Son Of Invention

After eight years of songwriting and gigging, two bands have joined forces from 1,800 miles apart to give birth to a new style of rock music in Son of Invention. The Last Lighter based out of Kansas City, and The Feinting Room from the San Francisco Bay Area have teamed up to create a new eclectic rock sound that has been capturing the hearts of fans along the West Coast. The seeds were planted eight years ago when, in the loft of a garage dubbed 'The Barn,Michael Burton, an oft proclaimed 'prodigy' guitar player, and his bass playing protg Jake Stillman sat down with Michael's grammar school band mate Mike Christman. Fresh off the plane from his hometown in Missouri, Mike wasn't just on vacation. Gathering up piles of blankets and sleeping bags they crudely constructed a 'sound treated' cube large enough to fit a drumset in. With a single pair of mics they turned The Barn into a recording studio and during the few days of Mikes visit the trio huddled around a glowing computer screen and managed to produce a four song demo CD for a project they called 'The Last Lighter.' A few years later Michael Burton found himself half way across the country writing new material and gigging in the Kansas City area with a whole new cast of musicians (James Schmidt on drums and Mike Johnson on bass). This all star trio soon formed a following, building a strong reputation as The Last Lighter while spreading the songs from the demo they had made in California. During this time, Tony Guerra (Jake Stillman's cousin) was living on a feinting couch in a small room at a friends place in Nevada City, California spending all of his free time slaving away on his computer. A concrete worker by trade, Tony began creating an album, track by track, with nothing more than a mic, a guitar and a midi controller. What he created was dark, mysterious and amazing. It was as if Pink Floyd, Primus, and the Beatles teamed up for recording, ingested LSD while listening to metal and then decided to lay down overdubs. Clearly smitten by the quality of his long lost cousin's songwriting ability, Jake Stillman had come a long way since recording the The Last Lighters demo. Soon to graduate from San Francisco State with a degree in audio production he teamed up with Tony and they began The Fainting Room anew with a fresh production value that truly brought the songs to their fullest potential. By 2010 both projects had developed their own unique sound. James and Michael moved to California, reunited with Jake, and began recording the songs that were developed during their time in Kansas City. It wasn't long before all four musicians began playing together, realizing that combining their genre shattering projects and their diverse musical stylings created something new, something different, something amazing, this unification birthed a project that can truly be considered a Son of Invention. Now after a year of recording and gigging their new album has hit the streets (July 2012) and has already caused a stir in their northern Californian hometown Point Arena. They are planning their first tour, taking place this October, spreading their new original material from San Francisco to Chicago.