Just to start with, please tell us more
about your background and why you took up music. Which bands were you
influenced by ?
My first attraction to music was via
cinematic scores and cartoon soundtracks. A big reason I like
Progressive Rock is that it shares qualities of those styles; never
know where you may travel from moment to moment. An interior
adventure as opposed to something more formulaic...and also a
gigantic timbre palate.
Tulsa Oklahoma, where I was born and
raised, was fortunate in that there was an FM station (KTBA) that
played non stop Prog. I was exposed to King Crimson and Gentle Giant
via that channel. The more mainstream FM stations were playing Yes
and ELP so there was rarely a time when you couldn’t hear Close to
the Edge or Karn Evil 9 in it's entirety at least once a day
somewhere. More current Prog groups I like now are Animals as
Leaders, Wobbler, and Ezra Winston. There are lots of other artists
from different fields like Blotted Science, Eldar Djangirov and Jean
Luc Ponty that are doing very adventurous things of note. There is
no good or bad music, there is just music…beyond that, merely
preference.
I started playing piano in 1973 after
discovering that the organ work I kept hearing in monster movies was
Bach's Toccata & Fugue in D minor. In 1976 I started playing
guitar and that is my main instrument in terms of performance. I
have played keyboards in a lot of bands but mainly I use them to
compose or orchestrate. Keyboard heroes are Jobson, Wakeman,
Emerson, Banks, Minnear and Tommy Mars. Guitar players I like are
Holdsworth, Rabin, Jarzombek, Kottke, Montrose, Gilmour, Django
Reinhardt and many others.
I started playing professionally at
age 16 in 1976 with my brother Steve. We did a few original things
but mainly novelty stuff by Spike Jones, the Hoosier Hotshots, Tom
Lehrer and Homer & Jethro. After playing in a house band for a
local theater company for a few years, I went back to school and got
a music degree. Eventually I started my label Esotericity Music
(ASCAP) and the first release was the Aviary. I had the good fortune
to be able to study under jazz guitar legend Stanley Jordan. He
totally changed the way I approach playing & composition. I was
honored to do a synthesizer solo for Ron Jarzombek’s “Spastic
Ink: Inkompatible cd. That project included Michael Manring, Jens
Johansson, Sean Malone and Marty Friedman. I met Ron at a Watchtower
gig and we’ve sent tapes back and forth for years. I can’t speak
highly enough about him…pure genius and a nice guy.
This is an archive based interview also
intended for the fans you get well after both you and I have passed
away so let's go straight to your albums. Please give us your long or
brief views on your albums, starting with.......
The Aviary (1991)
Actual birdsong controls the pitch,
melody, rhythm and dynamics. Every musical element is generated by
the bird. I only provide orchestration. It’s like scanning a
photo then changing the colors. This project has been described as
music from another galaxy and it is definitely not something you’re
going to be able to hum while you work…at least not very easily.
I’ve used this same approach with location recordings and have a
very large amount of materiel waiting to be finalized.
This is a duet with Kurt Rongey of
Underground Railroad fame. We played in a Prog band called Crunchy
Frog in Fort Worth Texas with Bill Pohl (also of Underground
Railroad). Kurt went to music school in England and on his breaks,
we would record these experiments. Over time there was enough
material for a release. The songs are based on Fibonacci sequences,
prime numbers or just totally random things like dice. After a while
it was decided to try and create a Wagnerian scale work based on Max
Ernst’s collage novel ‘The Hundred Headless Woman” so the
writing shifted to more of a programmatic approach. We only did a
couple of shows; the last opening for the Legendary Pink Dots. I
always enjoy collaboration as it tends to take you in unexpected
directions.
Happy Hour for a Pack of Screaming
Monkeys (1998)
A tribute to Raymond Scott whose music
was used in hundreds of cartoons from Warner Brothers to Ren and
Stimpy. Initially it was to be a solo album but eventually was
opened up to other renditions by various friends. About half the
album is me under different pseudonyms and the rest are guests. Kurt
and Bill are on there as well as my brother Steve, Ron Jarzombek ,
Kevin Leonard of North Star and a host of others.
Transphoria (1999)
This is a more straight ahead sort of
Progressive album that took several years to finish. I had the
assistance of Candy Gaffen on grand piano, vocalist Jenny Labow and
mastering help from Martin Halstead. Some of the acoustic guitar
things were written back in 1977 and other bits evolved over many
years. Italian Prog Label ‘Mellow Records’ released it initially
but now it’s available at Amazon along with a few other cds’.
This album has a lot of structural interweaving between the longer
songs. I’ve been working of the follow up since 2001.
Ephemeron (2001)
A collection of humanly impossible
rhythmic hierarchies. At least 3 concurrent time signatures are
occurring at any given time…sometimes up to 5. I have a lot of
other pieces in this same vein that I would like to finish someday.
The matrices were done back in the late 1980’s. There is also a
bonus track ‘Hydrophony’ which is the Aviary approach applied to
the sound of a creek.
Lunaria (2004)
Serigraphs (2005)
Syllogisms (2005)
These 3 projects were done
simultaneously. I tend to do a lot of different things and
eventually have enough similar stuff to put an album together. So I
will go for a few years then suddenly release 5 albums at once.
Lunaria is atmospheric soundscapes. Serigraphs is a wide range of
things based on the art work of Robert Smith (a friend from Boy
Scouts) and Syllogisms is another variety collection that I used as
soundtracks for the short films I do as Good Taste Theatre. This
group of releases was the last wave of writing before I met Stanley
Jordan and took a new approach.
Euphoricon (2006)
Hallucinographs (2006)
These were done at the same time as an
experiment to try to be more spontaneous and try and find a way to
utilize ever thing I had recorded. Halucinographs is the result of
an entire years’ work (4-18 hours a day for 360+ days). I think
it’s my most cohesive work in terms of propulsion. The goal was to
take you on a journey and hopefully you start listening and suddenly
the albums over…I tried to make it seamless.
How would you describe your development
from your first album to the most
recent one ?
Things hinge on whatever technology is
available at the time. With a virtual infinitude of possibilities,
it’s easy to be overwhelmed and lose momentum trying to fix things
that probably should just be redone or scrapped. I like a wide
range of things so it’s difficult to focus on one area for long.
Nature tends to side with the flaw so I’m always hoping some
accident will lead me to a secret garden…which it often does.
How would you describe your music ?
Eclectic with no particular niche
which makes it hard to market. People expect you to do things that
can be easily categorized. These pieces take on a life and logic of
their own so I’m just sort of a midwife. Nowadays I have a huge
collection of indescribable works that I’m not sure which direction
to lob.
You have released a lot of albums and
have done some gigs. What is your experiences with the music industry and
the gigs promotors ?
Played in a lot of different bands but
none that ever got to any industrial scale. When I decided to start
my label in 1991, I sent out promo’s and got airplay and reviews
but I’m still fairly underground. Keyboard Magazine has been very
supportive over the years and pretty much all the Prog zines as
well.
I’m getting further away from normal
music as I get older. I’d like to abandon the business side
completely and just give things away…which is what I’m doing now
on Soundcloud with shorter pieces. The longer works go to Amazon
mainly just because it’s easier. I hate mp3 so eventually
everything may be at Amazon on cd only.
What is your current status and do you
have any plans for this year and beyond ?
A large scale work for synthesizer is
nearing completion. An orchestral symphony I’ve been working on
for nearly 30 years that may be nearly done or may take another 2
years to finish…it’s up to fate in terms of motivation and
technology. It would be great to work with a drummer again or maybe
a live acoustic guitar thing. A Prog group would be fun but finding
people who will put the amount of effort in that’s required for
little chance of playing anywhere is a large hurdle.
Is music your main occupation in life
or do you have a “normal” job too ?
Music is a path that I’ve spent a
huge part of my life pursuing. I’ve had many day gigs that support
my music habit. I’ve done music exclusively but it tends to be all
business and no music so I prefer to just have a day job to pay the
bills and let music just be something I do for enjoyment rather than
commerce.
To wrap up this interview, is there
anything you want to add to this interview ?
I would urge everyone to support your
favorite bands by posting them out to Facebook or wherever you can…I
try to lure people to the more obscure groups by posting out
mainstream stuff like King Crimson or Genesis (to draw attention)
then post Cairo or District 97. This method works and I’m always
happy when I can help someone discover a new artist.
Thank you to David for this interview
His PA profile is here and his homepage is here
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David Bagsby
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