Lampshades

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My partner (Bill Veldran) and I worked with many bands over the years when we owned and ran Centour Sound. One year we produced over 350 shows by either having systems out, in which we had 3 complete PA systems or was managing a club or on tour with a band. That year Bill was touring Europe with Motorhead, I was doing weekends producing the shows and bands at the Mudd Club and all 3 PA systems where out with bands like Jelly, Insex, Tom Robinson among others that I can’t even or don’t want to remember. All of that in between playing with the Lampshades band – Talk about living, breathing and eating Rock N Roll, WE DID IT.

Literally it went something like this – getting up at 12 or 1 pm – working on the equipment, repairs etc. – on the phone booking systems with bands – loading up the vans with equipment –  leaving by 6 or 7 pm – setting up and doing a sound check –  eating a quick slice of pizza – mixing the bands to 2 or 3 am – breaking down the equipment – loading the vans – driving home and unloading the vans as the sun rises – catching  a few hours sleep and starting all over again.

Our crew, that we sent out daily and especially on the weekends on shows were Chris Connolly, Gerry Palumbo and whom ever else we could grab to set up and mix a band. A complete PA system consisted of a full 3 way speaker system (Bass, Mid and High end), monitors, an amplifier stack with crossovers, microphones mainly the work horses of Mic’s SM57’s and 58’s, a mic snake, mixing console, mic stands and cable’s, a Roland space echo and EQ’s and a lot of humping of equipment around all over the dam place. We particular got into a genre of reggae bands from Brooklyn that we were getting a lot of work from–one band that stands out was Burning Spear among other local reggae bands in the area. This part of the business was so interesting as we did do some many different types of bands and  music. In future blogs I will break down some of the shows Centour sound produced in detail – some fun facts and great stories.

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How do you write a song?                                                                                                            This has always been a question I get asked by many people. Some musicians will tell you it’s a long arduous process, some say it just comes to me or it’s in my head, some don’t have a clue. For me it’s the one in the middle, for the most part I either have an idea or hear a sound or sit down and bang out a riff on the Bass Guitar and start from there. It’s always been a free flowing process for me, sometimes it sounds great and I continue and sometimes it goes to the save file for a future development date. As I develop the foundation of the song, now my mind starts to go into overdrive for the different layers, melody, sounds and ornaments  I can add to the developing song. A guitar riff, a synthesizer sound, a percussion instrument, this is what I hear in my head as I listen to the new project over and over again. Sometimes I have lyric’s on the ready and develop the phrasing to those lyrics to go with the music, sometimes the lyric’s just come out as a natural progression to the song. In all of the above, I am consistently burning CD’s and on my drive to my day job (in which it takes me on average about an hour and a half to get to work) I listen to the developing song over and over and over again.

Think about it? A 3 minute song played in an hour and a half car ride is played approx 30 times –ONE WAY! The only problem I have with that is, I want to tweak the song right now, in which obviously isn’t going to happen. So I must store those tweaks, changes and additions in my puny little brain until I can get back in front of the mixing console. Thank God I have a good memory and Alzheimer’s hasn’t kicked in as of yet. Song projects has always come pretty easy for me and I can usually, not disturbed, write a song within a few hours. What takes the time after the song is written is the refinement of the song and mixing down of the project to make it all clear, balanced and worthy to release and to be proud of. Be it released to just me for my own listening pleasure or to you my friends and fans, I take pride in making a good song. I have so many songs in my repertoire that are experimental that I do not release, as snippets of those songs can be the beginnings, middle’s or ends to new projects and songs. I never throw anything out as it may fit in and or be used later on. Many times I’ll come back to a riff that I laid down months or years ago and say-“Shit”–this is great and start to develop it into a song. The creation of music is such a fulfilling joy and I can only hope that it will continue until I’m pushing dirt!

Hope you will agree!

 

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Now that we had the recording where do we go to press and get artwork for the cover? On Long Island at the time in 1981 there was a small record pressing company called PRI. They would do small run vinyl at about $1500 – small run to them was about 500 45’s. In which was pretty inexpensive considering the pressing and the cover sleeve print full 4 color press. Also when I went in to talk to them about the pressing, I figured let me ask them if all 4 songs could be pressed on a 45. Never thought that they would say yes as I never heard of a 45 with 4 songs, but as said they said “YES” so 4 songs on a 45 was going to happen. We hired a friend of a friend, a student artist Brain Patrick Murray to design the front cover for $50 and I took the picture for the back cover of a lampshade store in Franklin Square. Andy Blinx put the “Not Sold Separately” sign into the back cover picture and the lettering and credits. There you have it, the artwork was done for the sleeve cover.                                      Let the presses ROLL!

Go to the Music Drop-down

Click on Lampshades to Listen to the music from the 45! 

lampshade cover                                                               lampshade back cover

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Searching the world wide web for bands called the lampshades was eye opening! How many bands over time were called the Lampshades and will the true first band called The Lampshades please stand up! I found Lu Lu and the Lampshades out of England formed in or about 2009 – The Lampshades out of Altoona, PA started in or about 2003 – The Lampshades lounge comedy act sprang up, looks like around 2010 –  The Lampshades in Halifax, CA came into it’s own about 1998 – The Fabulous Lampshades out of Scotland look like 2011 – Lampshade out of Denmark Circa 2000 to 2009 – Aimee Mann and the Lampshades in 1988 – I have to assume there are more as I stopped searching after about 20 Google pages.

I will have to say that all The Lampshades out there have something in common – a quirky name that stands for outlandish deviant and creative behavior. I would say we are all in good company!

Our Band The Lampshades was out of the NEW YORK New wave Alternative Rock scene and started in 1978

Chime in all you Lampshades where-ever you are!

Looks like there is 8 in total named the Lampshades!