LaMarca to Premiere New Songs at Westside Bowl Show

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – Anthony LaMarca will return to the Westside Bowl stage Saturday, May 11, with a passel of new songs.

It will be a solo show for the Youngstown-based rocker, who is a guitarist for Grammy-winning band The War on Drugs. He performs solo shows under his stage name, The Building.

LaMarca jumped on stage at the West Side venue last Saturday to play one song with Red Wanting Blue during that band’s set. But one would have to go back several years since he last played a full show in the Mahoning Valley.

The new songs emanate from LaMarca’s deepest emotions. As always, they are melodic, gently paced, reflective and with great emotional depth.

LaMarca wrote them in the wake of his father’s death a couple years ago as a remembrance and a tribute.

“These songs were written mostly about my dad dying, and working through all the emotions that come with that,” he said. “We were very similar.  He’s always been a big part of the songs I write. So there’s a lot about grief. A lot about regret.  But also love and joy.

“It certainly feels like my most personal album, which is saying a lot.”

The songs are not yet posted on any streaming platform, although The Summit radio has some in rotation.

They will be packaged on a new The Building album, “Aspiration,” that LaMarca will release in June. The songs were recorded at Peppermint Studio in Youngstown with sound engineer Gary Rhamy. LaMarca plays all instruments.

He recorded his previous solo albums at the landmark studio, where he has also dived into the Valley’s musical past. He and fellow Youngstowner Dean Anshutz, the drummer for Red Wanting Blue, have mined the legendary studio’s archives to compile albums of great but little-known songs by regional bands of the 1960s and ’70s.

LaMarca has a busy summer on tap with The War on Drugs. The act will play 11 European cities in July, and then mount a 20-city North American tour in September and October with The National. That tour includes a Sept. 21 stop at Blossom Music Center.

The Philadelphia-based Drugs won the 2017 Grammy Award for Best Rock Album for “A Deeper Understanding.”

Saturday’s show at Westside Bowl will include opening acts Eamon Fogarty and Powers/Rolin Duo. Tickets are $12 in advance, $15 at the door.

The show will start at 8 p.m., with doors opening at 7 p.m.

Pictured at top: Youngstown-based rocker Anthony LaMarca is a guitarist for Grammy-winning band The War on Drugs.

Copyright 2024 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.