Don Lennon
Don Lennon is an independent musician from Massachusetts. Several interviewers have implied that the musician's name is a pseudonym. His style is often compared to that of Beat Happening, The Magnetic Fields and most notably fellow New Englander Jonathan Richman.
Lennon was the guitarist and singer of the Boston-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. The recurring theme through the album is that almost every track deals with parties (titles include "Party Coordinator", "Party In September" and "Turn The Living Room Into A Dance Floor").
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. Known contributors to the album were Peter Linnane, Pete Weiss and "Dee Dee".
Downtown was released in 2002 on the prominent independent label Secretly Canadian, and also received distrobution from Nail Distrobution. The theme of the record delt with the music industry, name checking Dave Matthews Band, Lenny Kravitz, The Mekons, Bongwater and John Cale (of The Velvet Underground). 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 catalogue (although it was originally SC #62). The reasoning behind this is unknown to the public. The record is still available through the artist, both online and at concerts.
In 2005, Don Lennon put forth his fourth album, Routine on the small label Martin Philip Records. The subject matter delt primarily with stand-up comedy and the construction of a comedian's routine, but also focused on Monster.com, John Ritter and trust funds. Almost each of the songs featured one or more easily definable jokes: "If you have to do a pratfall / If you have to use a prop / A lot of comics think that’s cheating / That’s why they all hate Carrot Top." Although the album received little commercial success, reviews were very warm, with NPR's John Brady citing it as one of the three best records of 2005.
2006 saw the release of a "best-of" collection in Australia, aptly titled Ich Heisse Don, featuring selections from his first four albums. And his fifth album, Radical. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.
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