LEO LYONS
The official website of
musician, songwriter and record producer
LEO LYONS


10th February 2012

Hi Everyone

2011 was quite a year for me. Aside from our ongoing work with TYA, Joe and I played 48 shows with Hundred Seventy Split and I'd like to thank all of you who came out to see us. Thanks too for the positive comments we've received about the new project.

We filmed The ‘Rock Palast, Crossroads’ TV show in October 2011 and that has been shown all over Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Hungarian TV also filmed us at ‘The Gourmet Blues Festival’ near Budapest. If you missed either you can catch the shows on You Tube.

The first ‘Hundred Seventy Split” CD has been selling well so we've just made it available as a ‘Limited Edition’ Vinyl. We've included a download card with the album so that people can copy the songs onto MP3 players if they wish. The HSS warehouse has a batch of records ready to dispatch so very soon you'll be able to buy a copy in the stores, on line or at gigs.

In March we’ll be releasing our own DVD recorded at The Rockhall, Luxembourg.

We also have enough recorded material from several shows to make a double live CD and that will be out soon with some songs you may not have heard before.

We've started writing for our new studio CD and in between gigs we'll be laying down the tracks with drummer Damon Sawyer. Damon is now a regular member of the band

Hundred Seventy Split are on tour again throughout 2012 mostly on our own and occasionally we've teamed up as special guest on a run of Johnny Winter shows.

What can I say about TYA that's not already been said? I find it amazing that we're still playing together as a band with only one personnel change in over forty years.

Last year the band played around fifty-six shows mostly in Europe with a short run to Canada for three festival dates. There are a number of shows planned throughout 2012 so keep an eye on our web site for ones local to you.

I'd like to thank all of you that come along time after time to support us, some old some young. Many of you have become friends over a number of years and we know your names but there are also many familiar faces we see every time out there in the crowd. Thank you for your enthusiastic welcome at every gig we play. It makes the journey worthwhile.

Many of you have asked about a new TYA record. There's no studio recording planned for this year but we are reviewing material already in the can to see what could be interesting to release. I'm keen on Vinyl these days. I'm amazed how much better the sound is compared with MP3s. I’m trying to persuade TYA to do something on Vinyl and it would be great to hear what you think about the idea for some vinyl releases from TYA as well as the usual CD.

Thanks from all of us for a great 2011. Hope to see you out there on the road over the next twelve months.

Regards Leo

 

Ten Years After - Now

January 2011 - Newsletter

Hi everyone!

2010 has been a fun year and it was great to meet so many of you at our gigs.

Like many musicians, I thrive on new challenges and 2011 without doubt, is going to be my busiest year to date. I’ll be playing in two bands. Joe Gooch and I have a new band called Hundred Seventy Split, formed to play music that rocks outside of the TYA box. You can listen to some sound bites from our debut CD The World Won’t Stop on our web site www.hundredseventysplit.com. In December of 2010 we played CD-release shows in Germany and France and I want to thank all of you who turned out to support us despite the ice and snow. It took our band bus six hours to drive 7 kilometers around Paris.

Hundred Seventy Split kicks off another tour on February 9th starting in Poland and we’ll continue touring throughout the year. I hope we get the chance to play in a town near you. You. Look for gigs as they come in on www.hundredseventysplit.com

How does the new band affect Ten Years After? It does not affect TYA at all. I want to make it clear that Hundred Seventy Split will not be playing any TYA classics in the set. Fans who want to hear TYA songs will have to go to a TYA concert.

Many of you have asked me if this means the end of TYA. No it does not. TYA will continue working for as long as you want to hear us play. I appreciate the support our fans give us and I enjoy working with Ten Years After. It gives me pleasure to play the songs you request. I hope that in 2011 we can add more songs from the TYA catalogue into our live set.

Ten Years After starts the year on January 21st with shows in Germany and we continue on and off throughout the whole of 2011. Again you can see the gigs as they come in on the TYA web site.

Here’s wishing you all a great 2011. Thank you once again for your continued support throughout 2009. I consider myself lucky to be doing the job I love. I hope to see some of you out there on the road.

Kind regards, Leo

www.myspace.com/leolyons and www.myspace.com/hundredseventysplit and www.myspace.com/leolyonskick

August 2010 - Newsletter

Hi everyone!

How’s your summer so far? I’ve managed to meet many of you out on the road and that’s been great. Thanks from all of us in TYA to all of you for coming to see us play. Forty-one years later it’s still a thrill.

TYA has had a quieter time this month compared with last year's hectic dash around the world including the US dates on the ‘Heroes Of Woodstock Tour’. But we kick off again in mid-September with a pretty heavy schedule through to the end of the year. Check the web site for gigs near you.

Seems I’ll be playing with TYA until I’m old and grey… well okay, for as long as you want me to. To those of you who know me well it’s no surprise to find that I’m always working, either songwriting, recording or playing on other people’s records.

With the change in TYA’s work schedules I’ve had time to work on a new CD project that I’ll run alongside my TYA commitments. Last year I was asked to do a Leo Lyons solo record. I’m not really a solo person but I thought I’d make a record and have guests on it. I asked Joe Gooch if he’d like to write some songs with me and perhaps play on some of the tracks. We made a start and somewhere down the line the direction changed and we both decided to make it a project for the two of us and something different from our work with TYA.

The band is called Hundred Seventy Split and we’ve just released our debut CD The World Won’t Stop. We're playing some live gigs - check the band's web site for dates - www.hundredseventysplit.com

You can read more about the record and listen to some selections from the mini-CD on this site and the Hundred Seventy Split website.

I’m very excited by the new record. I hope you’ll enjoy it. One thing I should point out is that when ‘Hundred Seventy Split’ plays a show don’t expect TYA songs. To hear those you’ll have to come to a TYA gig and see us with Ric and Chick!

See you all soon I hope. Kind regards, Leo


HUNDRED SEVENTY SPLIT

www.myspace.com/leolyons and www.myspace.com/hundredseventysplit and www.myspace.com/leolyonskick