John Totaro

Vice Presidential Pardons

Genres: 12 Step / Recovery

Price: $14.99

Songs and Samples

Produced by David Lowery
Looking Back
Bottle, Me & You
Heartbreak
She's Starting To Feel
Obsession Away
Sick & Tired
Screw It
On My Mind
Subterranean Homesick Too
Hollywood Street
Restitution Due
Guest List

Some Nice Things People Have Said

Critically acclaimed TOTARO is the alternative pop project of songwriter John Totaro. Dipping into punk roots of The Replacements and Ramones, this band whips off hook after hook, impressing all with great songwriting and a killer stage show. John's frontman antics alone will grab you and you"ll leave humming his songs.
- Next To Kin Magazine

There's no question that John Totaro's got what it takes to be a star. He's got the look, the attitude, and rocks like the best of 'em. Most importantly he's got the songs.
-Seacost Times

If you listened to the critics, you'd think TOTARO was on their way to the top. They've been called "Boston's most heralded unsigned band". They've been compared with bands like The Clash, Ramones, Rolling Stones, Velvet Underground, and David Bowie.
-Soundcheck Magazine

Take a splash of the Ramones, add a bit of Velvet Underground, throw in a piece a piece of the Replacements for good measure, then add a chunk of new life, you get TOTARO.
-Portsmouth Herald

John Totaro has probably become the region's romantic punk king, which heightens with every new tune.
-Jam Music Magazine

About John Totaro

In John Totaro's family you didn't have a choice about whether you wanted to be a musician or not. All of the kids in John's family were required to take music lessons so it was only a question of deciding which instrument to learn.

John opted for the guitar, but while his teacher drilled him in the conventions of notes and scales, he was setting his own musical course. "It was the sixties, the British Invasion and all that," he says, remembering how he'd figure out how to play the latest Stones or Dylan songs on his own.

By the time he was in eighth grade he was playing in bands with kids in high school; when he was in high school he was playing with kids that were in college. He cut his teeth on the professional scene as the teenage roadie for one of Boston's signed acts. "All I wanted to do was play and write music," he says.

But first came college and even there his choices reflected his interests. "I was never a very good student," he admits about his time at Lake Forest College. When he could, he played on the blues scene in nearby Chicago, and chose for his major, education, recognizing the similarities between entertaining and standing in front of a classroom.

Totaro did solo gigs in coffeehouses and played in one of his college's most popular bands. An offer of a full-time teaching job made him more than ever determined to pursue music. "It was in the early eighties and for a full-time teacher position they were paying $11,000 a year. And it was like, If I'm going to struggle, I'm going to play music!"

"Professional musician songwriter wants to give something back. Send demo," was the intriguing ad he spotted in the Boston Phoenix shortly after he'd returned home to Boston, MA. John Curtis of the Pousette-Dart Band (on Capital Records) had placed the ad and liking John's demo, contacted him.

The two worked together until sometime in 1984, when Curtis announced to John, "Now you've got to go out and do it." And, with only a brief hiatus, that's what he's been doing ever since-as a founding member of several bands, including The Accidents, The Tats, Group E, and of course, Totaro.

By the mid-nineties, John's career was humming. Several accolades came his way, including being twice named one of the best unsigned bands in America by Musician magazine.

He was also getting airplay as far away as Europe and Japan, and he was hosting an award-winning cable TV show, Rawk Tawk with John Totaro. There was just one problem. "I turned forty," he says. "In rock 'n roll that means 'game's over!'"

The proof? A record he'd put out had gotten him noticed by a major record label who, after weighing their options, told him they'd rather deal with a twenty-something.

"So I just stopped," he says, recalling his disappointment. "The members of the band were pissed. By late 2002, I was pretty bummed out; drinking and drugging too much."

But John just doesn't have the personality for quitting. His "dark night of the soul" - once he'd kicked drugs and drink - resulted in a highly productive writing stretch, which led him back to performing, because, as he sees it, "A song has to have an audience to breathe. To write a song and stay at home and play it, well, you might as well not write it."

A longtime fan of Cracker, in 2006 John approached David Lowery ("I hounded this guy," is his less finessed description) and asked him to produce a CD based on this material. Impressed, Lowery agreed to record Totaro in his Virginia studio; the result is Vice Presidential Pardons, released April 2007. Further endorsement came from the renowned Lowery when he invited Totaro to open shows for the New England leg of Cracker's spring tour.

John's attitude to playing music has changed. "It's different from the last time, but it's more fun. Before I would play with any good musician who was willing to commit, but I didn't necessarily have to like them. But now it has to be a good fit too, in terms of support and camaraderie."

The music business has changed too. "The classic rock artists like the Stones-these guys are in their sixties, so you can be in your forties and still do it. Dylan is a perfect example: still vital, still cool, still prolific." Hmmm, sounds like someone I know.
~ Lauren Byrne, Boston, MA