FM
History
Zedek grew up in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, attending Springbrook High School in Maryland, where she played clarinet in the marching band under band director Charles Sickafus. The early punk era of the late 1970s in which she came of age, and in particular Patti Smith, contributed deeply to the formation of her musical aesthetic. While still in high school she would travel with her brother, Dan Zedek (currently the editorial design director at the Boston Globe), to New York to see Smith perform.
Zedek moved to Boston in 1979, attending Boston University for one semester before deciding to pursue a musical career instead. Her first band, the all-female White Women, broke up after a couple years, and she formed the Dangerous Birds. This group had somewhat more success, including a single, "Smiling Face (Do you Recognize Me?)" that achieved airplay on college and alternative-commercial radio; but Zedek wanted a more "violent" sound in contrast to the somewhat "girlie pop" tendencies of her Dangerous Birds bandmates. Her next project, Uzi, worked to this aim, producing an EP "Sleep Asylum." The EP was characterized by elusive yet subtly menacing lyrics superimposed over lugubrious but driving instrumental tracks that featured layers of dense, murky yet muscular guitar arrangements blended with heady synthesizer and tape effects. But despite the promise of "Sleep Asylum", Uzi dissolved due to tension between Zedek and the band's drummer, Danny Lee.
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