While we're excited about getting back on the road for solo shows and more performances with Beyond Borders, Andrew's pandemic "legacy project" is finished. After nearly a year of restoration and production with his longtime engineer and co-producer Dustin Delage, Nor'easter's one and only album Calm Before the Storm is ready for the world.
In late 1984 Andrew founded Nor'easter along with two of his dearest friends, drummer Matt Bouley and singer Christopher A. Gursky. Over two and a half years, they created an album's worth of their own intricate and memorable hard rock songs, which they recorded in 1989 - two years after their final show. That the recordings survived - from 4-track cassette and 8-track reels in the late 80s, through a variety of digital transfers, is nothing short of miraculous. At a couple points over the last 33 years, all seemed lost.
Thanks to Dustin's incredible technology talents, last year they were able at last to import the original tracks into the modern digital studio. For the last year, Dustin and Andrew have painstakingly worked to restore, refine and polish Calm into a properly produced album. Nor'easter's music is sonically right at home in the hard rock of the 80s, with one foot in the "commercial metal" of their contemporaries and the other in the footsteps of their 70s rock influences like Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, and Rush.
Since Matt passed away nearly twenty years ago, there likely won't be any future shows. The surviving members have been hard at work creating new experiences to share with fans - and have a lot of great things in the works including a mini-documentary, Rock Time in Your Town, along with their last concert bassist Paul St. Amour and based on their final concert with some recently discovered video.
The band is currently sharing a song and its backstory every day over the next couple weeks at their Facebook page. Other milestones coming up include a series of Friday drops:
- July 22nd - Video premiere for a collaboration with artist Manderley Swain on the title cut at the Nor'easter YouTube channel.
- August 5th - Album pre-sales start at Apple Music
- August 12th - the official release date, and shipping date for the CDs
- August 19th - Calm Before the Storm launches on all the streaming platforms including Apple Music and Spotify.
To follow the journey directly, please visit http://noreaster.rocks.
And to hear the music that survived that 33-year journey, or buy the download and/or disc, here you go!