Recent CD

Monster Mike Welch Band
“Adding Insight To Injury”
2004
www.95northrecords.com

A young teen who can rip off the top of your head and cram your brains into your neck with his blues guitar work."

 
Years ago, while playing the opening of the House of Blues in Cambridge, no less a blues brother than Dan Aykroyd gave this young Bostonian singer/songwriter/guitarist the moniker "Monster" Mike Welch. The appellation has served him well: Welch recorded two widely-acclaimed albums for Tone-Cool which won the ears of critics varied from Musician to People magazines and garnered a loyal fan base. "One day I’d never been in the newspaper," he says, "and the next day, there I was in print with a name I hadn’t had ‘til the night before, ‘Monster’ Mike Welch." But now, on the dawn of his third and best album, Catch Me, Welch feels the time has come to give it back. "I never particularly identified with it," he confesses. And, just as importantly, the new album marks a new beginning as Welch expands upon his initial influences to create new songs that maintain the blues foundation while pushing forward into pop territory.

"I’ve always listened to the Beatles and Elvis Costello right alongside B.B. King, and Freddie King, so this direction feels very natural to me," he says. "This record is about letting out all I want to play. "However, the blues is there," he adds, "and I think it’s more authentic in terms of emotional expression than anything I’ve recorded before."

Welch’s influences date back to the young age of seven when a musical cousin turned him on to the Beatles. "To be seven and have a 13-year-old cousin who plays ‘Twist & Shout’ was the coolest thing," he says. He appropriated a used guitar in the closet and ran with it. And then he started to pilfer through his father’s record collection. "He had a prototypical ‘60s record collection—Beatles, Hendrix, every record Eric Clapton played on, plus one Muddy Waters, one Albert King, one Howlin’ Wolf and so on. From Cream’s version of ‘Crossroads,’ I sought out Robert Johnson."