East Lansing resident Lisa Bennett has been listening to the Philadelphia-based one-man band Atom and His Package for more than two years and has even traveled to Arkansas to see him perform.
But Bennett didn’t have to travel very far for her third Atom and His Package concert Monday night.
Multi-talented Adam Goren made his third visit to East Lansing on Monday, supporting his new album by playing at a local house party.
“I’m really glad he’s out there being a guiding light for fun-loving nerds out there,” Bennett said.
Goren performs with his guitar and his “package,” a music sequencer, from which most of his backup music is produced.
Goren started to play his music sequencer after his previous band, Fracture, broke up in 1995. Soon, he began to write his own songs and perform.
“I have fun playing songs for people, then I started putting out records,” he said. “I made a lot of real good friends playing music.”
Goren started Atom and His Package more than three years ago and has recorded four albums since. His latest album, “Redefining Music,” came out in April on Hopeless Records, the company he signed with last October.
Bennett has not heard the new album yet, but she said the new songs Atom and His Package played Monday were fun.
Goren graduated from Wesleyan University, in Connecticut, with a bachelor’s degree in neuroscience and he later received a master’s in education from the University of Pennsylvania. He is also certified to teach high school.
“(Teaching) is something I can do later,” he said. “But with this (Atom and His Package) I can’t do it later.”
Since February, he has been touring across the United States with opening act Har Mar Superstar, another one-man band featuring Harold Martin Tillmann. Goren said he likes the constant “tour, go home, recover, set up more shows, then continue” process.
Even though Royal Oak resident Courtney Feldman doesn’t own any Atom and His Package albums, Monday was her second time seeing him perform.
“He’s so witty,” she said. “That’s what I like the most.”
Matt Switlik, a computer engineering sophomore, has been listening to Atom and His Package since 1996, but Monday was the first time he was able to catch his live performance.
“Atom is probably one of the original forms of music out there,” Switlik said. “He’s a dash of Weird Al, a pinch of Bad Religion, and a cup of punk rock.”
