michael Cohen
2 – Liz Sumner
3 – Steve Bourque
4 – Elizabeth Nieckoski
5 – Michael Nieckoski
6 – Traci Booth
7 – Steve Armstrong
We recorded two cds, Almost and Snow Shadows.
Special thanks to David Teubner for photos, videos, and engineering.
In the beginning there was Lip Service with Bobbi Vollendorff and Glenn Austin.
We started in Glenn’s garage playing covers with Jim Terhorst and called ourselves Wax Lips. Jim didn’t want to perform in public so the four of us started playing in open mikes and coffee houses around Bellingham, WA as Lip Service, playing Michael’s songs exclusively.
We recorded two albums engineered by Rick Ruskin, and played together from 1987-1994.