Lannie Flowers
Biography Lannie Flowers
Lannie Flowers
is not only the standard bearer for SPYDERPOP RECORDS, he's the undisputed king of Texas power pop. Hell, he's one of the leading lights of the whole global guitar pop scene. BIG STIR RECORDS is thrilled that our partnership with the renowned Arlington, TX-based label will mean that Lannie's on board for what's next: FLAVOR OF THE MONTH, a brand new collection for 2022 that's both a fresh and immediate record of its own and a re-imagining of the groundbreaking string of digital singles that took the global pop scene by storm two years ago. FOTM follows the re-launch of his massively acclaimed most recent album HOME (hailed as #1 Album of the 2019 by Goldmine Magazine's John Borack, among other honors), the beautifully-designed vinyl and CD edition now available in our online store. Flavor Of The Month is just one of the surprises in store this year, on stage and on record, from the founder of The Pengwins. We're honored to be along for the ride.
The essence of Lannie can be captured in his own words from 1986: “The two most import things in my life when I was growing up was The Beatles and the Dallas Cowboys.” Lannie began to play guitar in 1968 and formed a band in 1969. Three years later, he founded The Pengwins with some friends from Kennedale High School. Unlike most other nascent rock-and-rollers on the scene, Lannie started writing his own songs. Then he saw the New York Dolls in Dallas in 1975. The Ramones released their first record in 1976 and the second British Invasion hit in 1977 – the Pistols, The Clash, The Jam. Disco and Urban Country were commanding the airwaves, but Lannie and his Pengwins had grown in the opposite direction. Heavily impacted by Badfinger, Raspberries, Big Star, David Bowie, The Stooges, and Mott the Hoople, The Pengwins paved a different path out of the local Texas soup of blooze-and-booze music scene.
In their initial 15-year career, The Pengwins garnered significant attention from such seminal music icons as Rick Derringer and Jim Dickinson (famed producer of Big Star and The Replacements), both of whom produced later recording sessions for The ‘Gwins. The band re-formed in 2005 and have been recording and playing select venues since that time, but Lannie's solo career would commence with the 2008 release of Same Old Story, a daring but phenomenal 45-minute pop music collage stitched together from no fewer than 36 separate tracks. The music was so good, former Pengwin lead guitarist Alan Petsche signed Lannie to his record company and created a label... and thus SpyderPop Records was born, anchored by Lannie’s music.
World-wide critical acclaim and further albums (2011's Circles and 2012's New Songs, Old Stories) followed, with Lannie never far from the stage, where he's truly in his element (as documented on the scorching Live In NYC record. But it was Lannie's fascination and deft touch with song cycles led him to craft Home, a group of songs that complete the thematic arc started with his solo debut and continued in Circles.
The rapturous critical and public reception of Home upon its 2019 release might have felt like a conclusion for any other artist, but the truth is that Lannie had already been pushing in a new direction on "The March To Home" – literally, as that had been the title for a lavishly praised album's worth of standalone singles in the classic guitar-pop mold released on a monthly basis prior to the album. No mere outtakes, the March singles were recipients of widespread international airplay and adoration, with tracks like “My Street”, “Day Glow All Night” and “Lost In A Daydream” featuring in the Big Stir Records Singles series and marking the beginnings of the BSR/SpyderPop collaboration. With the two labels now acting as partners, and without giving too much away, that stack of tracks just might form the foundation of Lannie's next sonic adventure, due before the end of the year. New songs, new stories, new directions, all delivered with the sharpest hooks in Texas or anywhere: that's what we've come to expect from Lannie Flowers, and he always delivers.
