Lorenzo's Music - blog

Getting ready for our show next week

2011-12-01T00:55:00.001-06:00

While normally when we get together it's to work on new songs. Tonight we dusted off some of the old songs from our music library.

We're getting ready for our show next week at the Great Dane in downtown Madison.

So if you're in the Madison area on Thursday Dec. 8th, come down to the Great Dane and see us.

Puano - Work in progress

2011-11-30T01:19:00.000-06:00

A work in progress.
This is just a demo of a song we're working on. Recorded a second verse for it tonight and thought we'd share.

111129-puano demo by Lorenzo's Music

If you want to look at the making of the song so far you can see what lead up to it on our personal song wiki for this song.

Edison Museum Wax Cylinder Recording Session

2011-10-29T00:23:00.000-05:00

Fascinating.

Charles Bukowski "Bluebird."

2011-10-22T02:04:00.000-05:00

Charles Bukowski "Bluebird." - YouTube:

"Monkey Jazz" : BEARDYMAN & mr_hopkinson™

2011-09-30T13:26:00.000-05:00

"Monkey Jazz" : BEARDYMAN & mr_hopkinson™ - YouTube: ""

'via Blog this'

Here's Dante to sing a song for you "Theme from 'Exodus'" - YouTube

2011-08-30T16:03:00.000-05:00

Stairway To Stardom (1987) - Dante "Theme from 'Exodus'" - YouTube: ""

'via Blog this'

New EP's Just Arrived! Available soon.

2011-08-21T17:16:00.000-05:00

Just got our EP of collected song singles back from the printer.
They will be available here on our website later this week.

We'll let you know when you can order yours.
Keep checking back or if you're not already, follow us on Facebook or Twitter and we'll send you an update.

Scott is in the next Adam Sandler movie

2011-07-20T15:00:00.000-05:00

Just wanted to give a shout out to our friend and previous drummer Scott Beardsley. Both him and our previous bass player Chris Boeger are in a jazz trio in a scene for the new Adam Sandler movie "I Hate You, Dad" which is filming now.

I found out when I saw this post on Scott's facebook page:

So I called Mark and asked him about it and it seems that Chris knows the director and Mark recorded a demo for them to submit and they got the part.

We're really proud of them and can't wait to see what the outcome is like. I'm sure it'll be great!

And for the love of god I hope they give Scott a line in the movie, because he is one of the funniest people I know.

LEGO Album Covers

2011-07-03T15:55:00.000-05:00

LEGO Album Covers « Flickr Blog:

"The members of the LEGO Album Covers group have been recreating classic albums of Flickr for years. Today we bring you a selection but there are lots more wonderful interpretations in the group. Most of the photos include a link to an image of the album it pays tribute to so you can click through to compare."

Scrap Metal Planets

2011-06-30T16:24:00.000-05:00

P i c t u r e s: Scrap Metal Planets:

"Boulder-based artist Mark Castator creates planets and moons from hundreds of small scrap metal pieces called “droppings” leftover form other sculpting projects."

Playing a Cityscape as a Piano Score - information aesthetics

2011-06-15T14:15:00.000-05:00

A really great sounding idea in concept and visually. Still, very cool and wish I had thought of it.
Pianola City Music: Playing a Cityscape as a Piano Score - information aesthetics:

"Pianola City Music [akkogoldenbeld.com] attempts to overcome the almost inevitable urge to program and computerize our most imaginative ideas.
A physical model of the Dutch city of Eindhoven is rolled onto a drum and attached to a piano, so that its buildings hit the piano keys in a specific rhythm and the physical pattern of the city becomes expressed into a unique sound. The cityscape Eindhoven apparently produces a quite chaotic soundscape, although this might also be influenced by the methodology of it all, of which another beautiful example includes SolarBeat."

Ann-Margret and Charles Manson together at last! Bye Bye Birdie Reprise

2011-06-09T10:13:00.000-05:00

YouTube - Bye Bye Birdie Reprise: With Ann-Margret and Charles Manson: ""

awesome people hanging out together

2011-06-07T09:17:00.000-05:00

While this is my new favorite blog, this was the most impressive picture I found on it by far.
awesome people hanging out together

Charlie Chaplin and Helen Keller

Tom's personal podcast project featured on the Free Music Archive

2011-05-29T11:00:00.001-05:00

Sure I make music under creative commons licenses, but I like to talk about it too.

Last year I started a podcast called Music Manumit with Doug Whitfield, another CC music enthusiast, that was part talking to musicians and others involved in the Creative Commons movement and part playing music released using it. It's fun to do and I get to meet a lot of really cool people because of it. We've even talked with Eric Steuer, Creative Director at Creative Commons and Board member of CASH Music.

Well, one of my favorite sources of music in the realm is the freemusicarchive.org run by Jason Sigal of WFMU. And recently we were made curators for music on the site to add more CC Music artists to it ourselves. So I'm pretty psyched about that and just thought I'd share. There's a lot of good music out there owned by the artists and in a sense, by the fans.

One of our posts was recently a featured item on the home page (linking to the article itself cuz it won't be the featured post forever).
Free Music Archive: Isaac Graham and the Reds

How a liquor store sign became our last album cover

2010-11-21T15:14:00.001-06:00

Surprising i know. But here's a little story about how our last album cover was inspired by a liquor store sign from Las Vegas, Nevada (it's not as exciting as it sounds).

Mark and I were putting the finishing touches on the album that is now our BAZAR release. We wanted something that was like a bright neon corner of nowhere sign. So we went to Flickr and put in our keywords. Turns out Roadsidepictures, a guy that I already follow had the best stuff.

One of his pics in his signs set was of a liquor store called "Charleston Bazar".

We liked that it was the same concept as our Solamente Tres Palabras album cover but a different take on it. The Solamente cover was a lone street light poking out in a blue natural gradient sky. This picture was a neon light at night doing what it does-- burning it's message in the dark, offering a promise of who knows what'll happen tonight.

I drew up a version of it with our name in the sign to make it look like a neon sign but it never panned out just right. So I made a really gritty version of it and screen printed it to look like one of those old punk rock flyers where they would just draw and paste words on a page.
Except unlike those old flyers, ours was 3 colored.

Album Lovers Hand-Make Musical Objects

2010-11-02T14:59:00.000-05:00

Really inspired and creative music lovers over there at createdigitalmusic.com

Create Digital Music - Last Days of Compact Disco: Album Lovers Hand-Make Musical Objects:

"at NYC’s wonderful Culturefix, a handful of us got together and constructed some handmade discs. It’s definitely something you could do at an album swap meet with other artists and DJs in an afternoon or evening, and it makes the swap feel more meaningful. Pics at top; I hope we do more of these.

If this is the way the CD goes out, I think it’ll go out with style. And whatever the trends in the larger world, who’s to deny you your tangible album, really?"

Newest Member of the Lorenzo's Music Family

2010-09-29T21:24:00.000-05:00

On Monday September 27, 2010 Mark and his wife added another addition to the world. A baby girl!

We just wanted to welcome baby Zoe and congratulate Mark and family on this wonderful event.

Cheers!

Hometown Sweethearts w/ John Popper- Folsom Prison

2010-09-25T23:50:00.002-05:00

I've been meaning to post this but kept forgetting. Our very own drummer Scott who is also in the band Hometown Sweethearts did a show where John Popper from Blues Traveller came and did a few songs with them.

What a difference a song placement makes

2010-08-15T21:08:00.001-05:00

As you may have seen on our homepage, our song "Hot Water Avalanche" from our 3rd album Solamente Tres Palabras was used by machinima.com for their video "10 Ways To Annoy In Alien Swarm"

Well it seems we've become the song for Alien Swarm videos as they've released another called "25 Ways To Die In Alien Swarm".

And the outcome from these posts has been kind of interesting.
First, we received some comments asking for a better audio YouTube version on an old video for the song that we have posted.

Next, another person followed through and posted a high quality audio only version. Which I thought was pretty cool.

Image via Wikipedia

But my favorite find so far is a strange video montage version with politician Peter Mandelson of the British Labour Party, using our song "I'm Doing Fine" from the same album.

Waiting to see what else pops up from all this. It's been fun to watch and can't wait to see what else people do with our songs in their videos.

If you see any others let us know!

Tom's creative commons music podcast - Music Manumit

2010-07-10T23:57:00.002-05:00

In my continued effort to raise awareness of the benefits of licensing music under creative commons, I've started, with Doug Whitfield (another creative commons and open source enthusiast) a talk/music podcast that showcases music that uses it.

Music Manumit: A podcast in 2 parts.

One podcast, just features music that we have discovered under creative commons license.
Like this one - Music Manumit-Music Only Podcast | 100706

The second podcast, we talk about how creative commons is being used by artists and the people who use it. And sometimes just online music in general.
One of the shows - Music Manumit Podcast - Hey That's My Stuff! | 100710 we talk with Pete Prodoehl, a photographer and musician who had one of his works used in the media without proper attribution.

Have a listen and if you have some creative commons music you'd like us to play send us the file using the soundcloud widget on the Music Manumit site.

Way Out There

2010-06-01T13:54:00.001-05:00

I finally did it. Got rid of the Gibson 335/Fender Pro reverb and replaced 'em with a Gibson 61 SG and Star Gain Star amp.

The amp is incredibly inspiring to play, and the sound is rich, robust, unique, and, did I say rich? When I first got it I was like 'whoa', and then I was all like 'WTF', as in, which sound should I use? There is such a wide variety of tones available. Finally I think i settled in on a high gain creamy grit for the main distorted sound, and the rest of the tones I need I can get with foot pedals on the clean channel.

This SG guitar is truly a treat. It seems to have riffs that just come out of it. Like they are trapped inside the guitar, and when I strap it on, I just release them. Waaay out dude? Not. Gotta see it to believe it.

Better yet, the new EP, due this summer, has these riffs all over it. When it comes out, take a listen, and then you can decide and tell me if I'm waaay out there, dude.

New EP in the works

2010-04-19T14:02:00.001-05:00

We've been working on a new EP and just wanted to let you know that we have 3 out of 5 songs written and ready to go.

We're hoping to have it ready for release sometime this June. So stay tuned for updates, netcasts, audio and more in the upcoming months.

Playing in the St. Patrick's Day Parade

2010-03-15T01:12:00.001-05:00

Bryan and I used to play in an Irish music band about 7 years ago. And they still call us back every year to play in the St. Patrick's day parade.

Most of the members have moved away and we just throw together musicians we can find to do it each year.

This time we found that our line-up was mostly Lorenzo's Music based, with Me (Tom), Bryan, Scott, Mark and our old bass player Chris Boeger.

It's always fun and very strange. Here's a Pope on stilts that came up to talk to us while we were waiting for the parade to start.

For fun we started playing "Do you think I'm Sexy" by Rod Stewart and the Pope on stilts was dancing and singing along. But by the time I got my camera out I had missed it.

Question: Do You Think Myspace Is Experiencing a Resurgence For Bands?

2010-02-22T13:00:00.003-06:00

I've noticed something recently... A slight resurgence at myspace.

We've used myspace since the beginning but as everyone knows it's slipped as the one stop shop for online friends and free indie music.

Case in point, the last couple of years we would get the occasional message or a post for someone else's page in our comments but thats about it. No new friends added or real conversations for quite some time. We still posted for the fans that were there so not to leave them out, but overall most communication was coming directly from our site or twitter or facebook.

But in the last couple of months we've been contacted on myspace about podcasts, music sharing and even started to get friend requests again (seriously it's been awhile). Which begs the question: Now that all the user noise has been moved to facebook is myspace more of a focus for music again?

Since most of the talk we've been having there is about music I feel that's the direction the site is heading again, but without the users will it work? You could get lost in all the users talk on their pages. But aren't they really the ones that make the difference for bands between their day to day posts?

I'm not stating this, I'm asking?

What do you think?

Add your thoughts in the comments below.

Some New Photos Added

2010-02-07T00:54:00.002-06:00

Cliff, Mark, Tom, originally uploaded by Lorenzo's Music.

We had a backlog of photos that Scott had taken and we thought we'd upload them.

There are some shots from our Halloween show at The Frequency with Mad Trucker Gone Mad, as well as some random shots of us in the studio recording. Scott also managed to throw in a pic of him at the aquarium.

You can check them out in our photos section or on our flickr page.