Dave Willey | |
---|---|
Born | 1963 (age 60–61) United States |
Genres | Avant-rock, experimental [1] |
Occupation(s) | Musician, composer |
Instrument(s) | Accordion, bass guitar, guitar, keyboards |
Years active | 1980s–present |
Labels | Prolific, Altrock |
Dave Willey (born 1963) [1] is an American experimental musician and composer, best known as the co-founder and member of the Boulder, Colorado-based avant-rock group Hamster Theatre. He is also a member of Thinking Plague and 3 Mice. He has released two solo albums and has performed with Hamster Theatre and Thinking Plague in the United States and Europe.
In a biography at AllMusic, Dave Lynch described Willey's music as "uncompromising, challenging, and adventurous but also engaging and tuneful". [1]
Dave Willey was born in 1963 and grew up in Oregon. He moved to Colorado where he played in several bands, including The Denver Gentlemen and Big Foot Torso. [1] Willey's early influences were twentieth-century classical music, and bands and musicians like Henry Cow, Fred Frith and Thinking Plague. In the early 1990s, Willey lived in Europe for a few years where he exposed himself to Rock in Opposition and related music. There he was particularly drawn to the music of Swedish accordionist Lars Hollmer from Samla Mammas Manna. [2] Willey said that initially he "didn't play anything but improvised music", and "wouldn't play anything that was composed or in a time signature or with a melody". But after listening to European music, he found himself liking melodic music, and realized that "there's nothing wrong with being accessible. You can be accessible and interesting and challenging all at the same time, hopefully." [3] While in Europe, Willey began composing his own music and recording it on tape. When he returned to the United States, Willey settled near Boulder and set to work on his recordings. He added keyboards, accordion, guitar, bass guitar and percussion, and created a cassette tape entitled Songs from the Hamster Theatre. [1] Willey had intended giving the cassette to friends for Christmas, but Prolific Records in Denver expressed interest in releasing it on CD. [3] Dave Lynch at AllMusic called the album, released in 1995, a blend of "rock, European folk, avant-garde experimentation, and modern composition". [1]
In 1993, fellow musician Jon Stubbs from The Denver Gentlemen and Big Foot Torso teamed up with Willey, and with several other musicians, formed Hamster Theatre to play Hollmer covers and songs from Willey's album. [2] In 1996, Willey also joined Thinking Plague, a Denver-based avant-rock group as bass guitarist, and guitarist Mike Johnson and reed player Mark Harris from Thinking Plague, also joined Hamster Theatre. Willey appears on three Thinking Plague albums, In Extremis (1998), A History of Madness (2003), and Decline and Fall (2012), and toured the United States and Europe with them. Willey made three albums with Hamster Theatre, Siege on Hamburger City (1998), Carnival Detournement (2001) and The Public Execution of Mister Personality / Quasi Day Room: Live at the Moore Theatre (2006), and performed with them at several festivals, including Progman Cometh in Seattle, Washington in 2002. [1]
While on tour with Thinking Plague in Switzerland in 2008, Willey and Thinking Plague's vocalist Elaine DiFalco met and formed a group with Swiss multi-instrumentalist Cédric Vuille. The trio, called 3 Mice, collaborated long-distance between Boulder and Geneva and released an album, Send Me a Postcard in 2011. Also in 2011 Willey released Immeasurable Currents, an album that drew on texts from his father, Dale Willey's book of poetry, The Tin Box Papers and Other Poems. The book had been published in 2001, the year he died. Immeasurable Currents, which Willey said took "a million years" to finish, [1] also featured a number of musicians, including Johnson, DiFalco, drummer Dave Kerman from the 5uu's, and bassist Hugh Hopper from Soft Machine (who died in 2009). [1]
Rock in Opposition or RIO was a movement representing a collective of progressive bands in the late 1970s united in their opposition to the music industry that refused to recognise their music. It was initiated by English avant-rock group Henry Cow in March 1978 when they invited four mainland European groups to come to London and perform in a festival called "Rock in Opposition".
Samla Mammas Manna was a Swedish progressive rock band often characterized by virtuosic musicianship, circus references and silly humour, similar in many ways to the song-writing style of Frank Zappa. They were one of the founding members of the Rock in Opposition (RIO) movement in the late 1970s. In 1979 they were Fred Frith's backing band on his solo album, Gravity (1980). Musically, they bore a resemblance to the Canterbury scene.
The American state of Colorado has many music scenes and venues, especially in the larger cities like Denver and Colorado Springs.
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.
Miriodor is a Canadian musical group in the genre of Rock in Opposition; the band combines jazz, progressive rock and chamber music into a powerful sound reminiscent of artists like Univers Zéro or Art Zoyd.
Present is a Belgian progressive rock group formed by guitarist Roger Trigaux in 1979.
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.
David Kerman, better known as Dave Kerman, is an American experimental rock drummer and composer, best known as the founder and member of the Los Angeles avant-rock group 5uu's. He is also a member of the Belgian progressive rock band Present and the Israeli avant-rock band Ahvak. Kerman has been a member of the United States bands U Totem and Thinking Plague, and the Dutch band Blast. He has collaborated with several musicians, including Bob Drake, Chris Cutler and Fred Frith.
Stormy Six were an Italian progressive and folk rock band founded in Milan in 1966. They performed and recorded until 1983, mostly as a sextet but occasionally as a quartet, a quintet and a septet. Although their line-up changed considerably over the years, founding member Franco Fabbri remained with the group for its entire duration. In May 1993 they performed at a re-union concert in Milan, which was recorded and released on a CD, Un Concerto (1995).
Romantic Warriors II: A Progressive Music Saga About Rock in Opposition is a 2012 feature-length documentary film about the Rock in Opposition movement of the late 1970s, the music genre it spawned, and the influence it has on experimental groups across the world. The film was written and directed by Adele Schmidt and José Zegarra Holder, and was released in the United States by Zeitgeist Media. It premiered in Washington, D.C., on September 28, 2012. The film was generally well received by critics, with a reviewer at AllMusic saying that it "covers all the points an aficionado could possibly want".
Got RIO? Romantic Warriors II: Special Features DVD is a 2013 documentary film and an addendum to the 2012 feature-length documentary Romantic Warriors II: A Progressive Music Saga About Rock in Opposition. The film was written and directed by Adele Schmidt and José Zegarra Holder, and was released in the United States by Zeitgeist Media. It was generally well received by critics, with a reviewer at AllMusic saying that it "is a showcase for tremendous musicianship and a must-have for existing [Rock in Opposition] fans".
Aranis are a Flemish acoustic avant-rock, experimental and neo-classical chamber music group led by composer and contrabass player Joris Vanvinckenroye. Their music has been described as a blend of "chamber classical and rock", "Chamber Music Rock", and "Belgian chamber rock" with elements of East and Southern European folk music. Aranis have recorded six albums, and have performed live at a number of European venues, including the Rock in Opposition festivals in Carmaux, France. They made their American concert debut at NEARfest Apocalypse at Zoellner Arts Center, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in June 2012.
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.
Joris Vanvinckenroye, also known by his solo moniker BASta!, is a Flemish avant-rock and experimental double bass musician and composer. He is best known for Aranis, a neo-classical chamber rock group he founded and leads, and for his double bass solo project, BASta!.
The Public Execution of Mister Personality / Quasi Day Room: Live at the Moore Theatre is a 2006 double album by Boulder, Colorado-based avant-rock, experimental and folk jazz music group Hamster Theatre, led by Dave Willey. It was released in the United States by Cuneiform Records, and consists of a studio CD and a live CD, the latter recorded at the 2002 Progman Cometh Festival in Seattle, Washington.
RoqueForte is a 2010 studio album by Flemish acoustic avant-rock, experimental and neo-classical chamber music group Aranis, led by composer and contrabass player Joris Vanvinckenroye. It is their fourth album and was released in Belgium by Home Records.
Angels on the Edge of Time is a 2015 collaborative live album of musical improvisations by Lindsay Cooper, Fred Frith, Gianni Gebbia and Lars Hollmer. It was recorded on 30 May 1992 at the AngelicA Festival Internazionale di Musica in Bologna, Italy, and released by I Dischi di Angelica in January 2015. This is the only album released by the quartet.
Romantic Warriors IV: Krautrock is a trilogy of feature-length documentaries about progressive music written and directed by Adele Schmidt and José Zegarra Holder. RW4 focuses on the progressive rock music from Germany popularly known as Krautrock, although the integration of Krautrock into the progressive rock genre is a purely American notion. In Europe, the conventional wisdom is that Krautrock can be considered at most as the connection between psychedelic rock and progressive rock. The term "Krautrock" was applied after-the-fact by British journalists, and in fact the German bands share very few similarities.