Trip to Master

Just thought I'd post something about the trip Mark and I took to Mastermind Productions in Milwaukee to master the new CD. Everything turned out great in the hands of Trevor and you can hear the difference in the audio section compared to what we had there before.

Lot o' stuff hap'nin'

So first, after what seems forever, "Solamente Tres Palabras" is being pressed right now and will be for sale on our site later this week.

Second, the past couple of weeks Mark has been recording the band Kingfinger (our old guitarist Brandon Krueger plays with the band as well) at his studio and I was called in to do back-up vocals and harmonies. So be sure to check out their new CD when it comes out.

Tom with Mike Nelson and Kevin Murphy of MST3K

Tom and sons with Mike Nelson and Kevin Murphy of MST3K.

I admit it. I am a geek. And I love it. Not only do I collect comic books, have a basement full of toys and action figures still in their boxes, I also own almost every episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 including when they started out on KTMA a small station in Minneapolis. And this weekend Kevin Murphy (Tom Servo) and Mike Nelson (Mike Nelson) were the emcees at my wife's theater for the Bill Rebane Film Festival.

Solamente Tres Palabras - Finished!

The recording of “Solamente Tres Palabras” is now complete and going to press this week. What a recording it is! We started the record a year ago, and it was tentatively going to be called “Mondays at DNA”, mostly because we were all meeting at the studio on monday nights and laying tracks. An album takes a LONG time when you only work on it a day a week...We tried a lot of recording techniques with this one, and experimented more with sounds and methods. Some tracks were tracked live as a group to analog tape, some were multitracked and overdubbed a bit (!) and some unorthodox drums were used (that’s a huge locker and old garbage can, the kind with the swinging chrome lid, on HOT WATER AVALANCHE, just to mention one differential).

We all worked really hard at it. It is a Lorenzo album for sure.

A list of some of the equipment used, just for kicks: OTARI MTR 90 II; Cubase SX; ProTools TDM; ProTools HD (the album spanned an upgrade at the studio); Vegas Pro; MCI jh636; TAC Matchless; Neve 1173; Vintech 1173; API 550; Nuemann u47, U87; AKG 414; Neumann 184, TLM 103; Audio Technica 4033; Royer Ribbon Mics; BeyerDynamic Ribbon Mics; Universal Audio 2-610 Pre’s; Summit TPA-200 Pre’s; Focusrite Pre; Daking Mic Pre’s; Vox AC30; Fender Pro Reverb; Fender Deluxe; Fender Stratocaster; Gibson SG; Gibson Les Paul Voodoo; Simon and Patrick Acoustic; Gibson ES135; Slingerland 1960 Drums; Ludwig 1961 Drums; Mapex, Slingerland, Ludwig snares; Fender P-Bass; 1970’s Ernie Ball Music Man bass; TubeTech compressor; Urei 1176; an awesome carved German upright; some other cool ass basses, but i forget the names; Akai MPC 200xl; among others...

This is a cool sounding record, and I hope that you all pick it up.

Glad to take it to the presses and moving on to a live performance mode, look for Lorenzo’s Music in your neck of the woods this year. Join the mailer and keep posted.

Downtime Funtime

No real news to speak of.
Mark and I are working on some new songs and just trying to finish the new album to go to print. We are shooting for next week to go to press (which we've been saying for a month now.) Plus, we are trying to set up some shows this summer with The Selfish Gene and The Infinity Room which, if it happens, will rule.

Cliff Hammer Is Sitting In this weekend

Chris Boeg'r is in Arizona promoting a funny movie he's involved with (N.B.T.), and he can't play this weekend's shows, so our ol' pal Cliff Hammer (Monovox)is filling in for the shows. Thanks Cliff.

Where've ya been?

So the question I've been asked the most recently is "where have you guys been the last couple of years?" So let me try and fill you in on what's been hap'nin''.

On August 4, 2001 we played our last show at our drummer, Scott Beardsley's then girlfriend's sisters wedding. At the time we had a six piece band. Our guitarist at the time Brandon Krueger was working on doing the soundtrack for the film "Making Revolution" with Mark Whitcomb who was our bass player at the time engineering the soundtrack for his studio he had started DNA Studios. Then Brandon was going to move to California to pursue his law career.

Mark and Scott at the same time had the opportunity to go on tour as the back up band for Ivan Klipstein.

Our horn section was leaving as well.
David Jorgensen our trumpet player was moving to Portland, OR with the band Rm. 101
And our sax player Lucius Corr was moving to Canada to be a Doctor.

Me, Tom the singer, I had nothin'

Coincidentally, that same night of our last show. The actor Lorenzo Music who was the inspiration for the name (due to my love of classic TV and cartoons) died that same night. Weird, huh?

Anyway, few years passed I had played with many different people but nothing got off the ground. The whole time I was writing new songs. Then the guitarist who I was working with, Evan Gruzis moved to L.A. to promote his art.

Then a year or two ago, Mark called me out of the blue and invited me to an open jam he was hosting at a club in downtown Madison. So I decided to stop on down and see how he was doing. We got to talking and he asked me if I was still writing music. He told me he wanted to start playing guitar instead of bass and I needed a guitarist so we got together.

After that Scott was on board to do drums and he had been working with Chris Boeger as a rhythm section in several other bands and asked him to play bass. And the rest is, as they say, "is history".