By Jennifer Levesque
For the Valley Advocate
Peter Lo Iacono
“Waiting for Tuesday”
Peter Lo Iacono (pronounced Loy-uh-CO-no) has been a guitarist for more than 50 years. He originally started out playing in cover bands in the 1970s in his home state of New Jersey, which was how he made a living for many years. During the late ‘70s, he was even in a punk rock band called Sighs Five, which played at the infamous and iconic punk club CBGB in New York City.
While the musicians hoped for a record deal, things unfortunately didn’t work out in their favor. Due to internal disagreements over the band’s direction, Lo Iacono ultimately decided to leave.
“It was in the midst of the disappointment and disillusion that I decided I needed to get the proverbial ‘real job,’ and after a few painful years of bad jobs, I took a position as an apprentice addiction counselor,” he said. He has now made a career out of that decision for more than 40 years and is licensed here in Massachusetts as well as in New Hampshire.
Currently based in Greenfield, the 73-year-old musician has been able to pursue music on his own terms. He’s helmed numerous projects throughout the years, both solo and incorporating other musicians.
“In the late ’90s, I started acquiring recording equipment that would allow me to produce my own tracks, and where I wouldn’t have to pay for studio time,” Lo Iacono explained. “My first recordings were grouped in an album — some semblance of a band — I called Edge of States.”
He played guitar and bass on the album, which also featured a handful of vocalists and drummers whom Lo Iacono sought out for the project. He released the album, but because it was before the era of streaming and he had little knowledge of distribution, the record went largely unnoticed.
“From 2021 to 2024, firmly ensconced in a hard rock/metal bag reminiscent of the bands I enjoyed in my youth, I got serious about producing this current album, which extended into late 2025,” he said. “I put the tracks up when I felt they’d reached the goals of my neurotic perfectionism!”
He learned how to assemble his own drum tracks using software featuring live percussion recorded by professional session musicians. The tracks are assembled, clipped and compiled into libraries that can be selected and pieced together to create his unique sound. He notes that it is a complicated and undoubtedly time-consuming process, but it creates a polished quality that sounds as if an actual drummer is in the room. He had me fooled. The guitar and bass, however, are 100% played by Lo Iacono.
“I can summarize all this by saying that for a person in my situation, who fits music in the overall context of his life, this sort of management of all the parameters makes it possible,” he said.
“Waiting for Tuesday” was released this past September, so I’m a little late to the party — but better late than never. When you listen to the record, there are so many layers of instrumentation happening within a single song — let alone across all 10 tracks — that upon first listen, you would never imagine it’s only one person producing this wall of sound.
The title track kicks the album off pretty heavily. When I heard it was an instrumental rock album, I honestly wasn’t expecting it to be this heavy. It features heavy rock vibes and wailing guitar solos, all while bluesy notes swirl through the mix. I like how the end of the song slows down slightly, layering an acoustic guitar over the heavy rhythm tracks.
“Known Unknowns” starts off with a dance between the bass and cymbals that introduces synth textures before a thick, girthy guitar line locks in. Without vocals, I feel that the heavy guitar tone steps up to act as the primary vocalist. I like the jam band-ish feel to this one.
Meanwhile, I think that “Palmer’s Return” sounds like a song you would hear over a very cinematic scene in a fantasy movie. Lots of different paths and imagination sparks in this track. “Reaction Formation” has a different feel to it with the electronic-sounding beats. Although, that wailing heavy guitar is still making its dominant presence known. The closing track, “Agrigento,” begins with an elegant-sounding guitar phrase that seems to fit with the ending for the album.
You can check out “Waiting for Tuesday” on Lo Iacono’s Bandcamp page and stay tuned for more releases in the future: peterloiacono.bandcamp.com.
