Beginnings….
The small details put my beginnings in 1959 rural Minnesota.
One of 4 siblings, 3 sisters, I the older of the second set with 10
years separating my older sisters from me.
I began music early with piano at age 6. My friends were
musical and my interests from about age 10 were mainly
musical.
Self taught guitar about age 14, I started involving my musical
friends in bands and writing copious amounts of music though
my friends insisted on playing cover songs for the local dances
and parties.
Teenage years…
It was 1975 when I had became involved with my first band in
highschool. I played guitar and vocals, Tony Kaye, guitar and
vocal, Mark Foley on bass, Jim Roppe on drums and Robert
Linton on farfisa organ. We played all through high school
ending when Jim joined the army.
Beat the Dutch evolves…
After high school I married Tami Green. I was 19, she was 18,
we were hopelessly mismatched. Part of this conflict lay in the
development of a new band, Beat The Dutch.
Beat The Dutch picked up where the high school band left off.
Robert had also moved away, and Jim was replaced by Matt
Jacobs on drums.
At first we were highly experimental, recording late night
sessions at Augsburg college and doing an 8-track rock n roll
session at Blackberry Way in Dinkytown, available on the the
CD Don't Send Me To Afghanistan.
By the end of 1980 we recorded another 8-track session at
Ambient Sound with Colin Mansfield producing but the
recording lacked vision, the songs continued to be immature so
Beat The Dutch folded when Mark left town for a bigger college.
We reconvened in 1982 for one spectacular live set known as
The Clubhouse Tapes.
On Hiatus….
In 1983 I retired from music, sold my gear and moved in with
my girlfriend. No longer making music I began listening... to
everything! Working in record shops, living in extreme poverty,
walking everywhere, smoking lots of pot, practicing yoga, going
vegen... an idylic time.
We attempted to make a move out of the city in 1987. However
this created a great deal of turmoil, the move eventually failing
due to lack of funds, lack of planning and a lack of tenable job
skills.
We moved back to the city I bought a guitar...
Back to Music… The birth of Plum Flower Embroidery
It was Racheal Olson who re-ignited my interest in writing
music. We only made two 4-track recordings but it was a great
inspiration and shortly after Plum Flower Embroidery was born.
The first incarnation of PFE were experimental sound recordings
I undertook with Betsy Wheeler. Eventually she and I added
drummer Damon Cuccia and played some extremely loud rock
n roll. Betsy and I remained active until about 1991.
During this time I also was able to reconvene various
incarnations of BTD for one off 4-track recordings.
From 1992 through 1993 I rehearsed a new line-up of PFE with
Kevin Ittner on bass and Dan Reddan on drums, but the
recordings didn't gel, so in 1994 I booked time at Leo
Whitebird's 16-track studio and brought in Beat The Dutch to
record the set of material I'd been rehearsing with Dan and
Kevin.
Flooding Opera, Hiatus (again!) and Sunday Night IC….
Before I could finish properly mixing the 16-track sessions Tony
and I started Flooding Opera and built a small studio in his
basement. With Flooding Opera we were able to perform and
even included Robert Linton on synth for our gigs.
It was shortlived and, by 1997, due to financial and personal
pressures Flooding Opera crashed in flaming ruins. At that point
I decided once again to retire from music.
In 2000 Leo Whitebird invited me to participate in his Sunday
Night Improvisational Collective. A free form jam session with a
fluctuating line-up including Matt DuRoche, Dan Reddan, Phil
Belknap and Tim Lavin. I fit right in and to my amazement
music was FUN again!
PFE Music...
Meanwhile... a house in Minneapolis, 2 kids, I became a house
Dad and part time carpenter and another plan was conceived to
leave the city for the country which started to come to fruition in
2003... there were extra funds available for a little recording
equipment, digital 8-track, a microphone, an electric guitar. I
was a pig in mud!
I recorded all the tracks for Quantumn Soul Machine in the
weeks before the big move...
We also undertook a flurry of recording with Sunday Night IC
before I absented myself for the northwoods.
It was during the long and VERY cold winter months I began to
assemble and master the recordings from 1980 to the present
under the lable PFE Music.
Unable to physically record music in the extreme cold of the first
two years in our new primitive.
2004/2005 saw the completion of 2 more Plum Flower
Embroidery CDs now compliled on the discs The Hovel & Nova
In The Belly while building the house and adjusting to the fresh
air!
Frappe Dreamgate...
Amazingly the northwoods has the internet, and while trying to
promote PFE Music via this instrument, I started meeting
likeminded musicians and the idea was floated about
collaborating by trading MP3 files, adding bits and sending them
back. Since I had just upgraded from the 8-track to computer
recording with Tracktion software I became the 'producer' of
sorts.
Frappe Dreamgate began as a collaboration between myself and
Andy Wagner in St. Louis. We quickly included Woden Thoth
from Electric Tiger in Massechusets and completed the first CD
in a matter of weeks.
The second CD involved a few more artists, Mary Hestand from
Merry and the Mood Swings in Texas, Emeraldwilly also in St.
Louis and a cat named David S in St. Paul who remains very
mysterious.
Many more people contributed various pieces of vocal or lyrics,
all from the land of blogs...
Neutral Sons...
Another internet collaboration, Neutral Sons is less experimental
and more songcraft, and at least some of our recordings have
taken place with both of us in the SAME room!
Mark Cottrell and I met on MySpace, developed a fondness and
appreciation for each others music and were able to meet and
record while Mark was traveling, in addition to trading MP3
files and recording that way.
New beginnings & White Plum...
2008 has thus far seen great personal trauma and loss together
with some new oppertunities and possibilites including the
collaboration White Plum, with my old friend Leo Whitebird.
A third Plum Flower Embroidery CD already in the works for
2008, which makes for 23 CDs in the PFE Music pantheon.
A possible move and travel later in the year, and much more
music to come...
The small details put my beginnings in 1959 rural Minnesota.
One of 4 siblings, 3 sisters, I the older of the second set with 10
years separating my older sisters from me.
I began music early with piano at age 6. My friends were
musical and my interests from about age 10 were mainly
musical.
Self taught guitar about age 14, I started involving my musical
friends in bands and writing copious amounts of music though
my friends insisted on playing cover songs for the local dances
and parties.
Teenage years…
It was 1975 when I had became involved with my first band in
highschool. I played guitar and vocals, Tony Kaye, guitar and
vocal, Mark Foley on bass, Jim Roppe on drums and Robert
Linton on farfisa organ. We played all through high school
ending when Jim joined the army.
Beat the Dutch evolves…
After high school I married Tami Green. I was 19, she was 18,
we were hopelessly mismatched. Part of this conflict lay in the
development of a new band, Beat The Dutch.
Beat The Dutch picked up where the high school band left off.
Robert had also moved away, and Jim was replaced by Matt
Jacobs on drums.
At first we were highly experimental, recording late night
sessions at Augsburg college and doing an 8-track rock n roll
session at Blackberry Way in Dinkytown, available on the the
CD Don't Send Me To Afghanistan.
By the end of 1980 we recorded another 8-track session at
Ambient Sound with Colin Mansfield producing but the
recording lacked vision, the songs continued to be immature so
Beat The Dutch folded when Mark left town for a bigger college.
We reconvened in 1982 for one spectacular live set known as
The Clubhouse Tapes.
On Hiatus….
In 1983 I retired from music, sold my gear and moved in with
my girlfriend. No longer making music I began listening... to
everything! Working in record shops, living in extreme poverty,
walking everywhere, smoking lots of pot, practicing yoga, going
vegen... an idylic time.
We attempted to make a move out of the city in 1987. However
this created a great deal of turmoil, the move eventually failing
due to lack of funds, lack of planning and a lack of tenable job
skills.
We moved back to the city I bought a guitar...
Back to Music… The birth of Plum Flower Embroidery
It was Racheal Olson who re-ignited my interest in writing
music. We only made two 4-track recordings but it was a great
inspiration and shortly after Plum Flower Embroidery was born.
The first incarnation of PFE were experimental sound recordings
I undertook with Betsy Wheeler. Eventually she and I added
drummer Damon Cuccia and played some extremely loud rock
n roll. Betsy and I remained active until about 1991.
During this time I also was able to reconvene various
incarnations of BTD for one off 4-track recordings.
From 1992 through 1993 I rehearsed a new line-up of PFE with
Kevin Ittner on bass and Dan Reddan on drums, but the
recordings didn't gel, so in 1994 I booked time at Leo
Whitebird's 16-track studio and brought in Beat The Dutch to
record the set of material I'd been rehearsing with Dan and
Kevin.
Flooding Opera, Hiatus (again!) and Sunday Night IC….
Before I could finish properly mixing the 16-track sessions Tony
and I started Flooding Opera and built a small studio in his
basement. With Flooding Opera we were able to perform and
even included Robert Linton on synth for our gigs.
It was shortlived and, by 1997, due to financial and personal
pressures Flooding Opera crashed in flaming ruins. At that point
I decided once again to retire from music.
In 2000 Leo Whitebird invited me to participate in his Sunday
Night Improvisational Collective. A free form jam session with a
fluctuating line-up including Matt DuRoche, Dan Reddan, Phil
Belknap and Tim Lavin. I fit right in and to my amazement
music was FUN again!
PFE Music...
Meanwhile... a house in Minneapolis, 2 kids, I became a house
Dad and part time carpenter and another plan was conceived to
leave the city for the country which started to come to fruition in
2003... there were extra funds available for a little recording
equipment, digital 8-track, a microphone, an electric guitar. I
was a pig in mud!
I recorded all the tracks for Quantumn Soul Machine in the
weeks before the big move...
We also undertook a flurry of recording with Sunday Night IC
before I absented myself for the northwoods.
It was during the long and VERY cold winter months I began to
assemble and master the recordings from 1980 to the present
under the lable PFE Music.
Unable to physically record music in the extreme cold of the first
two years in our new primitive.
2004/2005 saw the completion of 2 more Plum Flower
Embroidery CDs now compliled on the discs The Hovel & Nova
In The Belly while building the house and adjusting to the fresh
air!
Frappe Dreamgate...
Amazingly the northwoods has the internet, and while trying to
promote PFE Music via this instrument, I started meeting
likeminded musicians and the idea was floated about
collaborating by trading MP3 files, adding bits and sending them
back. Since I had just upgraded from the 8-track to computer
recording with Tracktion software I became the 'producer' of
sorts.
Frappe Dreamgate began as a collaboration between myself and
Andy Wagner in St. Louis. We quickly included Woden Thoth
from Electric Tiger in Massechusets and completed the first CD
in a matter of weeks.
The second CD involved a few more artists, Mary Hestand from
Merry and the Mood Swings in Texas, Emeraldwilly also in St.
Louis and a cat named David S in St. Paul who remains very
mysterious.
Many more people contributed various pieces of vocal or lyrics,
all from the land of blogs...
Neutral Sons...
Another internet collaboration, Neutral Sons is less experimental
and more songcraft, and at least some of our recordings have
taken place with both of us in the SAME room!
Mark Cottrell and I met on MySpace, developed a fondness and
appreciation for each others music and were able to meet and
record while Mark was traveling, in addition to trading MP3
files and recording that way.
New beginnings & White Plum...
2008 has thus far seen great personal trauma and loss together
with some new oppertunities and possibilites including the
collaboration White Plum, with my old friend Leo Whitebird.
A third Plum Flower Embroidery CD already in the works for
2008, which makes for 23 CDs in the PFE Music pantheon.
A possible move and travel later in the year, and much more
music to come...
