Tag: album

New Old Stock

Here’s the formal press release for the new album! There might be some info here that you don’t already know, or maybe it’s just me talking about myself too much. Why not both, I guess…

David (D. J.) Lauria spent over twenty years as a performing musician in the New England area: writing, recording, touring, teaching, and gigging with many area acts. In the 90s, his D. J. Lauria Band released several singles, and one CD called Satellite Pictures, but many of their most popular songs only existed in the air at the bars, clubs, and theaters they played from Portland, ME to Philadelphia, PA. His new album New Old Stock is an attempt to finally bring some of those great songs to the general public.
Straight-up rock and roll tracks like “Seen This Episode Before” and “My Beatle Paul” (which, coming from a noted Georgie, is NOT about McCartney) mix with more introspective songs like the haunting “Indecision”, featuring local singer-songwriter Casey Ruth Little. “How Does It Feel To Be a National Joke”, which was previously released in a very different arrangement on Live at CBGB, turns the cliché that there’s no such thing as bad publicity on its head. Meanwhile, “When It All Falls Down” is the interior monologue of a scammer, and “Sketch Artist”, a funky piece originally written for James Montgomery (for whom Lauria sometimes played guitar), is a singalong with a killer extended guitar solo.
This modern version of the DJLB, with Lauria’s son Jacob on drums, has brought their no frills rock aesthetic to the modern age. New Old Stock is named for the forgotten guitars in the warehouse, aged to perfection but never played. It’s finally time to take these classics out into the light and crank the volume.

—
David Lauria’s love of teaching led him to his second career, as a public school educator, and he currently teaches chorus, digital audio, guitar, and songwriting at Mt. Hope High School in Bristol, RI. With his students, he has started the Mt. Hope Music platform, and they have released two full albums (with a third on the way) and several singles. He also led the CCM band Listen Above, and currently plays with By George! (a tribute to George Harrison) and Topaz.

My Beatle Paul

I was ironically delighted by this article, as it seemed to reinforce all of my personal gripes about how Gen X youth culture was covered, so I wrote this song to bookmark the moment.

First, the obvious thing. This song is not about Paul McCartney. It’s a little bit about how Baby Boomers view everything in the world only through the lens of their own experiences. Doesn’t matter what it is or who did what, what matters is how it affected them, and this is never more true than when discussing art and music. Unfortunately for the rest of us, The Beatles represent a cultural milestone that does actually belong to their generation. Like so many other things, this is a fact of which they have never been too tired to remind us.

Let me start again.

Rolling Stone Magazine was an insufferable mess by the mid-1980s. It oozed with a nostalgia that its readers would never acknowledge (here is where I point out that even now a Boomer would never admit to listening to oldies. Their half-century-plus-old music is “classic rock”). Their writers clearly felt an obligation to translate current trends into something that would make sense to the thirty-somethings who were their main advertising targets, and who, thanks to their embrace of the emperor-with-no-clothes Ronald Reagan, were finding themselves with plenty of social services funding cuts money to spend.

Welp. Take 3.

There was an album review in RS that referred to the Replacements as The Rolling Stones for Gen X, and pitted them against REM as their/our Beatles. This made no sense to anyone who understood anything about these bands, or music (although, to be fair, the Mats probably gave the Stones a run for their money on the substance abuse front). I was ironically delighted by this article, as it seemed to reinforce all of my personal gripes about how Gen X youth culture was covered, so I wrote this song to bookmark the moment. It does all of the following:

  • It casts Paul Westerberg as McCartney. This is fine, actually
  • It flips the Rolling Stone narrative and makes the Replacements into the Beatles. No one else in the world would care about this except me
  • It rips off the premise of the Mats song “Alex Chilton”. I assume Paul would despise it, but in my defense, The Posies did this already with “Grant Hart” so I feel like I’m on solid ground here
  • Circular references! Why would they “start hanging ‘round with Big Stars” if not Alex Chilton in the first place?
  • The rhythm guitar parts might was well be Keith and Ronnie, so we’re ripping off the Stones while all this is going on
  • Easter Eggs! That mandolin bit might be from “I Will Dare”, I dunno

We played this song at our live shows for years and it was always fun, even if no one had any idea what I was going on about. I’m thrilled to have it finally available. If anyone out there can find a link to the Rolling Stone review that caused this mess in the first place, please message me. I need to know that this isn’t all a decades-old hallucination.

Live at CBGB

Even for the time (1997) it was an old camera/VCR setup, and the video quality in a dingy, poorly-lit club was beyond bad. You had to bring a VHS tape and $20 in cash to get the sound engineer to hit record at that start of your set. On the plus side, though, sound was straight off the board and they took that part pretty seriously. Besides, it was CBGB, and we had no idea that we would continue to play there, so we really wanted a keepsake for that first show.

Considering how unlike the other bands we were, I something think that maybe this was the most punk thing we ever did: going to CBGB and playing a straight rock set in 1997. Clearly, the ska/DMB crowd had no idea what to do with us, but they were gracious about it, regardless. We got the recording, watched it once, then didn’t think about it again for years. John A. ended up with it and brought it to Oregon when he moved, where it ended up in a box in his basement. He sent it to me around 2010 and I promised to digitize it, so of course I threw it in a closet and forgot about it myself. When I finally dug it out in early 2023, it had problems: dropouts on the tape where the sound and video just disappeared. After some painstaking editing in Reaper all the songs were whole again and we realized that this was an album that deserved to be heard.

I only noticed it as I was putting the album together in March, but the set list inadvertently tells a story with the titles:
Partners – We’re really not. Yikes, things are going bad, fast
Day Before We Met – It’s over. Remember how we felt at the beginning, though?
Huddleston Pond – Watching the people in a park on a summer day, trying to forget about it for an afternoon at least
How Does It Feel To Be a National Joke? – Everyone needs to stop talking about what happened. Except me, obviously
Time That I Forgot – For the love of Mike get up off the floor, already
Public Therapy – Please stop oversharing. Please?
Seen This Episode Before – DON’T GO BACK DON’T DO IT NOOOOO

The DJLB was a great live band and I’m so excited to be able to share a small piece of that history. Now if we could just get the video cleaned up…

Buy/listen online
iTunes Amazon Spotify YouTube

Cover image of band with guitarist looking at ceiling

From the Inside, Out

“From the Inside, Out” is the first full-length album released by Mt. Hope Music, the catch-all for music published by our high school groups. Each of the songs were recorded at home, during the pandemic of 2020, and almost every one of the seniors in that year’s Vocal Ensemble took a turn out front, singing a solo. It’s a testament to these students and their hard work that this ended up being an eclectic, yet enjoyable, collection of music. The video for “You Love”, which was directed by Mark Bettencourt, was very popular in Rhode Island, and was used as the theme song for a fundraiser for the homeless and underprivileged, who were affected so terribly by COVID-19.
Read the blog for the behind-the-scenes story of the making of this album!

Buy/listen online
iTunes Amazon Spotify YouTube
The choral arrangement for “You Love” is available from JW Pepper and SheetMusicPlus.

Artwork by Colby Dagwan Santos
  1. You Love (Mt. Hope Vocal Ensemble)
  2. Wayfaring Stranger (Colby Dagwan Santos)
  3. Boy in the Gallery (Sam Lima)
  4. Sidewalks of New York (Georgia MacDougall)
  5. O Promise Me (Olivia Vezina)
  6. Give My Regards to Broadway (Jenna Goulart)
  7. Skye Boat Song (Nicole Black)
  8. Senior Year (Jenna Goulart)
  9. A135 (Produced by Chip Guerriero)
  10. Just Us (Produced by Rob DaCosta)
  11. You Love – A Cappella (Mt. Hope Vocal Ensemble)

Instruments
Drums – Jacob Lauria
Clarinet on “Boy in the Gallery” – Nicole Contente
Sax on “Give My Regards to Broadway” – Logan Lemay

“You Love” copyright © 2020 David J. Lauria (BMI)
“Senior Year” copyright © 2020 Jenna Goulart
“A135” copyright © 2020 David J. Lauria (BMI)/Chip Guerriero
“Just Us” copyright © 2020 Robert DaCosta

Atlantis, At Last

Atlantis, At Last is the collected set of recordings by D. J. Lauria Band from 1993-2000. It brings together several cassette singles, the Satellite Pictures album, a few unreleased tracks, and assorted demos. It’s not even close to containing all of the music from that time period; we closed up shop just as it became cost-effective to record your own releases. Still, it’s great to finally have it memorialized, if for no other reason than that my kids will believe I once actually had a band.

Buy/listen online
iTunes Amazon Spotify YouTube

Song info, in chronological order:
Original demos and the “Barn Owl” single
Recorded Jan-Apr 1993 at Lakewest Studios, West Greenwich, RI.
Engineered by Jack Gauthier
“Belinda”:
Drums – Mike Stamp, Jr.
Bass – Todd Stiles
All other instruments/vocals – DJL
Barn Owl”, “Top Cat”, “Town Librarian”, “House With Yellow Shutters”:
Drums – John Andrade, Jr.
All other instruments – DJL
Belinda was originally recorded with the Ted Stevens Band for their self-titled cassette release in 1992. We kept the drum and bass tracks for this demo, and re-recorded all of the rest.
More info on the “Barn Owl” single

Live to DAT and the “Time That I Forgot” single
Recorded Feb 1994 at Lakewest
“Time That I Forgot”, “Previous Engagement”, “As The Sun Fell”, “Play This, Pete”, “Actual Condition”, “All I Need”:
Bass – Todd Stiles
Drums – John Andrade, Jr.
All other instruments – DJL
More info on the “Time That I Forgot” single

“Another One Like Me”
Recorded May 1994 at Celebration Sounds, Pawtucket, RI
Engineered by a recording class, for practice (!)
Bass – John Sundström
Drums – John Andrade, Jr.
All other instruments – DJL

Satellite Pictures sessions
Recorded Sep 1996 at Lakewest
“Day Before We Met”, “Emergency Stop”, “Huddleston Pond”:
Bass/vocals – John Sundström
Drums/vocals – John Andrade, Jr.
All other instruments – DJL
More info on the “Satellite Pictures” album

Public Therapy single
Recorded Sep 1997 at The Music Grind
Engineered by J. Brien
“What Is It About You”, “Public Therapy”:
Bass/vocals – John Sundström
Drums/vocals – John Andrade, Jr.
All other instruments – DJL
More info on the “Public Therapy” single

“Christmas Morning, 5:00AM”
Home recording from Dec 1999. Remastered for this release, 2019
Bass/vocals – John Sundström
Drums/vocals – John Andrade, Jr.
All other instruments – DJL
I wrote and recorded a demo version of this for Mike Davidson’s All Star Christmas, Vol II (with Mike on drums) the year before. This was the first song I ever engineered at home, and it was a mess, so I’m particularly happy to have this remixed version ready for the twenty-year anniversary!

“Show Me An Angel”
Home recording from 2001. Remastered for this release, 2019
Bass – Sean Finnerty
Drums – John Andrade, Jr.
All other instruments – DJL