Hey Ladles and Jellyspoons

Just a quick note from this mad music-loving misfit (awww, come on, you know you guys love me!!) to let ya'll know that the divinely beautiful and talented Vicki Peterson (lead guitarist from The Bangles) will be releasing a CD with her new band The Lamps in mid-November according to the latest reports from Bangle Command Centre, namely http://www.thebangles.com/

****And the Lamps are preparing to heat up your fall with a mid-November drop date for their highly anticipated CD - check them out October 18th at Silverlake Lounge in Hollyweird!...****

http://www.myspace.com/lampshq

I just realised that Vicki and The Lamps are playing the same night as our good friend, Jon Peter Lewis...in two different locations. Hmmmm. In a way, I'm glad I live Down Under now as I would hate to have to choose between going to these two fantastic sounding shows. Even yours truly cannot be in two places at once, even if I could swim over to LA before the 18th which isn't likely, and besides, I'm afraid of sharks...

Don't look at me like that, you all saw Jaws, right...

Where was I? Oh right, at least I can look forward to both Jon's CD and The Lamps CD in November, and I already saw Vicki perform with The Bangles and the lovely and talented Abby Travis here last November, so I can feel only half-guilty for missing out on their shows this time.

Maybe Vicki and Jon can sneak out between songs and catch each other's shows...

Hey, I've seen how fast those LA cabs can drive in the movies, it could happen!

Cheers, Mikey

Thanks Mikey! Do you know anything about the name they chose for the band?

Hey Guys

There's been a news update about Vicki Peterson's band The Lamps if you're interested. As Belinda Carlisle once sang, and I'm paraphrasing, *leave a light on* for The Lamps - they are releasing their debut CD on November 14 (a week after Jon Peter Lewis' CD Stories From Hollywood is released). The Lamps album will be called Please Come Down, and you can read about it here on the band's MySpace:

blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendI...49-af1b-c998c5bf78aa


Cheers, Mikey



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From The Lamps MySpace Blog...

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****Latest LAMPS news - Autumn 2006

Our first CD, PLEASE COME DOWN, is due for release on November 14. It's about damn time. This is our bio/press release if interested...

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LAMPS are (basically) a group of musicians who came together inspired by a set of familiar musical experiences and a set of similar creative desires. Between the seven of them they have collaborated in some way or another in no less than eleven different bands. With five members in Los Angeles and two in New York they have managed to defy logistical difficulties and produce a four song EP entitled ..Please Come Down... Their goal was to write and record music that was noisily quiet. Or perhaps gracefully chaotic. Or even spaciously dense. With ..Please Come Down.. it looks like they have done just that.

Lamps.. central songwriters and first cousins, John Crooke and Dave Burris, enjoyed seven years, three record deals and five and a half albums as the creative force behind the moody North Carolina rock band Jolene. Burris had played with Squirrel Nut Zippers.. drummer Chris Phillips in the Chapel Hill Power Pop trio Grover and recruited him for a Jolene tour of the U.K. The venues on this tour were small and not well suited for the loud, full outbursts of sound Jolene had grown accustomed to delivering in the States. By way of accommodation, amp volume was reduced; brushes were used on the drums; and the low-end was realized in the composed cello of James Roven. Quiet, quietude and patience became elemental not only to the delivery of Crooke and Burris.. songs but also to their arrangement. And they liked it. A lot. It was under these circumstances that the idea for lamps was born (a few pints at an Edinburgh pub may have had some influence as well).

Cut to a couple of years later in Los Angeles where Burris, Crooke and Phillips had all relocated from the East Coast. Adjacent barstools once again played their part as the three of them convened in a Silverlake dive and decided that it was time to give this lamps thing a shot. Roven came in from NYC along with his violinist brother, Timothy (he had also toured with Jolene who knew him from his work with legendary Chapel Hill art-rockers What Peggy Wants -- Burris had also played with him in the Veldt). After a few demo sessions and a handful of shows it was a lock - Lamps had officially transformed themselves from an idea into a band. Rounding out the line-up was vocalist and bass player Vicki Peterson. She had recently moved back to L.A. from New Orleans to begin playing again with her band the Bangles. Vicki was an old friend and collaborator having played and sung with Jolene on two albums and countless live shows. They soon found that the sound they wanted would require both an additional rhythmic quality and a more deeply ambient melodic layer. Peele Wimberley of seminal southern jangle-popsters The Connells was then pressed into service, adding percussion and a variety of laptop generated keyboard tones, bells, whistles and random electronic noises. After many months of gigging in Hollywood and the Eastside of L.A. they finally began recording. The result is ..Please Come Down.. co- released by Austin..s Chicken Ranch Records and the band..s own Cienfuegos imprint.

With a backlog of recorded and written material waiting in the wings, it is the goal of lamps to release a series of EP..s over the upcoming months. Keep an eye out... if you would, please.****

Cheers, Mikey