and hear excerpts from this new CD for themselves. The clips (and one full
song, "That's The Spirit") are available in both Real Audio (28.8 modem
required) and the downloadable MPEG-2 compressed audio format. And listen
carefully to the harmony vocals -- and the trumpet -- on "Perfect
Strangers." That's Kami Lyle -- we're all going to be hearing a LOT more
from her.
Michael's new CD, "Middle Child" can be purchased directly on-line, or by
using our "low-tech" ordering methods which are detailed elsewhere on the
NOMA site.
Congratulations are also in order for Paul Kamm, another NOMA member, who
placed third in the Telluride competition. Paul ordinarily performs with
his wife, Eleanore MacDonald, but for some strange reason the Telluride
competition excludes duos, so Eleanore did not perform with Paul. But their
4 CDs are among the most consistently listenable CDs in our catalog, and I
invite readers to visit Paul and Eleanore's Home Page @
http://songs.com/kammac
to listen to the magical harmonies these two voices weave. And of course,
they're CDs are also available online.
And remember, if you buy either a Michael Lille or a Kamm/MacDonald CD, you
can select another from our 2-4-1 list and add it to your order for free!
(see http://songs.com/front.featured.html for the complete list.)
Again, congratulations to Michael Lille, the 1996 Telluride Troubador of the
Year, and all the finalists in the competition.
Capacity Crowd Bids Adieu to Local Favorite
University of Virginia University Journal, July 1987
Just as mid-August had its harmonic convergence, the end of this July had
its own kind of coming together in the Amphitheater. Under the setting
sun of July 25, nearly 4,000 fans came to hear the farewell
performance of SG&L, one of Charlottesville's most travelled bands.
Their concert (almost three hours long) brought together more good
feelings, good people, and good music than an entire weekend of
cosmic convergence.
The band formed in the spring of 1983 when Rusty Speidel, Tom
Goodrich and Michael Goggin got together as SG&G.
When Goggin left to invest more time in law school here at U.Va., Michael Lille signed on to make the band SG&L. In the four-and-a-half years of the band's existence, they put out three albums (SG&G, Just for Kicks, and the soon to be released SG&L Live from the Amphitheater). Also, accompanying the Live album will be a concert video.
So is this really the end of SG&L, the local band whose lyrical acoustic guitar sounds have reached colleges and clubs throughout the East Coast? Manager John Livermore said they will probably "never get together again permanently," but he does imagine people will "see them pop up individually."
"We were at a stage where we felt we needed to go for it [and commit to a career with the band] or kind of review whether to go on," Tom Goodrich said.
Back in November of 1986 they had considered expanding the band. There was talk of adding a keyboardist and a drummer since their audiences all over Virginia and Washington, D.C., were growing by leaps and bounds. In the last year-and-a-half, SG&L had begun to play in a larger area that included 15 states. Also, appearances at the Lone Star in New York and studio time in Nashville increased the band's standing.
Livermore felt that they "absolutely, definitely" could have made the jump to a professional music career.
However, a general burnout from the heavy touring schedule (they were on the road eight to nine months a year) prompted the decision to move on. Michael Lille said he "thoroughly enjoyed" himself, but admitted that even two years of touring is tiring and time consuming.
Livermore noted, "Can you imagine four years without a weekend off?"
"We ended up traveling pretty much," Goodrich said. he described the heavy touring schedule as "a most amazing contradiction. On the one hand, it's a fulfilling...On the other, it's annoying [to work so long without a break]."
Rusty Speidel is the only band member who has definite plans to continue a career in music. Right now, he is relaxing "somewhere on the shores of Lake Michigan," according to Goodrich, but Livermore said that Rusty is planning to move to Nashville, where he has an apprenticing job with a music publisher. He added that Rusty's new job will give him free studio time to start a solo career.
Although Michael Lille has no specific thoughts about a music career, he has been "living off his guitar for 15 years and will continue to do that, undoubtedly," according to Livermore. At the moment, Lille is preparing to visit the South Pacific for "eight or nine months." He plans to just "travel and play a little bit. It's kind of an extended vacation."
As far as any plans beyond that, Lille is just "taking it as it come."
Lille said that he will write a lot more music in the meantime, and that there is the "possibility of Rusty [Speidel] and I doing some stuff in the future."
Goodrich has begun working for the Virginia Episcopal School in Lynchburg. Aside from teaching a couple of classes, he is also working in the school's admissions office and will coach the new girls' basketball team. While he has no immediate plans as a musician, he said that he hopes to "continue to play solo if people hire me."
Because of the general feelings of burnout among the group, Goodrich "did not feel comfortable with going on." he was willing to commit to one more year, but of anything beyond that, including the plans to expand SG&L, he said, "If we had a band, there was no sense quitting in July."
The final concert in the Amphitheater was SG&L's way of going out with a bang.
Livermore said, "I had a ball."
A capacity crowd filled the Amphitheater, coming from Charlottesville and from points north to Pennsylvania and south to Florida just for this concert, which was quite gratifying to the band. "We had the best seat in the house in the Amphitheater," Goodrich said. "We could see pockets of people from all those towns we played...It was a wonderful way to finish."
With such strong emotions accompanying this, their last official appearance together, the band was undoubtedly nervous at first. "After the first few songs," Lille said, "we settled down." He also said that after a hard week on the road, the tremendous heat of July 25 left them physically, as well as emotionally, drained. Goodrich recalled just feeling "numb."
The emotions have subsided, but the work is not done yet. Livermore has just finished preparing the two hour video taken from over eight hours of concert footage. The video and two unedited 90 minute cassettes will be available throughout their playing territory. Livermore is quite pleased with the results (He said that "the orders are just rolling in.") and is expected to be busy with those projects until December.
The next job for Livermore is to find a new act to manage that might yield as good results as SG&L. He has his hopes for a solo singer and guitarist named Kyle Davis, who was one of only three or four acts ever to open up for SG&L. Livermore has helped put together Davis' first album with some songs arranged by Speidel and Goodrich.
Livermore said he also plans to complete an engineering degree at U.Va. this year. He had postponed these plans when SG&L started to grow.
And so it is time to move on.
Livermore said, "I think we all have other dreams to tackle."
Any regrets? "There was only one thing I regretted," Goodrich said. "[At the final concert,] there was so much emotion, I forgot to say some things... There was really no way to express our gratitude...This is something that will last me for the rest of my life."
SGGL Quartet Enjoys Its R&R
The Washington Post, On The Town
The acoustic singer-songwriter quartet Speidel, Goodrich, Goggin and Lille doesn't get around much anymore.
At least not like it used to. Returning for three shows at the Birchmere this weekend, the University of Virginia-bred band performed over 1,000 shows in 15 states up and down the East Coast in the mid-'80s, playing mostly colleges and small clubs. but in 1987, the group took a breather so that each member could focus more on his personal and professional life.
In short, real life intervened for Rusty Speidel (a computer systems analyst), Tom Goodrich (a high school admissions director and recent father), Michael Goggin (a District lawyer) and Michael Lille (the only full-time performer in the group). Music went on the back burner, concerts were reduced to a gig here and there, maybe a couple a month, and it seemed only a matter of time before the audience that SGGL had built up over the years would disappear altogether. Expectations, Goodrich admits, were scaled way down.
So why is the group still packing them in at the Birchmere?
"It may have something to do with the resurgence of acoustic music on the national scene," muses Goodrich, a 29-year-old Bethesda native. "But we have some really loyal folks who've stuck with us over the years and who we see every time we play, and that's wonderful. It's kind of a homecoming."
According to Goodrich, the time off has had its musical advantages as well. Each member is more inclined to write now, so that the "frat-bash band" sound of old has given way to more substantial and, in some cases, more folky and introspective songs.
"There's a depth to the material that wasn't there before," Goodrich says. "we swap songs through the mail...and being apart has forced us to keep the arrangements simpler, which I think is a good thing. When we had a lot of time on our hands, we'd get caught up in arrangements that wouldn't work as well."
Typically, an SGGL show is designed to capitalize on both ensemble and individual talents, so that the lineup on stage is constantly changing. The solo turns are natural, according to Goodrich, since each member of the group started out as a "stool-sitting acoustic guitarist" playing college coffeehouses and covering songs by James Taylor, Jackson Browne and Crosby, Stills and Nash. However, because writing songs of that caliber, or anything remotely close to it, didn't come easily, SGGL first made a name for itself playing your basic good-timey songs.
"We started out as a cover band, with maybe three originals," Goodrich says. he estimates that 75 percent of the band's material is now original and the number keeps growing.
This weekend's shows at the Birchmere--one Friday night and two Saturday night--will be recorded for an album due in the spring. The quartet has previously released two albums, and EP and a video, all independently produced and distributed and racked up combined sales of 20,000 units, a figure the band hopes will attract some record-label interest.
And if all goes well, music may yet re-emerge as the No. 1 priority for SGGL.
"I think we all see that as a goal," says Goodrich, "not in the immediate future, but as we continue to write and swap songs with each other. The sheer delight of getting together to harmonize--it's a strong bond and I don't see it getting any weaker. It my not manifest itself in the big world of pop music, but who knows?"
Speidel, Goodrich, Goggin and Lille
The Washington Post, Style/Arts Section
Wholesome, earnest, likable, handsome and exceedingly popular, the quartet packed the Birchmere for two shows Saturday night. Having worked the club and college circuit for years, the band clearly knows what buttons to press to get a rise out of a student-age crowd.
Boppin' at the Bayou
The Washington Post, Arts Section
Speidel, Goodrich and Lille, an immensely talented trio of acoustic guitarists, raised the roof of the Bayou for over four hours in a concert which was actually less wild than their average Georgetown appearance.
The enthusiasm level of the band as well as the audience was incredible; while fans clapped the group went through innumerable lengths of guitar string as they tried to top the frenzy of the crowd.
To find a group such as Speidel, Goodrich and Lille amongst today's Madonnas and Princes is rare: true musical talent unmarred by gimmick or effect. Is old fashioned real music, however, enough to bring these guys to the top? If not, the music world is really missing out.
