[Cover photo credit to Gregory Berg]
NYC musician/author/producer Mickey Leigh has released a live in-studio performance video of the song “Loneliness” co-written with impactful music writer Lester Bangs in the 1970s. The song appears on his debut solo album under the name Mickey Leigh’s Mutated Music. The LP, Variants Of Vibe, is now via Wicked Cool Records.
Mickey Leigh says of “Loneliness”:
It was one of the first songs that Lester and I wrote together, when we formed Birdland back in 1977.
Of the album, released in 2022, Mickey Leigh says:
Like every organic entity, music is perpetually re-adapting itself in order to survive = mutating. As we know, things we create also variate as they mutate. Mutated Music is what we are. Our new album presents a Variant of Vibe. This may sound complicated, but, it’s only rock n roll. and we love it and don’t want to see it become extinct! Mutated Music = Rescuing Rock ‘n Roll, One Song At a Time.”
Growing up the brother of Joey Ramone, Leigh started his first band in 1964 at the age of 10, and by the age of 14, he was in a band with Joey and Tommy Ramone. He has been an instrumental figure in the New York punk scene ever since, including founding The Rattlers, Sibling Rivalry (with Joey Ramone), STOP, and plenty more.
In 2020, he decided to step out on his own and begin releasing tracks with Stevie Van Zandt’s (The Sopranos, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Little Steven & The Disciples of Soul) Wicked Cool Records.
In addition to Variants of Vibe, Mickey Leigh is the author of the book, I Slept With Joey Ramone: A Memoir, based on his experience growing up in Forest Hills, Queens.
