March 13, 2009

David Bryan: Toxic Avenger Blog

Thanks for the head's-up on this, Hath!

So I'm sure you all know that David Bryan has been composing the soundtrack for the Broadway play, Toxic Avenger. And the playwriter, Joe DiPietro, has been blogging about it. I've been really bad about following/posting about this because school and work have been kicking my arse lately, but I figured I'd post this since our own DAVID gets a corner of the blog for himself:

Hey hey. This is my first blogging experience (more of a music guy, ya know ... gimme a song and I know how to write it. So this isn't quite my thing but I'm trying for you Toxaholics -- and yeah, I dig that name.) Let me start out by saying that The Toxic Avenger js going to rock the house! I'm working on the sound design now so the show will be a theatrical rock 'n roll experience. It's funny because with Bon Jovi, we play to stadiums that seat at least 50,000 or so. But here at New World Stages (which is a great theatre) there are only 350 seats. So no matter where you sit, you'll feel like you're practically on stage. You're also going to laugh a lot. And rock out. And I just read the beginning of this blog and I definitely didn't write the paragraph about hoping to make Joe into a pill that we can all swallow him. I don't feel that way at all.

Let me also say that we have a really kick ass band. Our drummer, Alan Childs, played with Bowie on the Glass Spiders Tour, and our Musical Director, Doug Katsaros was in the band Balance (and he wrote the three notes that make up the "By Mennon" theme -- how cool is that?.) And our guitarist, Chris Cicchino, and our bass player, Dan Grennes, are real rock guys. They're all killer players. So come see the show! If our premiere at George Street Playhouse was any indication, you're going to have a great time.


K, so I love him. I really do. Joe went on to say that David normally "doesn't shut up" but that he didn't have much time to write that piece, thus its short length. But he is just so personable and friendly - I would just LOVE to meet him!

Oh, and I loved this part from Joe's blog on Wednesday:

With David producing and our five actors singin' their talented hearts out, we laid down sixteen tracks in 8 hours (as David kept pointing out, it takes most rock bands three months to lay down 12 tracks.) But in the financially-challenged land of theatre, you get only one day to make an album or else it costs, like, an extra hundred thousand dollars to finish it and you're screwed. So David, along with ace Musical Director Doug Katsaros, kept the actors singin' and damn, if it didn't all sound fantastic. David knows how to make a record, which I guess is why his band has sold a billion of them.

Check out more of Joe's blog and follow Toxic Avenger's current progress HERE.

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