From the TEST DRIVE RAW album
Life is Short – Music and lyrics performed by Al B.
New Wave Music
An Aldo Holiday Wish
onI wish everyone a very Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays with the wish of Good Health, Good Fortune and lot’s of great music to listen to!
Here are two song’s for your Holiday listening pleasure!!!
Jingle Bells
Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas Sung by my Daughter Rebecca
Keith Haring at the Mudd Club
onI remember Keith at the Mudd Club. The club had a few floors, the basement was where the bands would be hanging out before they were going on stage. The first floor was where the bar, stage and dance floor presided, the 4th floor was an art gallery in were I first met Keith. At the time he wasn’t really a known commodity as of yet, but a hell of a nice mild mannered guy. My partner Bill and I used to go up to the 4th floor to hang out between bands or just to get away from the level of noise and craziness that was on the bottom floors. For the most part, unless there was some in-prompt to event going on it was seemingly quiet on that floor. We used to hang with Keith and talk, were he came from, how did he get to New York City, when did he get into art, his likes and dislikes and so on. One time we were kidding around with Keith and Bill asked him to draw a dog humping on a napkin. I asked Bill if he still had it, he said he would have to look as it was a long time ago and who would know that Keith would be an Icon in the art world after he died in 1990 of HIV/AIDS at the age of 31. If Bill finds the napkin, I will post it.
Some comets traverse the universe and come back around for a few spins around the sun, and some comets just burn out way to soon and leave behind a tail of stardust to admire and wonder, “what if.”
My Father’s Place
onMy Father’s Place, Roslyn (Long Island) New York
This was one of our local clubs that shuttered in 1987 – My Band the Lampshades played there, if i remember correctly in 1984 among many other bands I worked with and played with. There was also a club right across the street called the Little Club that we also played at in which was a very small place thus the name, ‘”The Little Club”.
I am always a little dubious about trying to reincarnate an iconic club, for some reason it never can capture the way it was before and most of the time it’s more about the people that were there at that time and space then the place itself. I really hope it works out for them as we need new progressive venues that cater to indie bands and music to be showcased. God knows there isn’t many of them around.
I copied the article below
My Father’s Place, the legendary club that brought the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Bob Marley, the Ramones and U2 (The Lampshades -LOL)to Roslyn until it closed in 1987, will rock once again next spring. Michael “Eppy” Epstein, who founded the club on Bryant Avenue in 1971, confirmed Monday that he had signed an agreement to reopen the club in The Roslyn Hotel. “I want to do stuff that no one else is doing,” Epstein said. “I want to give people a live music experience unlike anything else on Long Island.” My Father’s Place at The Roslyn Hotel will feature both a supper club with a capacity of 200 for established national acts and an upscale restaurant with a capacity for 60 that will have a small stage for up-and-coming artists. Once renovations are completed, Epstein said he expects to present more than 150 shows a year in the space. And he plans to call on acts who played at the original My Father’s Place early in their careers — from Sting to Billy Crystal — to see if they want to come back to do something special at My Father’s Place at The Roslyn Hotel. Epstein also hopes that fans of the old club will return. “It’s a continuation of the business,” Epstein said. “If you were 18 when you went to My Father’s Place, you’re 50-something or 60-something now and you want a place with a nice tablecloth, a nice chair and an intimate concert performance.” Epstein said the new venue will be a joint venture with The Roslyn Hotel’s new owners and outside investors.
I hope they can capture the magic once again that was, “MY FATHER’S PLACE”
GOOD LUCK!
More Centour Sound
onMy 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.
How do you write a song?
onHow 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!
Test Drive – Getting some “HOT “play oversea’s!
onMy CD, “Aldo Buzzi -Test Drive RAW” has gotten some good Radio airplay and is getting some notice oversea’s. Countries like Japan, Israel, Australia, Philippines and Taiwan are leading the way with many plays and downloads. Here in North America, the United States is leading the way and I would personally like to thank everyone in the states for listening and downloading my music with Canada and Mexico right behind the US and getting some great play with Test Drive.
Go to the below links to listen and download
https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/aldobuzzi
http://www.jango.com/music/Aldo+Buzzi
Available for download on iTunes, Spotify, Amazon Music, Jango Radio
Old Band Mates Re-Connected
onFinding some of my old band mates, as I have lost contact with them over the years, has been a new pursuit of mine in the past few years. With the use of social media, I have been able to track down a few of them. I have re-connected with Gary Sabshon the last drummer from the Lampshades-in which I was able to go over to his house and jam it up a bit. Although compared to him, (he’s been playing all the time) I was a bit on the rusty side, but fun never the less.
I have recently this year have been able to re-connect with a band mate from the Vinyl Flesh Band, Joe “Z” World (Joe Menghini). He currently lives in Florida, he is a very accomplished artist and still plays and writes music at a prolific clip. Go to Pinterest.com link to see some of his art work: https://in.pinterest.com/guitarizt/ “Z” and I have been trading music clips and stay tuned for an upcoming CD I’m working on that will have a collaboration of music from “Z” and myself. Don’t currently have a photo of “Z” now–but here is a picture of him then!
I have also been able to get in contact with Gary Citro (Keyboards), Pete Fagiola (Drums & Percussion) 2 of the original members of The Lampshades and Chris Connolly one of the drummers from Vinyl Flesh. Gary is a music school teacher, I think Pete owns a restaurant and still play’s and composes, Chris is an avid bike rider!
Here are some current pictures of Gary, Pete and Chris Connolly:
Have not been able to re-connect with Ken Kern whom I really miss, as he is a hell of a guitar player and just a sweetheart!
Also another band mate, that sorry to say has passed away Any Blinx.
The Beginnings of Centour Sound
onAs I started on my musical journey, what is the first things that happen? Obvious answer, is being a musician you need to buy equipment -DUH! Well at 16 when I really embarked on my journey the first things purchased were a Fender Precision Bass Guitar (with a “C” neck) and an SVT amplifier with a double stack 15″ JBL speakers. Then in the next 3 to 4 years I started to accumulate other equipment odd’s and ends. A SM 58 microphone, a few mic stands, a small 8 channel Tascam mixing board, Mic cords a Mic snake, etc, etc, etc.. Before you know it I had enough for a small but serviceable PA system that we could use in my home studio (or should I say My parents house) GOD BLESS THEM! Yes God bless them for putting up with years of banging and loud music while they sat in the living room below my so called studio with the TV on 10 so they can drown out the noise, I mean music-My parents were the best! Then came our first Lampshades show. It was in my high school, Mineola, New York in which I had already graduated a few years before but 2 of the Band members, Gary and Pete were in their senior year and got us the gig to play for the senior group. As said above, I had enough equipment for a small PA system and brought in everything the day before the show to this fairly large school auditorium. So we set up for a sound check and quite frankly it did not sound very good as we really did not have enough equipment to accommodate the space and the mixing board only had the 8 channels. Four of the channels were used for vocal mic’s and we only had 4 left for the drums, bass guitar, keyboards and lead guitar–ugh! – not nearly enough to cover. I can’t remember how it happened, I know John Kessler had some equipment to lend us and we either purchased or was lent the additional mixer that gave us another 12 channels. The next day when we did the show I distinctly remember one of the teachers that heard our sound check the day before comment how good it sounded verses the day before sound check. It still took another couple of years for Centour Sound to fully be up and running with getting a friend involved , Bill Veldran, who became the co-owner of Centour Sound.
More to come on Centour Sound…….
Aldo Buzzi Music 
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