from the Windy City Times, 1994

Spotlight, by Elaine Belsito

Eric Lugosch, who'll play at the Abbey Pub this Saturday, just won the Napa Valley Emerging Songwriter's contest. And from the way he describes writing music, his triumph sounds well-deserved.
"This is how it goes," says the Chicago artist. "I'll have something in my head I'm working on, and I'll sit down and play it. And then I'll get pissed off at it about a third of the way through. Then I'll walk around in a bad mood all day, trying to think of the end of the phrase...then I'll pick up the guitar and play something I like to finish it...and then I'll be in a good mood for five minutes."
Enamored of guitar since he picked it up at age 12 or so, it seems more appropriate to say that music has pursued Lugosch than the other way around.
"What do musicians do all day? They think about songs. That's all I really do. Sometimes I don't sleep. I can't shut my brain off. It's frustrating sometimes..." he confessed.
Yet Making Models, Lugosch's disc debut on Whitehouse Records, betrays no evidence of the angst Lugosch seems to suffer when writing. On the contrary, even the record's melancholy songs are soothing.
Lugosch likes to make model airplanes while mulling over his songs. His flyers are all rubber-band powered; the tension of the elastic propels them into the sky and then, he says, "they're gliders and you just have to follow them."
Perhaps his songs work that way, too, painstaking moments of composition eventually give way to songs that seem to flow effortlessly.
Two such tunes are his Napa Valley winners, "Her Grace" and "More Reasons than Stars." Lugosch's tunes are like jugs of fresh water; musically clear and lyrically simple, they refresh without overpowering you. And they leave you wanting to come come back for more.
Along with his original songs, Lugosch includes some traditional songs which showcase his fingerpicking style. He won the National Fingerpicking Championship in 1984 and has place[d] several times since. Of the two, he finds the traditional tunes are more personally compelling.
"I would say traditional stuff stays with me longer. There are pieces I've played since I was 12, but very few pieces that I wrote then. I mean, I'll never get sick of playing the "Spikedriver Blues," but I sure as hell get sick of playing my own pieces."
Of course, he shows considerable innovation in his arrangements of traditional tunes like "Colored Aristocracy," a civil war fiddle songs [sic] that he plays as a rhumba.
Growing up in Philadelphia, Lugosch was a boy soprano with the city's prestigious boy's choir. Though he liked the singing he wasn't fond of the reputation his singing earned him among his grade school peers.
With embarassment at releasing such information to a stranger, he admitted that he was quite relieved when his voice finally changed, especially since his Italian classmates "all had full beards in fourth grade."
When his brother returned from Viet Nam with a Japanese folk guitar, Lugosch found his calling.
"I said this is something I can do that no one else can do. Right from the beginning I liked it and I burnt all other bridges."
Lugsoch headlines fingerpicking festivals as well as opening for an impressive list of acoustic artists, including Doc Watson, John Prine, Vassar Clements, David Bromberg, and Leon Redbone. Previous to Making Models, he released two projects; one of his earlier songs is used as the closing theme on comedian Aaron Freeman's talk show.
Principally self-taught on the guitar, Lugosch found formal training in composition liberating because it allowed him to communicate musical ideas with other musicians on paper. All his tunes are available in sheet music, and he's been especially pleased when others have chosen to record them.
"I write songs, whether in word or on the guitar, I'm focused on a melody, on the metal part. I'm focused on people walking away and remembering a tune."