Category: Blog

Didn’t I used to have a band?!

As I’ve assembled my discography for this new web site, I’ve been ignoring an obvious problem: none of the music recorded by D.J. Lauria Band is currently available for sale or streaming, anywhere. That’s a whole decade of my life, missing like the conscience of an investment banker. I’ve been putting off dealing with it for ages, but how hard would it be to fix, really? Thanks for asking! Here’s a Q and A:

  1. Were those songs released digitally?
    No.
  2. But the were mastered digitally, I’ll bet!
    Actually, yes they were. To DAT, or digital tape. Of course DAT is a format supported by literally no one, not even Sony, WHO INVENTED IT, since 2005.
  3. Didn’t you back it all up?
    Sure, but… CD-ROMs from twenty years ago are often full of errors, or don’t load at all, or were written in a proprietary format that hasn’t been compatible with a functioning computer since Windows XP was a tiny, crying, cyber-baby.
  4. You knew that someday Sonic RecordNow would ruin your life, didn’t you?
    Yes. And so did you, if you ever used it, even once.
  5. With all of the cassettes, CDs, DATs, and even Zip disks (!) in your basement studio, did you at least have all of the material?
    Stuff was just plain missing. It took ages to track down our 1994 demos from Lakewest, so I was thrilled when I discovered that the case was empty. There was a cute drawing on the cover, though, so there’s that.

I’m committed to making these songs available, for the five or six people who would still care to hear them (Hi Mom!). Follow this blog for details on the restoration and detective work, and maybe even some giveaways!

I can see for miles, if I wear bifocals

Was it Halloween on Sunday? I could swear I saw the reanimated corpse of Pete Townsend at the Super Bowl.

Was it Halloween on Sunday?  I could swear I saw the reanimated corpse of Pete Townsend at the Super Bowl.

I was once a fan of The Who for many reasons:  “The Who Sell Out” was an ahead-of-its-time look at the confluence of art and marketing; “Who’s Next” was a collection of songs so breathtaking that I grew up thinking it was a greatest hits collection; Rock opera is an absurd concept on its face, but they went for it anyway; and, not least, they had an attitude so aggressive that they were the only classic rock band the punk movement embraced.  But unlike the Stones, who at least make an attempt at relevance by putting out a new cd each time they tour (a terrible cd, to be sure, but new) the Who haven’t been a functioning band since 1982, at best.  Trotting out the oldies as a ‘safe’ choice for the entertainment at the halftime show would likely have made young Townsend want to smash something, a guitar probably.

Of course, we’re the morons for even allowing them to call this “The Who”.  Why are people so desperate in their nostalgia that they will pay obscene ticket prices to see a few (or a couple) of the musicians from a band they loved when they were kids pretend to play the same old songs, while the musicians in the back carry them?  (See Eagles, CSN, Billy Joel, et al.)  It would have been GREAT if they had played “My Generation”.  By embracing the irony they could have flipped us off, hilariously, something that band was the best at once upon a time.  “I hope I die before I get old,” Daltry would have sung, thinking, “Moon and Entwistle DID die, and none of you idiots even noticed.  Here we are shoving crap in your ears, letting our kids do the actual playing, and you all cheer because you remember how ‘Teenage Wasteland’ made you feel thirty-five years ago.  And that’s NOT EVEN THE NAME OF THE SONG.” Instead, the crowd just sang along to the other hits, unthinkingly, and Pete sold a ton of “Pinball Wizard” downloads on iTunes today.  Would “The Who Sell Out” refer to artistic integrity today, or just to the fact that there’s never an empty seat?