Don Lennon
Encyclopedia
Biography
Little personal information is known about Don Lennon. Several interviewers have implied that the musician's name is a pseudonymPseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...
. His style is often compared to that of Beat Happening
Beat Happening
Beat Happening is an American punk band formed in Olympia, Washington in 1982. Calvin Johnson, Heather Lewis and Bret Lunsford have been the band's continual members...
, The Magnetic Fields
The Magnetic Fields
The Magnetic Fields is the principal creative outlet of singer-songwriter Stephin Merritt...
and most notably fellow New Englander Jonathan Richman
Jonathan Richman
Jonathan Michael Richman is an American singer, songwriter and guitarist. In 1970 he founded The Modern Lovers, an influential proto-punk band. Since the mid-1970s, Richman has worked either solo or with low-key, generally acoustic backing...
.
Lennon was the guitarist and singer of the Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
-based band The Umpteens (sometimes incorrectly referred to as "The Endless Upteens" ). Shortly after the group's breakup in 1997 during a performance at a local college, Lennon recorded his first solo album, Maniac. Many of the songs were originally played by The Umpteens during their tenure. His website states that some of these songs were written as early as 1993. Two recurring themes throughout the album are parties ("Party Coordinator," "Party In September" and "Party All The Time") and friends
Friends
Friends is an American sitcom created by David Crane and Marta Kauffman, which aired on NBC from September 22, 1994 to May 6, 2004. The series revolves around a group of friends in Manhattan. The series was produced by Bright/Kauffman/Crane Productions, in association with Warner Bros. Television...
("Best Friends Forever" and "I Need Friends").
Don Lennon, a quasi-autobiographical album, came in 1999. Much of the album's lyrical content spoke about the musician's trials and tribulations in the several previous years while playing concerts promoting Maniac.
Downtown was released in 2002 on the prominent independent label Secretly Canadian
Secretly Canadian
Secretly Canadian is an American independent record label based in Bloomington, Indiana. It was started in 1996 by Chris and Ben Swanson, Eric Weddle, and Jonathan Cargill. Their first release was a re-issue of an album by June Panic...
. The theme of the record dealt with the music industry, name checking Dave Matthews Band
Dave Matthews Band
Dave Matthews Band, sometimes shortened to DMB, is a U.S. rock band formed in Charlottesville, Virginia in 1991. The founding members were singer-songwriter and guitarist Dave Matthews, bassist Stefan Lessard, drummer/backing vocalist Carter Beauford and saxophonist LeRoi Moore. Boyd Tinsley was...
, Lenny Kravitz
Lenny Kravitz
Leonard Albert "Lenny" Kravitz is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer and arranger, whose "retro" style incorporates elements of rock, soul, R&B, funk, reggae, hard rock, psychedelic, folk and ballads...
, The Mekons, Bongwater
Bongwater (band)
Bongwater was a psych rock band formed in 1985 and dissolved in 1992. The group was founded by Ann Magnuson and Mark Kramer , who had worked together previously in Pulsallama. The group also featured drummer Dave Licht and guitarists [Dave Rick] and later Randolph A. Hudson III...
and John Cale
John Cale
John Davies Cale, OBE is a Welsh musician, composer, singer-songwriter and record producer who was a founding member of the experimental rock band The Velvet Underground....
(of The Velvet Underground
The Velvet Underground
The Velvet Underground was an American rock band formed in New York City. First active from 1964 to 1973, their best-known members were Lou Reed and John Cale, who both went on to find success as solo artists. Although experiencing little commercial success while together, the band is often cited...
). Bizarrely, Secretly Canadian soon after began distancing itself from both Don Lennon and the album, eventually not even recognizing it as a release in its catalog (although it was originally SC #62).
2005 saw the release of his fourth full-length album, Routine. The subject matter dealt primarily with stand-up comedy
Stand-up comedy
Stand-up comedy is a comedic art form. Usually, a comedian performs in front of a live audience, speaking directly to them. Their performances are sometimes filmed for later release via DVD, the internet, and television...
and the construction of a comedian's routine, but also focused on Monster.com
Monster.com
Monster.com is one of the largest employment websites in the world, owned and operated by Monster Worldwide, Inc. Monster is one of the 20 most visited websites out of 100 million worldwide, according to comScore Media Metrics...
, John Ritter
John Ritter
Jonathan Southworth "John" Ritter was an American actor, voice over artist and comedian perhaps best known for having played Jack Tripper and Paul Hennessy in the ABC sitcoms Three's Company and 8 Simple Rules, respectively...
and trust funds. NPR
NPR
NPR, formerly National Public Radio, is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to a network of 900 public radio stations in the United States. NPR was created in 1970, following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting...
's John Brady cited the album as one of the three best records of 2005 while Sweden's prominent Digfi magazine placed it in the number one spot.
Discography
- Maniac (Martin Philip, 1997)
- Don Lennon (Martin Philip, 1999)
- Downtown (Secretly CanadianSecretly CanadianSecretly Canadian is an American independent record label based in Bloomington, Indiana. It was started in 1996 by Chris and Ben Swanson, Eric Weddle, and Jonathan Cargill. Their first release was a re-issue of an album by June Panic...
/Martin Philip, 2002) - Routine (Martin Philip, 2005)
- Ich Heisse Don (Popfrenzy, 2005)
- Radical (Martin Philip, 2006)
- Nick and Mary (2010)