Got something to say about Tod Dockstader's music? Here's the place you can do it. Anyone is welcome to submit a video, audio, or written essay explaining what Tod's music means to them. Talk about when or where you first heard Tod's music, your initial reaction, what your favorite piece is, how he has influenced your work, or anything else you can think of. If you have the ability to record your own video or audio essay simply send it to me at musicforinternets@gmail.com If you are in or visiting the New England area it's possible that we can make arrangements to film an interview.
Here's the first installment of the series featuring Wobbly, who was in the area for a few performances.
And here's me talking about Tod's music.
Atomic Shadow gets help from a film student and shows us a whole new approach to creating a "What Tod means to me" video.
What Tod means to me: Atomic Shadow from Justin H Brierley on Vimeo.
I first heard Tod Dockstader's music in the mid-1990s when the two CDs were released on Starkland. What surprised me most was the musicality of the pieces - I was listening to a lot of early electronic music at the time by Pierre Schaeffer, Bernard Parmegiani, Christian Zanesi, Gottfried Michael Koenig and Konrad Boehmer, but Dockstaders work really stood out. It seemed to have a richness to it which the pieces of his contemporaries lacked, and an expressionistic feel which I found very appealing (the works I like the most by the above composers have a similar quality). I get the impression from listening to his music that it was made by someone with an acute musical ear, and true feeling for the material he had at his disposal. To me, Dockstader is the pioneer of Electronic music in the USA.
ReplyDeleteI first heard Tod's music on an electro-acoustic music show on Pacifica Station KPFK in Los Angeles. The show's name was Tesseract. A lot of the music played on the show was strange, somewhat alienating but intriguing to a young mind searching for sounds different from the ghastly FM wasteland that had become Southern California Rock/pop radio in the late 70's.
ReplyDeleteTod's music was a favorite of the host of the show, Phil Mendelson.. Quatermass was played many times.
https://archive.org/stream/octofolio77kpfkrich#page/10/mode/2up (See the Saturday at 10:00 pm listing)
It's interesting that KPFK had a really good rock show after Tesseract in those days, Captain Midnight, who played artists like Brian Eno who I believe followed in the footsteps of Musique Concrete masters like Tod.
Tod's music stood out from the very start to me and has held my fascination ever since. It was just damn good music crafted with exquisite taste.
Quatermass is an excellent piece but my heart will always be with Luna Park..
Tod - Shine on you crazy diamond!
I hadn't googled stuff about Tod for quite a while and just yesterday learned about this website and some other stuff out there..
ReplyDeleteThis is probably familiar to anyone who has googled "Tod Dockstader" but it should be here nonetheless:
http://www.tinymixtapes.com/delorean/ed-canby-tod-dockstader
This learned gentlemen, Ed Canby, never even batted an eye before calling Tod's work "music".. And, as far as I can tell, Canby produced this back in the 60's when the music was in it's all too modest circulation. He encounters Tod's music with pretty much the spirit as I did but with much more musical knowledge.
If you haven't heard it already, enjoy.