To celebrate it’s 20th anniversary, I am releasing a special, limited edition vinyl reissue of my 1997 album Megiddo, originally released on Virgin Records. The album was recorded on 24-track tape and will be re-mastered for vinyl from 1/2-inch tape for a warm analog sound! Along the way I’m going to tell you the unlikely story of how an angry underachiever wound up releasing a major-label album while still a teenager, and you’ll get exclusive updates of how the project you are helping to fund is going. In addition to the vinyl pre-order, you can also pick up some goodies that I buried in a time capsule back in 1997 – 7" Vinyl singles, EPs, headshots, t-shirts – as well as custom handwritten lyrics, and even an acoustic show in your home!

“Lauren Hoffman’s record was beautiful without throwing up on your shoulder, but it never got the exposure it deserved. I don’t think her record company knew what a good thing they had” – Rob Sheffield (Rolling Stone).

I was a teenager living in Charlottesville Virginia when I wrote the songs on Megiddo. Writing a song was like a magical therapy session for me (it still is). I was what they called an ‘at-risk’ teen, and it often felt like music saved me. From myself. From the effects of my dysfunctional childhood, raised by mentally unstable divorced parents. The particularities of my family’s dysfunction had forced me to grow up quickly and I entered adolescence disillusioned and angry. I felt at a distance from everything, like I was sitting back with my arms crossed, watching the world’s tragicomedy of fakery, hubris, cruelty, weakness. (see: “Lolita”, “The Cannibal Ed”, “Cold and Gray”).

As middle school turned into high school I was hungry for art and experiences that could mirror the longing inside of me for a deeper truth. I found Classical Greek plays and mythology (“Persephone”). Metallica’s ‘Master of Puppets’. Sylvia Plath’s poetry. “The Unbearable Lightness of Being”. John Lennon. Nirvana (“Rock Star”). I became fascinated by religious wars, murderous cults, the holocaust. How could people be so wrong? How could they be so blind to their own evil? (“Blood”, “The Ashram Song”) I adopted an attitude of nihilistic hedonism; “Life has no meaning so you might as well try to enjoy it while you can” (“Hope You Don’t Mind”). I ingested any mind-altering substances available (“Persephone”, “Strange Man”). My best friend and I loved to say: “Live fast, die young and leave a good-looking corpse” (“Alive”).

That was who I was when I wrote the songs that became Megiddo on my unplugged electric guitar, singing at a whisper, sitting on my bed in my mom’s house late on a school night.