Corey Landis

(For more info/music, visit: www.myspace.com/coreylandis and www.coreylandis.com)

COREY LANDIS fittingly shares a birthday with Charles Bukowski and a deathday with Elvis Presley.

On August 16th, 1978, beneath the shadows of Rubbermaid world headquarters in the small town of Wooster, Ohio, Landis came into being. He began taking piano lessons in the second trimester and was already writing his first songs by the time he was a fully formed fetus. So by the time of his birth, he was already booked in several local cabarets and coffee shops, which further complicated matters, as he was several weeks late. His childhood was happy, but to listen to his songs, his adolescence must have been miserable, although he can’t really remember anything from the time. "It’s slowly coming back through a regimen of hypnosis and herbal colonics," Landis recently said, "which is great, because I usually don’t have anything to write about with what’s going on now in my life."

Whether or not he chooses to admit it, Landis typifies the recent resurgence of gifted twenty-somethings that evoke the "golden" singer-songwriter age of the ‘70s. The ubiquitous melodies of Elton, Joel, Springsteen, Cohen, Waits, Zevon and Newman hover over Landis' shoulder like older siblings--most tellingly in the dystopian relationship odes of the last three Angelenos.

Destined to relocate to Los Angeles in 2000, Landis immediately tested the waters with the online album "Mediocre Saviour", an inspired batch of wry, wordy pop songs that despite their underwhelming production value instantly attracted a devoted, albeit tiny international following and ambivalently encouraging reviews. (Amongst the cult was freshly-dropped singer-songwriter Dan Bryk, who was in the process of setting up a collective record label for wry, wordy pop songwriters... but we'll get to that later.)

Landis began appearing around LA as a solo performer, accompanying himself at the piano at venues such as The Derby, The Stone, The Fold, Highland Grounds, and Room 5. Landis was soon asked to contribute six original songs to the soundtrack for the indie film 'Unreel: A True Hollywood Story", written and produced by "Ladies in Waiting" playwright Michele Palermo. He also supplied the closing track for "Peace", a short film starring "That '70s Show"'s Kurtwood Smith. (Rocksnob warning: Like everyone else in LA, Corey Landis is a card-carrying actor, including a recurring role on the FOX sitcom "That ‘70s Show" as the young Red Forman, among others.)

Meanwhile, Landis proselytizer Dan Bryk was quietly enabling the release of records by idiosyncratic Toronto singer-songwriters like Chris Warren and The Bicycles and New Yorker Lee Feldman. Shocked to discover Landis about to internet-DIY his follow-up, Bryk intervened and Landis' first official album "Feast of Scraps" was co-released by the Urban Myth Recording Collective in 2003.

A singular paean to the emotional mean streets of El Lay, "Feast" sought to blow some dust and smoke in the right places, in the right amount. Landis' singular mix of melodramatic melodies, razorblade-gargling singing and homemade wall-of-Spector sounded to some "like the fictional soundtrack to a fictional paring of Stanley Kubrick and Sergio Leone... a spaghetti-O western." (–Nimbus) Critical consensus was that Landis was a songwriting force to be reckoned with:

"Great songwriters are few and far between; like troubadours of old, his dark, ironic lyrics work best against a minimal background of the lone piano or a single acoustic guitar. This is an artist who can dominate any small venue and who should be recording gems like this in a much better studio than his living room." (Skratch)

"**** 1/2 (out of five stars)
Very real, somber, and humbling.  If Bukowski could sing, he'd sound like this. A poet blessed with musical talent.  The music is great. He sounds great. I'm afraid of him." (South of Mainstream)

"Darkly moody songs in a drunken manner. Excellent lyrics, interesting musicality, depth and soul... gritty and real. Great lyrics. I will buy him a drink." (Hybrid Magazine)

Which brings us to "14 Old Messages", Landis' ambitious second platter. Landis sings his black heart out over all sorts of memories, both real and imagined, in musical settings both familiar and disorienting. As "14 Old Messages"' very first review concurs: "This kid could become the next great singer/songwriter of our generation." (Smother)

Corey's Latest self-titled record, scheduled for 2007, features string and woodwind arrangments by cousin and fellow film composer of the great Newman dynasty (Alfred, Thomas, and one of Corey's heroes, Randy). In a shift for a better-sounding product, Landis enlisted the mixing talents of Greg Hayes who worked on Waaren Zevon's final record and who has also worked with Springsteen, Tom Petty, and David Crosby, among others. The record was mastered at Signet Studios--the last record to come out of