The Lords of Dissonance

Floyd Barré with the Lords of Dissonance Home * Home * Biographical Notes * Promotional Music Clips * Several of my Recordings * Sorcery live! * The Lords of Dissonance * The Steve Earle Show * The Robben Ford Show * Original Fleetwood Mac * Fan Speak * myspace.com * Guitar Instruction * The Guitar Essentialist * Khepera Productions * Gear * Slide Show * Guestbook * ------------------------ * Poems * Contact * Chat Biographical Notes LM Barré (bar-ray) has been a working musician virtually all of his life. He comes from a highly musical family with his father on piano, his brother on guitar, and his other brother on drums. Inspired by many performances by his favorite artists at Bill Graham’s Fillmore, Lloyd (aka "Floyd) began his professional career playing bass. With this his first band covered material by the Stones, the Yardbirds, the Kinks, the Byrds and other famous groups of the 60's. Picking up the guitar again, he teamed up with an old drummer friend Scott Smith and a young guitar prodigy named John McCrae. Together they explored Blues and Fusion as he learned technique and theory from his much more talented guitarist friend. While J. Scott Smith went on to win the prestigious Yahama SoundCheck drumming award, opening a recording studio, while John found his final challenge in graduating from Berkeley in classical guitar. For his part, Lloyd studied musical formally in high school and college, taking courses, stand up bass, alto saxophone, alto recorder, sight singing, jazz ensemble (guitar), jazz theory and studied the classical music tradition. When his next move took him to Vancouver BC, he joined a Country Rock "Still Willin'" band headed by a successful Nashville songwriter, Jim Cowan. The band performed as the opening act for Merle Haggard. He then moved to Nashville itself where he worked as a studio musician and was also hired by MCA Records President Tony Brown to tour with a MCA Records hopeful. Here he was fortunate to move among the "cliques" of Emmylou Harris and Ricky Skaggs and met several of Nashville’s legendary musicians. His next two moves took him to Dallas, TX and then on to San Diego. Here he played with the country group, "Wild Horses", an acoustic band called "The Palomar Mountain Acoustic Review," a R&B unit known as "Whitey and the Bandits" and worked as a musical director for an Elvis impersonator under the management of Total Control in Los Angeles. Playing numerous venues in San Diego country, among which was six performances at the Del Mar Fair. He was the guitarist and producer of "Kalama Blue" and the leader of The Jazz Heads and of Sorcery. His most recent projects are as a guitarist, bassist, vocalist, engineer and primary arranger of the Tom Thornton's "Acid Lounge" project and as lead guitarist for The Denials (http://johnnyray.4t.com). He is now forming his own group known as the Night Cats (http://blueoasis.4t.com), a band dedicated to deep-groovin' Blues and R&B (see play list posted at his website). Lloyd was also highly flattered that Russell Ferante, one of the world’s top keyboard players and leader of The Yellowjackets offered to take him as a student. He was similarly pleased that Garth Webber, former guitarist for the Ford Blues Band and for Miles Davis, purchased his CD, “Becoming.” To date, Floyd has won 15 awards for his original compositions from the prestigious international competition held at Garageband.com, presided over by former Beatles producer--Sir George Martin. He also released a new CD, “Becoming” that contains his studio work as well as award winning compositions. "Floyd" is currently working on several shows, playing favorites from artists like The Beatles, Steve Earle, Hall & Oates, Steely Dan, The Yardbirds, The Kinks, The Rolling Stones, The Cars and Pink Floyd. This hour-long shows feature ten to twelve songs of the tunes favored by Floyd. Floyd's new project is to produce four one-hour shows featuring the music of The Beatles, Steve Earle, Robben Ford and Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac. Finally, this academically inclined musician has written a handbook for guitarists, intended to impart essential information to help them move from a guitarist who plays by ear toward becoming a theoretical musician. It is entitled, The Guitar Essentialist-A Handbook for Intermediate to Advanced Guitarists. The manuscript is posted and freely posted here: *** "Wicked." A five-year old present at the above mentioned Hot Java Cafe performance. My best compliment! *** Hi Barré, I have to say that I haven't heard such nice guitar playing since the 80's. I was really pleased to listen to your fine songs: She Haunts Me Still Winds of Change Your sweet guitar playing and that sound is one of the nicest I've listened to. *** Personal website: http://lmbarre.com/ Sideways Blues Band website: http://www.freewebs/lmbarre/ Sorcery website: http://quartermoon.4t.com/ Email: barre@sbcglobal.net ***