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lucio menegon | music•noise•art

Speed Mullet duo in Knoxville, TN

My buddy Jon Brumit and I convened for two TN improv shows in late October in support of our touring Swiss colleague, Phil Zuercher. We played a special trio set in Chattanooga with Jon’s son, Otto, now 14, and the next night as a duo at the Pilot Light’s improv series in Knoxville.

The good folks at Knoxville Community TV film, record and post every show but unfortunately, my guitar isn’t well represented in the audio. This video fixes that. I recorded the set from the stage and mixed the audio in with good results!

Lea Cesira Menegon

Lea Cesira Menegon, 93, of Branford, CT (formerly of Old Greenwich, CT) passed away on Tuesday, August 22nd.

Beloved wife, mother and grandmother, Lea was born on March 3, 1930 in the small northern Italian village of Tramonti di Sopra, the daughter of Giacomo and Angela Facchin and sister to Amalia, Rosina, Bruno and Adelchi. Lea met her life’s love and soulmate, Ben (Benito) Menegon, as a young child in Tramonti, and they would become childhood sweethearts. Their lives were altered by WWII and they both left Tramonti to find work – Ben to America; Lea to Rome.

Lea was incredibly creative. Whether designing and sewing clothes, knitting, crochet, or any type of needlepoint or embroidery, she made the most wonderful things. While in Rome, she was most proud when her employer manufactured her design of a double-breasted sweater for boys, which became very popular. She eventually relocated to Paris where she studied French at the Sorbonne and put her formidable sewing skills to use in a boutique dress shop.

Though time and distance kept them apart, Ben and Lea never forgot one another – they always had a place in each other’s heart. They reunited and were married at the American Church in Paris in 1962 and traveled back to America to start a new life in Greenwich, CT.

Always generous with her time, Lea volunteered at numerous school events, at Greenwich Hospital for 13 years as a ‘candy striper’ and then for an astounding 37 years at the Rummage Room thrift shop in Old Greenwich, where her sharp eye for clothing merchandising and pricing was highly valued. Her greatest pride and joy were her three children – Lucio, Lynn, and Lisa. A loving mother and wife, she held her household together with incredible cooking (the children’s friends speak to this day of her pancake feasts) and much happiness. She was diligent about exercise, especially her brisk daily walks to downtown Old Greenwich and back (some called her ‘the walking lady’) and later around the Linden Shores area of Branford, where Ben and Lea relocated to be closer to their grandsons – Spencer and Sam.

She is survived by her husband of 61 years, Benito Menegon; her son Lucio Menegon; her daughters Lynn Menegon and Lisa Menegon Lovejoy (Ted) and her two grandsons Spencer and Sam Lovejoy. All who came in contact with Lea adored her. She was the light of Ben’s life, and a kind, gentle soul who will be dearly missed.

A memorial service will be held at the First Congregational Church in Old Greenwich (108 Sound Beach Avenue) on Saturday, September 30th at 10am. There will be a livestream of the service will for those not able to attend.

In lieu of flowers, donations can be made in Lea’s honor to The Rummage Room/First Congregational Church of OG.

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Crash!

Seems like a ominous title for this point in time. Back in the year 2000 (just after the first big crash), Ramona the Pest released its second album, Little Knives. Crash was a secret unlisted track that could only be heard after 20 minutes or so of silence that followed the last song on the CD (ala Nirvana’s original Nevermind CD release). Hence, few heard it and those that did were likely startled out of their inside voice when it came blasting out of the speakers, perhaps while vacuuming (the original multi-task).

This was one of the first songs Val and I recorded together back in 1993 with just acoustic guitar and voice. I always wanted to produce a sort of Bo Diddley rave up version and finally got the chance with Toby Hawkins on drums. Toby is a most creative and talented drummer/percussionists, but rarely ever gets behind a kit. In fact, the only other time I had the pleasure was on Gunnar Madsen’s fantastic Power of a Hat record in 1997.

Toby had been over at the warehouse studio doing a djembe overdub when we three got to talking about the old days and had a little jam. For Crash Toby jumped on the always mic’d up red sparkle WFL kit, adjusted a few things to his liking and we were off. Tracked live with Val on acoustic and vocal, myself on electric guitar and Toby on kit with a few backups added right after. That’s often how great tracks happen, it comes together fast. Val is spot on as usual and I was happy with the guitar work. Check the hi-hat work and the hoodoo groove Toby came up with – really interesting. And when the chorus hits it really swings!

Recorded 100% analog on my dearly missed 1969 3M M23 1″ eight track open-reel machine and Soundcraft Series II board. My guitar chain was completely analog at the time, so the echo on the guitar (and on Val’s voice during the mix) is a Maestro EP3 Echoplex through my trusty ’65 Princeton Reverb. I love this track, hope you do too!

Circular Rescue

This is a project I had started working on for my Joshua Tree visual artist/collaborator Diane Best. She’d been messing around with mountain timelapse stuff and the idea was for something super sparse. I had this recent demo lying around and flew it in to try something different (not sparse). The way it synched up with the break was erie. It wasn’t the right match, but it is cool.

Walking in the Sand

Remember (Walking in the Sand). The Bodice Rippers was one of the coolest bands I played in/founded during my Oakland, CA time. Megan is a star of a singer and my buddy Chris writes great songs. This classic is, of course, not one of them but a band fave tracked at one of our early recording sessions in 2010 and recently mixed. I did a sort of dark Steve Cropper thing on guitar (which I’d be happy to do all night long). The video became a 2020 Pandemic project, made from old footage I captured in Rhinebeck NY, Storm King Art Center and Bombay Beach, CA

In the Pines

In The Pines. This was recorded in my friend Nina’s living room in Ljubljana, Slovenia in 2019. Our mutual friend Eva is the singer for Tabu, the biggest pop band in Slovenia and this is one of her favorite songs to sing. I was messing around with a spacey ebow version of the chord changes when she grabbed a djembe and just went off. I made the video after escaping the desert for the mountains and pine trees above Palm Springs sometime during ‘lockdown’ in 2020.