Band Buzz
June 26, 2003

Medicine man's new mix
Brad Laner revives his underground act with an electronic twist. Plus: Addison, Paloalto and more in this week's local band rundown.

L.A. native Brad Laner has been trolling the underground music scene since the early '80s as teen punk in Debt of Nature. Since then, Laner has fronted such avant-garde combos as Medicine, the Electric Company, Amnesia and Lusk, and released nearly a dozen albums. His "one legitimate show-biz moment," he says, came when Medicine scored a song and a spot performing in the 1995 film "The Crow," whose star Brandon Lee was killed in an accident on the set. Eight years later, Laner has revived Medicine with Brandon Lee's sister (and Bruce Lee's daughter), Shannon, on vocals. The pair's new album, "The Mechanical Forces of Love," is due July 15 on Wall of Sound/Astralwerks. "When I met Shannon, I was a bit nervous about how she would perceive working with somebody who had benefited from the thing that her brother had died doing," Laner says. After meeting through a mutual friend, Laner recruited Lee to add vocals to tracks he had recorded at his San Fernando Valley residence. Whether this electronic-based incarnation of Medicine will evolve into a performing entity remains to be seen. Says Laner: "We're trying to figure out how to do that now."

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