Lipbone Redding

Lipbone Redding is taking an unexpected detour away from the Delaware Bridge, en route to New York City.

“The story of my life, man,” he jokes. Redding’s music has also taken lots of different routes, but none of those turns were ever wrong.

Lipbone, known to friends as Lawrence, started the journey as a latchkey kid in North Carolina, skipping school to absorb the family record collection that would make him want to start a band. The succession of lead singer in post-punk rock bands, and as the costumed performance-art-sound-guerilla named Citizen One, was followed by musical expeditions to Europe, India and South America. Redding’s inclination to assimilate himself into different cultural and social situations gave him a taste for the different sounds that flavor his songs.

“As an artiste — and I use the term loosely — I have a tendency to get into stuff, man. I can’t help it. I get involved in people’s lives, situations, circumstances.” That inquisitiveness has always fueled Redding’s music.

Faced with the dilemma of holding a construction job or playing music, Redding quit his dusty day-job and hopped a bus for New York City. Determined to do it his way, maybe on Broadway, he ended up in the subway. Redding spent three years as a subway musician, the train platforms of New York City his nightly venue. Just like the vagabond trips abroad that would soon follow, those nights underground were another classroom. “There was not only an excitement, but at times a meditative quality, and lessons were learned, that I could only get through doing that.”

The subway was also where Redding earned his namesake and developed his “Lipbone” technique, creating a trombone-like sound without using a musical instrument. It became a calling card, and a talent that has evolved into much more than a novelty or a gimmick. It’s an added dynamic that heightens the music of the Lipbone Orchestra.

Spontaneity and curiosity have always been at the heart of everything Lipbone has done, and his gift as a voice-stramental soloist is a ready hook for catching the eyes and ears of an audience. But the communicative power of the stories in his songs is and will always be the main focus of Lipbone Redding.

In 2005 Redding met Producer and Bassist Jeff Eyrich at Mike Williams’ SOHO Pickin’ Party. The two made a rough, one microphone demo recording during their first rehearsal which was a magic key, unlocking a stream of nightly gigs in New York City.

The demo was heard by restaurant owner and music lover, George Forgeois and it wasn’t long before Lipbone and his LipBone Orchestra secured two shows a week at George’s famous and intimate Jules Jazz Bistro on St. Marks. Friday nights and Sunday brunches at Jules soon became the place to be for bohemians, tourists and the well-to-do alike. For a few hours a week they all had one thing in common, The LipBone Orchestra.

In 2006, drummer Rich Zukor joined the band, taking the musicality to a new level. The Lipbone Orchestra’s first gig with Rich as drummer, was closing for comedian Joan Rivers at the famed Cutting Room in the flat-iron district. The band was a hit. The weekly shows continued to expand the range and repetoire of the band.

In 2007 Lipbone Redding and The Lipbone Orchestra released their first full length record, “Hop The Fence” which was recorded at New York’s Axis Sound recording studio. The song, “Dogs of Santiago” reached number 3 for 8 straight weeks on the Jamband Radio Charts and also penetrated the AMA and AAA charts. Shortly after the release, The LipBone Orchestra started touring the United States.

That same year, Lipbone and his Orchestra teamed up with agent Karen “kVision” Grossman, rounding out the DIY working musician’s booking and business branch known as TEAM LIPBONE.

“Party On The Fire Escape”, released in late 2008 furthered the bands success at radio. With a set of new songs written by Lipbone and produced by Jeff Eyrich and, the LBO was ever refining their recording techniques and broadening their musical net.
Not able to put all of their recorded material on a single album, a year later and with some further recording, the band released an EP, “Science of Bootyism.”

This year, Lipbone Redding and the LipBone Orchestra will release their new album. UNBROKEN represents a break from previous albums in that the thinking head, the beating heart, and the shaking ass all arrive on the same train. UNBROKEN’s rootsy rocking title track introduces a character who is a brash teenager grown up and still driving a beat-up station wagon, living in New York’s famous Chelsea Hotel. Awaiting the chance to steal back his high school sweetheart, our hero forms a plan to steal her back from her high-class lifestyle with his homemade rock and roll blasting from a stereo tape deck.

The record follows deeper issues like “Sacred Ground,” the swampy tale of a modern Ulysses returning home only to find a shopping mall where his beloved home once stood and “You Broke It, You Bought It,” which on the surface seems to be a song about a love affair with the town Jezebel, but draws parallels to the decade long war which has been raging in the mind of America.

There are elements of 60′s psychedelia in the hopeful “Wanna Be Kind,” which finds icons Superman and Cinderella moving out of the city and taking up residence in a farmhouse “living off the land in their own backyard.”

Lipbone pays tribute by covering long-time hero Joe Tex’s “The Love You Save (May Be Your Own)” in a unique southern soul style spiced with slide guitar and electric organ. In true Lipbone fashion, The LBO also presents a Ska version of Timmy Thomas’ smash one-man band hit, “Why Can’t We Live Together” and school teacher Nancy Dupree’s Folkways gem “James Brown.”

The band is gearing up to spend most of 2011 on the road promoting the new release, winning new fans and opening new doors, town by town, nationwide.

Lipbone Redding’s charm is his character, which translates into a high level of showmanship. “If I see an audience getting into it, I’ll push it,” he admits. “My onstage persona is not contrived. It’s genuine. I may come off a little campy sometimes, but that’s me. That’s who I am.”