MP3 Lonnie Lazar - Save Yourself
This is Rock & Roll: big vocals, loud guitars, slinky keys and rock solid bottom; turn it up and dance.
11 MP3 Songs
ROCK: Classic Rock, POP: Power Pop
Details:
What happens when a lil'' ol'' boy from Memphis grows up on rock radio, melts his mind, travels the world, bumps into his Buddha nature, and then hooks up with a band that loves to jam? Lonnie Lazar and the Vaporizers, that''s what.
"We''re not really a jam-band," Lonnie says of the San Francisco-based Vaporizers. "We love plain old rock n'' roll songs too much to give ''em up. But in the context of a good song, we definitely like to stretch out and let the jamming unfold."
That combination of solid songwriting and adventurous jamming has been getting Lonnie Lazar and the Vaporizers gigs at Ashkenaz, the Sweetwater Saloon and the High Sierra Music Festival.
The Vaporizers feature the guitar wizardry of Steve Gibson, best known as the man behind the curtain at BandWorks, the premier school of rock and roll in the East Bay. Also featured is drummer Elton Bradman, former rhythm king of Animal Liberation Orchestra and the Pickle Family Circus. Rounding out the lineup is a brother team from New York - Stuart Fishman on rhythm guitar and Ricky Fishman on bass. San Francisco native Robin Woodland plays keyboards and directs the flow of musical traffic.
Lonnie Lazar first caught the rock ''n roll bug in 1985, and spent the next two years on stage with bar-bands all across Europe and Asia. Landing back in hometown Memphis, Lonnie spent 1988-89 screaming white boy blues and fishing songs from Beale Street to the North Point as the front-man for Live Bait, a serious contender on the southern blues/rock circuit at the time. From 1989-92, Lonnie took it up a notch with The Mules, cult favorites of the Memphis bar scene, whose live recordings still circulate among the faithful.
In 1992, Lonnie got bit by another bug - a love affair with California. Moving west to San Francisco inspired a new devotion to songwriting, and he road-tested his craft in local clubs for the next few years. The result was his first cd - Save Yourself - produced in 1999 by Nashville veteran, Rusty McFarland.
The angels of rock smiled upon our boy from Memphis once again, when he bumped into a Bay Area band looking for a singer with songs. In 2002, Lonnie Lazar and the Vaporizers was born. "One of the great things about this band is that we''re all grown men," Lonnie explains. "We''ve all been through our rock star fantasy phase, and now we play for the fun of it - pure and simple. That''s what makes it such a joy to play with these guys."
You can sample the fun on their new self-released cd - Take Root 1.0 - available at https://www.tradebit.com.