Teddy mixing tunes at the Firefly Festival.
As the music world surfs along through various genres, Teddy Beats is surfing the same wave with an all-electronic sound that’s described as “indie electronic,” pulling in plenty of followers but not much competition since his sound is unique in the music world.
“I build tracks piece by piece on stage,” he said.
Beats just launched a new EP, like an LP of yesteryear, and it’s called “I Make This All For You,” and the ‘you’ is the 40 million streams he’s had online. It’s a huge number like this because this sound is celebrated everywhere, including Amsterdam where it got picked up online and highlighted for the music fans across the pond.
His wife Mandy Kimlick is a big part of Teddy Beats too where she handles the marketing, the computer support and provides vocals sometimes. “My wife sings on the songs every now and then,” Teddy said. Mandy’s from Burke, Virginia, and somehow met Teddy when she was moving into an apartment in Washington, D.C. “It was love at first sight,” he said.
Mandy started her music career at Lake Braddock High School in Burke and moved to D.C. after graduating from George Mason University with a teaching degree. She grew up in a musical family and her mother still sings with the Vienna Falls Choir. Beats got his start around DC in the hip hop world and a certain DJ named Chucky Thompson, who worked with Bad Boy records and Sean “Diddy” Combs in the past.
Sirius XM has picked up the Teddy Beats sound and the band, only consisting of Teddy and Mandy, took off. They play at the Preakness horse race every year, Fells Point in Baltimore, various house shows around the DMV, and a recent college tour where they had shows at UVA, UMD and a college in Canada. In 2022, they were on stage at the Firefly Festival in Dover, Delaware. Another show that Mandy remembered fondly was on a yacht that sailed around the Potomac River and Chesapeake Bay. “It was really fun,” she said.
Teddy and Mandy at a performance.