INTERVIEW with Dave Fuglewicz

Dave Fuglewicz

AUTOreverse #14, summer 2011
Dave Fuglewicz
interviewed by
Ian C Stewart 

Let's talk about your musical influences. Who are your biggest influences and why? Who were your early musical influences?
I would have to list Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze's work of the 1970's as major influences and a lot of the progressive rock movement of those days. Jimi Hendrix was and is a big influence of my musical direction. That may not be obvious since he was a guitarist, but in the sense of a philosophy of music that is free, experimental and willing to take chances.



Where do you see your music heading?

For the next few years, probably along the path I'm on now, which includes loop based work, experimental sound collage with an occasional more traditional based piece, both in a solo and collaborative setting. I've been collaborating regularly with Jeremy Gluck and both of us want to keep pursuing that. I have a couple other collaborations I'm working on, one with Michael Cosma and another with Michel Nomized.
What music software do you use?
I use old versions of Acid and Sound Forge, the venerable freeware tracker; Buzz, some older programs like GranuLab, HammerHead Rhythm, Quasi-Fractal Composer, Synthia, for VST's, I use VST Host, VST Mini-Host and lots of VST's with my favorites being Crytal, Mono-Fury, several of Darkware's VST's which are very crunchy. And I have to mention Total Recorder, it's like my Swiss army knife for recording.

Is there any other music software you plan on getting?
I really don't have any plans to acquire any commercial software, I'm very satisfied with what I have. I'd rather fully explore the boundaries of what I have than get lost in learning curves and so on.

What's in your home studio setup?

Well of course, there are my computer based tools, in addition to my main desktop computer, I have a number of older, surplus laptops that I use for live performance. My analog synth is still in place, and consists of an ARP 2600, a ARP Odyssey, a ARP Sequencer with modifications, about a dozen self built analog modules, a el-cheapo Casio keyboard that I modified for sequencing, a Roland TR-707 (which has sustained battery leakage damage, argh) and some processors like echo, flange, etc. My analog equipment needs some repair work and I am slowly, (ever so slowly) refurbishing it but it all takes time.
Do you prefer to use keyboards or guitar for improvisation?
Keyboards only.

What can you tell us about your latest release?
That would be "One", yes I am very happy with the way it turned out. It all started when my friend Hal McGee was running his incredible "One Minute" project. As a by the way, anyone interested in that should go to his website www.haltapes.com, I highly recommend it. As an aid to musicians participating in that project he posted sixty one minute loops of him improvising on his circuit bent keyboards. Always wanting to be different, I decided that I would take his sixty loops and create one sixty minute composition. I spent about four weeks on it and loved every minute of it. I have to rank it as one of the best things I've done and certainly the most complex in terms of tracks, there are one hundred and sixty tracks and I estimate thousands of panning points. It's a sonic journey that must be experienced in its entirety, with full attention, preferably with headphones, though that's not strictly necessary.

Can you describe your working methods for sound creation?
I'll try. I have a variety of methods, sometimes I'll just be playing around or practicing and a riff or sound will stand out and I'll build around that. Sometimes, particularly in my work with Jeremy Gluck, I'll listen to source material, and the basic sound and feel of a composition will be clear. That also goes with working with loops from the members of Tapegerm.com. Also, I should mention, that sometimes I think I know how something will turn out but the music takes a different turn altogether, then I just follow that turn wherever it leads. Or I may work within specific boundaries of time, instruments and so on, whether imposed by myself or someone else. I may work with chance and randomness also or just plain old experimenting until it sounds good. I try to never compromise on production values, even if it leads into tedium, as in the case of working with the tracker program Buzz. It may take me weeks to complete a Buzz composition because of all the variables that can be used in a complex program like that, variables like panning, echo, timbre and so on.

What made you decide to start making music of your own?
I'm not sure if I can describe it well but I'll try. There was an electronic/abstract/concrete music show on one of the local college stations in Buffalo, NY, which is where I'm from, circa 1971-72, that I would listen to occasionally. I was intrigued by the sounds I heard. Also, songs like "The Minotaur" by Dick Hyman made quite an impression on me. Pink Floyd's "Umma Gumma" album was another big influence on my thoughts at the time, again around 1972. Then when I was 18 (1973) I was introduced to Tangerine Dream by a friend of my brothers during a visit, when I got home I sought out Tangerine Dream at a local record store and wound up buying "Zeit". That album blew me away and in the back of my mind I started to think "I can do that". However during the 1970's I focused more on the technical aspect of synthesizers, building up circuits and so on. Around 1980 I purchased an ARP 2600 and slowly started playing around with it. A few years later I tried to learn how to play guitar, but gave that up. I only learned the basics of guitar, reached a plateau of "not very skilled", and consequently gave it up. Around 1983, my sister-in-law gave me a Sony reel-to-reel deck with Sound On Sound capabilities.I started composing and recording and it just grew from there.

Are you active in your local music scene?
No not at all, maybe one day I will. I don't do live shows all that often, like once every two or three years.

Who would you like to collaborate with on new music?
Chris Phinney of Mental Anguish fame comes to mnd immediately, we've been friends for about seven years but we haven't done any collaborating. John Sosnowski, aka Cystem, Charles Goff II: we had started a project a couple years ago, but it fell through due to technical problems. I always love working with Hal McGee, we have two releases but there's always room for more. John Wiggins comes to mind also, we did a collaboration on a one minute piece for Hal McGee's "One Minute" project and I think our sounds would work together very well together. And not to forget my fellow Tapegerm members, most all of them. Ken Clinger has asked me for some sounds and that will be something I'll probably get to this Fall. I'm presently working on collaborations with Michael Cosma and M. Nomized.

What other bands are you're excited by?
Not many, and that's not an elitist attitude, I work so much on my own music that I have very little time to listen to other peoples work. However with that  being said, Hal McGee's releases always floor me, Solaris's (Tapegerm member) music captivates me, he is so frikkin' good, it amazes me. M. Nomized's work falls into that same category. There are quite a few other independent musicians, like Daniel Prendiville, that I do take the time to listen to and am excited by. There aren't many major groups out there that excite me per se, it isn't that I don't like their music, I'll listen to the radio while I'm driving and enjoy what I'm hearing, but they don't floor me. Again, it's not being elitist.

What's next for you, musically speaking?
More of what I'm doing, the collaborations mentioned previously, continuing to work with Jeremy Gluck, a solo release: "Neptune", which should be done in another month or so, continuing individual composistions/mixes at Tapegerm.com. digging into my tape archives from the 1990's and releasing unfinished pieces/collaborations that never reached fruition, and a surprise or two within the next six months.

What did I forget to ask you?
I don't know, I forgot what you forgot to ask me....

What's the URL for your website?
It's www.davefuglewicz.com. It's somewhat out of date as far as current news and links, but I do have some free downloads there. Stop by and visit.

Dave's appearance in Hal McGee's Apartment Music #12


DAVE FUGLEWICZ DISCOGRAPHY
Solo
"Industrial Strength #1" October, 1990.
"Industrial Strength #2" October, 1990.
"Every Electric Part Of You" February, 1992.
"Early Stuff 1 & 2", June, 1993.
"Hard To Decipher", June, 1993.
"Drifting", June, 1993.
"Passage", June, 1993.
"A Gentle Sounding Of Chaotic Extentionse", March, 1995.
"Orange Mist Sunrise and Sunset", March, 1996.
"The Portal", April, 1997.
"Creeping Jenny", November, 1997.
"Dream Glop", November, 1997.
"Electronic Skunk Fire", November, 1997.
"Aquarium Rave Up", March, 1999.
"Liquid Audion",October, 2000.
"One", 2011.

A handful of composistions not on CD/release (yet) at my website,www.davefuglewicz.com.
(as of August, 2011) 123 composistions at www.tapegerm.com, mostly loop/computer synth based composistions.

with Jeremy Gluck
"The Great Prize", 4 tracks.
"The Other Mind: Now Speak!", 1 track.
"DreamLoop", one track with Jeremy for the compilation on AntiClock Records.
"Manifesto" on MyHand.Thanx Records.
"Sleep on the Edge" on Terranean Recordings.

With Ambient Meat
"Sonic Debris", August, 1996.
"Disturbation", January, 1999.

With Pete Painful (Pete Comely)
"Lost City Music Volume One", January, 2002.
"Lost City Music Volume Two", July, 2002.

With Hal McGee
"Synergistic Deconstruction", June, 2003.
"Synergistic Reconstruction", August 2011.

With Dick Metcalf
"Journey To Reality", 1996.

Compilations (the tracks are usually not available elsewhere)
"The Purple Dot Experience" by Karl Schmitz.
"Half A Quarter To Dark" by Kayla and Karl Schmitz.
"Project 23" by Brian Noring.
"Tape Heads #'s 1 & 8" by Hal McGee.

"The Outward Gate" by Moth.
"Bipolar Modulation", by Moth.

"Phantom Chain Mail Obstacle Course" by 250,000 Tapes (don't know if this was ever released.)

"Mile After Mile" by Mental Anguish (Chris Phinney).
"Mix.One" by Homemade Music.
"Quotidian Assemblages Two" by Hal McGee.
"Zanoise & Ramiswami@40" by Michael Thomas Jackson.
"Your Life Has Been Answered For You", "The Prostitution Of Elasticity", "You Me Us And Them", and "Cantankerous Swaths Of Plumage" by Zan Hoffman, contributed source material for Zan.
"Dictaphonia Volumes 1 and 4" by Hal McGee.
"Automatic Confessional Volumes 1 and 12" by Hal McGee.
"Phyllocephala" by Michael Thomas Jackson.
"One Minute" project by Hal McGee, 3 solo contributions, two collaborations each with Zebra Mann and Daaf Van Paul, one collaboration each with: Jeremy Gluck and John Wiggins.
"Krisis" by M.Nomized, provided some source loops.

thank you, Dave!