Lucas Van Lenten

Lucas Van Lenten

Musical History?

I started out on cello and trumpet as a youngster but any aptitude for those instruments quickly faded. When I was in high school, I got a Casio CZ-101 keyboard, because I liked synthy pop music and had some idea that I would magically know how to play when I got it in my hands. I was very wrong. My next purchase was a Peavey guitar and a delay pedal. I spent the next year learning and playing the string-scraping middle section in “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” by Bauhaus, the intro to “Rescue” by Echo & the Bunnymen and the riff to either “Rock Lobster” or “The Peter Gunn Theme” – I can’t remember which and they may be the same thing anyway. Somehow I kept at the guitar, despite a limited attention span and atrocious technique. When my bike got stolen, a year out of high school, I used the insurance money to buy a 4-track, which started my obsession with writing songs and recording.

Any bands/artists you’ve played with in the past?

None that you’ve heard of, but: The Railbirds and Discotéca in San Francisco, The Mittens and Death Ray Vision in Austin, TX, The Westport Sunrise Sessions and Duchess in NY. I was also a backup singer in a Reggae/Punk band for literally about 3.5 minutes in Washington D.C. in the 80’s. The irony of singing a song called “Poseur” while 5 Rastafarians stared me down with disdain was totally lost on me at the time.

5 (er, 7) records that changed your life?

Pharaoh Sanders “Live at the East”

A friend was playing this on his stereo one day and it instantly connected with me on a soulfully deep level and opened the door into free jazz. Lyrical, spiritual, noisy, deeply groovy, and just plain awesome – 2 bassists, horns, a mess of chanting and percussion, and only 3 songs, it’s both ecstatic and cathartic, beautiful and scary.

1969: Velvet Underground Live

Lou Reed sounds about as laid back as possible during the in-between songs banter, but the energy and focus of the band is razor-sharp. Recorded after John Cale left the band, the relentless, primal drumming of Moe Tucker and the churning, yearning guitars of Lou Reed and Sterling Morrison keep things absolutely riveting, even in the slow numbers. An incendiary, 9 minute version of “What Goes On” convinced me that less is more, a lesson I’m still trying to absorb many years later.

Sly & the Family Stone “There’s a Riot Goin’ On”

This album sounds so completely messed-up and doped-out but it’s because of, not in spite of, those things that it’s such a masterpiece. Claustrophobically dense, with Sly’s vocals weaving in and out of abstraction, drums and primitive drum-machine rhythms living side-by-side, percolating keyboards, guitars, bass and occasional horns and it’s all just so achingly, humanly funky and always on the verge of flying apart at the seams.

The Flaming Lips “Clouds Taste Metallic”

I’m not sure what to say about this record except that it’s probably better than anything you listened to today. If you only know the Lips from the Soft Bulletin and beyond, you are missing out on some of the most beautifully damaged psychedelic noise-pop music ever made.

Adam & the Ants “Dirk Wears White Sox”

My friend Mike Cassidy turned me on to this and R.E.M.‘s Chronic Town E.P. in junior high school. It was probably the the first “alternative” music that I ever heard and it probably altered the course of my life in some way. It has very little in common with Adam Ant’s later pop-dandy confections. It’s full of strange, arty, idiosyncratic songs about Fascism, Futurism, Sado-Masochism, and car trouble, with very creative and compelling parts and arrangements by guitarist/producer Marco Pirroni.

Run-D.M.C. “Run-D.M.C.”

The first rap (they didn’t call it hip-hop back then) album I ever bought. It sounds a little dated now but for a year or so back in the 80’s, this (and Whodini and The Fat Boys) were blowing up my walkman and expanding my universe.

Led Zeppelin “Led Zeppelin II”

I’m not sure how this one ended up in my mother’s record collection – I doubt she ever listened to it. All I know is that when I finally got around to setting the needle down in that crackly vinyl groove, nothing was ever the same again. I remember telling a close friend in high school that I liked Led Zeppelin more than anyone else possibly could, even though he was obsessed with them too. How did I know this? Because it’s true.

Bonus Round:

• Echo & the Bunnymen “Crocodiles”
• Public Enemy “Fear of a Black Planet”
• Django Reinhardt “Verve Jazz Masters”
• Califone “Room Sound”
• Harry Nilsson “Nilsson Schmilsson”
• Kraftwerk “Radioactivity”
• The Who “Who’s Next”
• Eric Satie “The Early Piano Works”
• Bob Marley “Survival”
• My Morning Jacket “At Dawn”
• Neil Young “On The Beach”
• Yaz “Upstairs at Eric’s”
• The Jazz Butcher “A Scandal in Bohemia/Sex and Travel”
• Quasimoto “Further Adventuers Of Lord Quasimoto”
• Pavement “Wowee Zowee”
• The Kinks “Muswell Hillbillies”
• Miles Davis “Miles Smiles”
• Grace Jones “Classic Grace Jones”
• D’Gary “Malagasy Guitar”
• Neutral Milk Hotel “In An Aeroplane Over The Sea”
• The Rolling Stones “Sticky Fingers”
• The Specials “The Specials”
• Bob Dylan “Desire”
• J.S. Bach “The Goldberg Variations (Glenn Gould)”
• Dntel “Life Is Full of Possibilities”
• De La Soul “3 Feet High and Rising”
• Talking Heads “Speaking In Tongues”
• The Smiths “Meat Is Murder”
• King Tubby “Essential Dub”
• Kings of Leon “Aha Shake Heartbreak”
• Radiohead “OK Computer”
• John Coltrane “The Complete Village Vangaurd”
• Wire “On Returning (1977-1979)”
• Fela Ransome Kuti & The Africa 70 “Confusion/Gentlemen”
• Talk Talk “Laughingstock”