American Ambulance began life the way so many great relationships do -- sitting around a kitchen table, drinking. The cars whooshed past on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway out the window, while a shifting (and sometimes shifty) cast of characters played cheating, drinking, and murder songs on acoustic instruments while passing the bottle around singer/songwriter Pete Cenedella’s kitchen table in Williamsburg, Brooklyn circa 1999. Gradually a steady lineup took shape and the albums started coming out.

Pete and his brother-in-law, the guitar slinger Scotty Aldrich, anchored the band, first with their musical friend Tim Reedy (Electric Engine) of Queens, then their Brooklyn compadre Rob Gottstein (ex-Hangdogs) on bass; and always with the pride of Baldwin, Long Island Mr. Mighty Joe Dessereau on drums. The Ambulance Drivers, it was said at the time, “manage to capture every damn thing that’s ever been cool about rock n’ roll” (Pop Culture Press).

The first American Ambulance album was SWEETNESS & DARK, a homemade dish mixing folk, country, and garage rock into a dark and satisfying stew.

Indy label Rustic Records took notice and soon signed the boys up for a three-album deal. STRAY followed in 2003 with a bang and a twang, and then 2004’s election-year EP ALL OVER THE MAP, which ripped into the worst administration in the history of our great republic, even before it was hip to do so. The last transmission the boys sent out before careening headlong into the inevitable thrall of day jobs and family life was 2005's STREETS OF NYC, an album that captured the musically diverse vibe and wild soul of New York City in the decadent 1970s.

The Ambulance rode high and fast for a while there, and if you were among those who climbed on board, we thank you and hope you enjoyed the ride as much as we did. If you're just dicovering AmAm for the first time, we invite you to climb into the back, take a hit of oxygen and dig one of the great lost treasures of post-millennial rock n' roll.