Dave Kerman was born in Torrance, California, south of Los Angeles. At the age of six he started playing with the drum sticks, and at nine he auditioned for a percussionist in his school band. In spite of failing the audition, Grateful Dead keyboardist Keith Godchaux, family friend and neighbor, recognised potential in Kerman and suggested to Kerman's parents that they buy him a set of drums. Kerman's first public performance was at the age of 10 with a band of his that he had entered in a local talent contest.
In high school, Kerman formed a garage band with guitarist Greg Conway and bassist Jon Beck. They began as a cover band playing a mixture of Deep Purple, King Crimson and Lynyrd Skynyrd songs but soon switched to experimenting with noise music. Kerman also modified his drum kit to extend its capabilities, including adding telescoping metal tubing that changed pitch (made from old fire extinguishers), and stringing the bass drum shell with heavy-gauge strings that produced an un-tuned zither sound.[3] He also started using a variety of objects to strike his drum kit with, including kitchen utensils, golf clubs and Barbie dolls.[4][5][6]
In 1976 Kerman's band named themselves "Farmer Fred Genuflects to A-440" and played at a Greenpeace Festival in San Diego, California. While their performance did not go down very well, one concert goer recognised potential and suggested they listen to Henry Cow and Faust. These new influences prompted Kerman to begin exploring new compositional techniques and he started writing experimental songs for his band. Even though Kerman was a drummer, he taught himself guitar and keyboards to compose on.
By the early 1980s Kerman's band was playing progressive rock and took on the name 5uu's. They began recording their first album in 1984 and went on to make six more albums, an EP and a single. 5uu's were also regularly featured on Recommended Records' Quarterly Magazine installments, with specially commissioned pieces, which were available nowhere else.The band toured 25 cities in Western Europe and 14 cities in Eastern Europe during 1995. The 5uu's has been Kerman's principal band, for which he is best known. He composes most of the music for this group.
Other bands and projects
In 1988 the 5uu's and another Los Angeles band, Motor Totemists Guild merged to form U Totem to play at the Frankfurt Art Rock Festival in Germany. U Totem toured Europe and North America and made two albums, and Kerman remained with the band until its demise in 1994. While in Europe with U Totem in 1993, guitarist/composer Roger Trigaux of the Belgian progressive rock band Present, asked Kerman to replace drummer Daniel Denis, who was leaving. Kerman joined Present and has remained with the band ever since, appearing on their 2009 DVD and on five of their albums. He has also toured Europe and North America with them several times.
In 1989 Bob Drake from the Denver based avant-rock group Thinking Plague left the band and moved to Los Angeles where he met Kerman. Kerman had been interested in Thinking Plague's music and moved to Denver in 1989 to join the band. He remained with Thinking Plague for eleven years, performed live with them at NEARfest 2000 and is featured on three of their albums.
When U Totem broke up in 1993, Kerman reformed the 5uu's with Drake and Sanjay Kumar. In 1994 Kerman and Drake moved into an old unoccupied farm house in Caudeval in southern France owned by ex-Henry Cow drummer Chris Cutler and sound engineer EM (Maggie) Thomas. Cutler and Thomas had purchased the farm a few years earlier with a view to using it as a recording studio. Kerman and Drake undertook the task of renovating and converting the farm house, and it was named Studio Midi-Pyrenees, with Drake the resident engineer/producer. In 1996 Kerman joined the Dutch avant-garde band Blast, recorded one album and toured Europe and North America with them.
In 2000 Kerman relocated to Tel Aviv in Israel where he teamed up with engineer/producer Udi Koomran to continue work with the 5uu's. He also spent much of his time working as a composer for the Israeli Batsheva Dance Company. In 2002 Kerman and Koomran started a new band in Israel called Ahvak (Hebrew for "Dust") in a similar vein to U Totem and Thinking Plague. Ahvak played at the Tritonale Festival in Paris in 2004 and released a self-titled album the same year.
In 2002 Kerman wrote a series of editorials on progressive rock for Exposé, a United States quarterly music publication, entitled "Earth to Josh: Prog Is Dead" (Exposé #25, September 2002), "The Further Adventures of Josh" (Exposé #26, February 2003) and "The continuing story of Josh" (Exposé #27, August 2003).[7]
Kerman moved back to Denver in 2003 where he guested on Thinking Plague's A History of Madness (2003). He also established RēR USA in Denver in 2003, the North American distributor of the Chris Cutler's Britishindependent record label, Recommended Records. In 2006 he created RēR USA's own record label, AD Hoc Records.
In 2007 Kerman joined Bob Drake's Cabinet of Curiosities, a live band comprising Drake (guitar, vocals, violin, banjo), David Campbell (guitar, bass, vocals) and Kerman (drums), plus a few guest musicians for each performance. In June 2007 they played at NEARfest in Pennsylvania with guests Olivier Tejedor (keyboards) and Lynnette Shelley (vocals)[8] and then undertook a Midwest/ East Coast tour in Autumn of 2008. By April 2008 Kerman had re-joined Thinking Plague after a seven year absence. During that month the band performed a series of concerts in Paris, Frankfurt, Geneva, Milan and at the Gouveia Festival in Portugal.
In September 2009, Kerman became a member of Aranis, a critically acclaimed, Flemish chamber-rock group, which played frequent concerts in Europe, and at NEARfest in the USA. His tenure with the group ended in October, 2013.
Kerman relocated to Switzerland in 2010. Throughout 2011 and 2012, he toured Europe as part of the Swiss music/art troupe, Les Reines prochaines. Also during this period he produced and played drums and guitars on their studio album, "Blut", which was released in February 2013.
In Summer 2013, Kerman joined the Zürich-based band, Stepmother, which includes Bill Gilonis (The Work, News From Babel), Jeroen Visser (The Nudes, Cedric Vuille) and Lukas Simonis (Vril, Dull Schicksall). He also plays drums for the Basel-based bands, Dave From Hollywood, Aie Ca Gicle, Mrs. Understanding, and Ludwigs Mondlichtkapelle.
Present: "Barbaro, ma non troppo" – live concert DVD (2008)
Present: "NEARfest 2005" - live concert DVD (2007)
Related Research Articles
Recommended Records (RēR) is a British independent record label and distribution network founded by Chris Cutler with Nick Hobbs in March 1978. RēR features largely "Rock in Opposition" and related music, but it also distributes selected music released on other independent labels.
Hunger's Teeth is a 1994 studio album by the American avant-rock group 5uu's. It was the first album by the band since they reformed in 1994 and featured the new line-up of Dave Kerman, Sanjay Kumar and Bob Drake.
The North East Art Rock Festival, or NEARfest for short, was a multi-day event celebrating the resurgence of progressive and eclectic music in the United States and around the world. The event was held annually in early summer in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, approximately one hour north of Philadelphia and less than two hours west of New York City. The festival was founded in the spring of 1998 by Robert LaDuca and Chad Hutchinson, with the first event occurring in 1999. NEARfest quickly grew to become "the most prestigious progressive music festival in the world."
Bob Drake is an American multi-instrumentalist musician and recording engineer. He was a founding member of the avant-rock band Thinking Plague in the early 1980s, and a member of the 5uu's, Hail and The Science Group. He formed his own band, Bob Drake's Cabinet of Curiosities in 2007. Drake's engineering credits include mainstream artists like Ice Cube, Tina Turner and Engelbert Humperdinck.
Present is a Belgian progressive rock group formed by guitarist Roger Trigaux in 1979.
Susanne Lewis is a German American musician, songwriter and artist. She is a solo artist and a founder or collaborator of a number of bands and music projects. She has a band with Bob Drake called Corpses as Bedmates and Hail, and she also releases music under her own name. She was a member of the band Thinking Plague and has guested on albums by 5uu's and Biota.
The Red Masque is an avant-garde rock band from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
The Science Group were an avant-rock group founded in France in 1997 by English drummer Chris Cutler from Henry Cow and Yugoslav contemporary classical composer and keyboardist Stevan Tickmayer. They released A Mere Coincidence, an album of songs on science related topics in 1999, and an instrumental album, Spoors in 2003.
Thinking Plague is an American avant-garde progressive rock group founded in 1982 by guitarist/composer Mike Johnson and bass guitarist/drummer Bob Drake. Based in Denver, Colorado, the band has been active off and on since 1982, taking on a number of musicians over the years. They have made seven studio albums between 1984 and 2017, and released one live album recorded at NEARfest in 2000.
Mike Johnson is an American experimental rock guitarist and composer, best known as the co-founder and member of the Denver-based avant-rock group Thinking Plague. He has also been a member of Hamster Theatre and The Science Group, and has collaborated with several musicians, including Bob Drake, Susanne Lewis and Janet Feder.
The 5uu's were an American avant-rock group founded in Los Angeles, California in 1984 by drummer-composer Dave Kerman. The group released their first album in 1986 and recorded a second in 1988 with Motor Totemist Guild, a similar band from the area. The two groups merged in 1988 to form U Totem and made two albums. When U Totem split up in 1994, the 5uu's reformed and went on to make two more albums. In 2000 the band became known as Dave Kerman/5uu's and released a further two albums under this name. After a long pause, an album, The Quiet In Their Bones was released in 2022.
The Muffins were an American Maryland-based progressive rock/avant-jazz group. They were formed in Washington, DC in the early 1970s and recorded four albums before disbanding in 1981. In 1998 the group reformed and recorded a further five albums and a DVD. The Muffins played at Symphony Space on Broadway in NYC with Marion Brown in 1979, and also performed at a number of festivals, starting with the ZU Manifestival in New York City in 1978, The Villa Celimontana festival in Rome, Italy in 2000, two appearances at Progday in 2001 and 2002, NEARfest in 2005, and the "Rock in Opposition" festival in France in 2009. In 2010, the Muffins headlined at Progday, making a third appearance at this long running festival.
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Hamster Theatre is an American avant-rock, experimental and folk jazz music group based in Boulder, Colorado. It is led by composer and multi-instrumentalist Dave Willey. The band has released three albums and has performed at various festivals, including Progman Cometh and ProgDay.
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Motor Totemist Guild is an American rock band, formed in 1980 in Orange County, California by band leader James Grigsby. Described as an avant-prog, avant-rock and chamber rock band, Motor Totemist Guild was noted for its songs that worked into epic durations and rich instrumentation but also forayed into free improvisation, sound collage, and other avant-garde techniques.
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