Unofficial Brendan Lynch Page

I don't clear this stuff with Brendan or anyone else before I put it up here, therefore it's "unofficial".

Who the hell is Brendan Lynch?

Well, he's not the famous producer who works with Paul Weller. Nor the Lord Mayor of Dublin, Ireland. Nor a member of the band BLOO or the band StarGhostDog. Nor a member of an Irish crew or hurling team.

Besides being my younger brother, Brendan is your usual hard-working L.A. musician, getting gigs at sparsely attended pubs, trying to pay the rent by working as a musician full time, etc. etc. You know the drill.

Anyway, after a long time of toiling in semi-obscurity, Brendan managed to snag a record deal with Mercury Records. The album (Being boring corporados, they chose the snappy title "Brendan Lynch".) was released on Tuesday, September 16th, 1997. Zoinks! That means it's already waiting to be purchased by a high-roller with good taste such as yourself!

What does he sound like?

Good question. Always one of the hardest things to answer about a musician. I'm sure he doesn't want to be pigeon-holed. Even though I took Brendan to some of the first concerts he went to and we used to like the same groups in the LA punk scene (X,The Blasters, Los Lobos...), our musical tastes have diverged somewhat since then. I am not familiar with some of the touchstones for what he does.

Brendan started out playing bass guitar and soon switched to mostly playing guitar. He also plays keyboards. Needless to say, he sings as well.

So that tells you a lot, eh? Well, I hear bits of Hunky Dory-era Bowie in what he does, bits of other 70s rock folks. I think he's added a bit of the hip-hop influenced drum riffs that have made their way into other recent "alternative" artists.

His lyrics are literate and playful with the English language. His vocal arrangement talents are very skillful. He can arrange like some of the best Beatles and Beach Boys arrangements. (I know this sounds like I only listen to music that's old, but that's not true.)

If you want to hear what he sounds like before shelling out money for the CD, f'r Chrissakes call up your local "modern rock" station and ask them to play Brendan Lynch.

Where Can I Get This Slab O' Brilliance?

Brendan's disc is out of print now, but it turns up on Ebay every now and then. You can also try searching at Gemm.com, which is a great place to search for used music. Remember that there are at least two other musicians named Brendan Lynch who show up prominently in Google searches (Paul Weller's producer and an Irish fiddler). Remember that Brendan's album was self-titled and appeared on Mercury records.

The Latest:

Brendan has been quite the will o' the wisp over the last few years. He was living in the SF Bay Area but is now in LA again and presumably performing. (Hey, just 'cause I'm family doesn't mean he keeps me updated. "You don't call, you don't write...oy.") He wrote a second album years ago and his experience with Mercury led to it being sat on for a while. He's been reworking and re-recording those songs. You can hear some of them on Brendan Lynch's MySpace Artist Page. He also has his own site at http://www.hearwater.com which you can watch for updates. The Megan Lynch Gig Gallery on Flickr has a few pictures of Brendan in action from when he was kindly accompanying me on a gig at Mighty in SF. (4/29/2006)

Brendan has given up his brendanlynch.com domain. With others, he has founded the group Contact. They have their own website with sound samples of what this collaborative work sounds like. Since Brendan doesn't really give me a clue about much, I don't know what's going on with his second album. I know that he had an album's worth of songs in the can and that he kept re-working it or adding and deleting things. I don't know whether the new project has supplanted the 2nd album in his affections. (6/21/2000)

I know I'm behind the revolution on this MP3 thang. I have it in mind to learn to rip some tracks and have the site samples up in MP3 format some time this year. Patience, brethren and systren.

What Came Before:

Through the grace of Brendan's previous manager, Kevin Messick, Brendan got two of his songs on the soundtrack to the 1995 Alicia Silverstone movie, The Babysitter.

In 1995, Brendan put out his own CD called The Road to Bakersfield. He put a detail of one of my paintings on the front cover. I just put up the track listing, cover and 2 song samples, so check it out!

Songs Brendan's Notes Tour Schedule BibliographyRelated Links Spidra's Music