Mister Laurence

In his children's-music guise Mister Laurence, Larry Miller aimed to give kids a richer, more challenging musical experience, while still offering the kind of light-hearted fun they expected. It was a long and unpredictable journey for Miller to that musical destination. A native of Ann Arbor, MI, Miller took piano and clarinet lessons as a child, and later taught himself guitar, bass, drums, accordion, and kazoo. As a teenager, he often played music with his brothers Ben and Roger, collaborating with them in a heavy psychedelic rock band called Sproton Layer starting around 1969. In the late '70s, both Larry and Ben played in the avant-garde semi-punk rock band <a href="spotify:artist:0v5k3upkdWIjR3EOtkTA73">Destroy All Monsters</a> (Larry handled guitar), while Roger went to Boston and led the seminal alternative rock band <a href="spotify:artist:5UMQV83wwZCCvRSQCVjZw6">Mission of Burma</a>. After <a href="spotify:artist:0v5k3upkdWIjR3EOtkTA73">Destroy All Monsters</a> broke up, Larry performed off and on with several Michigan bands; he also reunited with Ben and Roger in the '90s for the free-form experimental rock of the trio M-3, and played with the classic-style Detroit rock collective <a href="spotify:artist:4WaNVIVQvUZ0F7ZMjq1tZS">the Empty Set</a>. In 1998, partly inspired by his three daughters, Miller made the switch to children's music, and began performing as Mister Laurence in a variety of local venues: clubs, bookstores, radio, and so on. His first CD, Flaghorn, was released in the spring of 1999, and as he did on all the follow-ups, Miller played all the instruments on the backing tracks (in his live appearances, he sang along to them karaoke-style). The follow-up Tugboat Tow appeared in the spring of 2000, and was followed by What Goes Up Must Come Down, Vol. 1, a cassette-only compilation of songs from the two existing Mister Laurence albums. In 2001, Miller released The Verge, an hour-long piece of ambient music designed to put kids (and their parents) to sleep. 2002 brought Pancake Heaven, which was soon pulled from stores due to possible September 11 associations; it was re-released as the slightly reconfigured Bubble Land. ~ Steve Huey, Rovi