I wrote the song “Rejoice Tonight” in 2006, for the first cd we released as St. Luke’s Church Contemporary Choir. Honestly, it was so thrown together that I didn’t have all of the sections, and had to have Ryan (was it Ryan? I think it was Ryan) play drums while I pantomimed where I guessed we would put the stops. Then I brought the tracks home and completely rewrote it anyway. Having said that, it’s been pretty popular over the years, and is still an absolute must-play on Christmas Eve. So I was psyched, and honored, to have it covered by the OLG Young Adult Choir from Hoboken, NJ. Led by Bill Turtle, this group released their first album, “Love’s Pure Light“, in November of 2019. It’s a wonderful mix of standards and contemporary music, and you should listen to it all year round. Why is Christmas music only for Christmas, anyway?
Tag: DJLB
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
If you love something, set it free. Or, y’know, don’t.
Some of my favorite bands/songwriters/composers:
Elvis Costello, Black Sabbath, Freddie King, Mozart, Thelonious Monk, The Monkees, The Go-Gos, Iron Maiden, Bill Lloyd, David Conte, Kenny Burrell, Telemann, Dave Brubeck, and about a million others. I was so incredibly fortunate that I was able to major in songwriting in college. It still feels like I won the lottery, just with tuition.
Since it’s my thing, I’ve written a bunch of songs for friends in the business, over the years. “Town Librarian” was meant for the great Professor Harp, “As The Sun Fell” and “That Look” for James Montgomery, the instrumental “Play This, Pete” for Neal Vitullo, as well as songs for Black and White, Ted Stevens, and Erik Narwhal. We did demos of most of them, some pretty elaborate. Imagine how gratifying it was to hear these amazing musicians play my songs! Seriously, you’ll have to imagine it, since I never actually gave them away when we were done. I have a problem letting go, it seems.
The good news is that most of these will be on the upcoming D.J. Lauria Band anthology, due out in November. Most of the artists named above are still performing (with the heartbreaking exception of Erik), so I’ll probably contact them all to say, “Hey, I wrote you a song twenty years ago. Wanna hear it?” At this rate, I might get one of them recorded before I pay off my student loans.
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:
- Were those songs released digitally?
No. - 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. - 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. - 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. - 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!
Public Therapy
“Public Therapy” b/w “What Is It About You?” was the final released single by the D.J. Lauria Band, and had a harder-edged sound than our earlier releases. The title tune is about talk radio, and how it was poisonous to public discourse. HAHAHAHAHA Twitter is laughing at me now. Old friend (and professor, may he rest in peace) Henry Gaffney raised a few sarcastic questions the first time he heard the mix-down: “kind of a long guitar solo, don’t you think? Well, you know your audience, I guess.” Then, later: “what’s up with all the French? Isn’t this a rock song?”
“What Is It About You?” has so much that I love: exaggerated lyrics, big guitar solo, intro in 7/4 time for no reason… Also, for some reason John S., in full Dr. Seuss mode, managed to convince a lot of people that the title was “What is it, a balue?” THAT’S HOW YOU MAKE HITS, KIDS.
Originally released on cassingle, C&D Records catalog #48-218. Currently unavailable, unless you ask for one really nicely.
