Dr. Strangevibe

March, 16, 2019.

This band is called Doctor Strangevibe. But, like the lead guy in the band, Alice Cooper, I have become Dr. Strangevibe The concept for this band was conceived by me in 1968. However, the main instrument, the Deagan Electrovibe, was only imagined by me, not invented by me, not even spoken of by me, to the makers, but was completely created by them, made available, and then purchased by me in 1973. Then I immediately began to mess with it.

The electric guitar was first created because acoustic guitars weren’t loud enough to compete with the other instruments in jazz bands and dance orchestras. The purchase of cheap amplifiers, like the Silvertone, led to the discovery of tube distortion and electric rock and blues.

For those unfamiliar with mallet instruments, the most commonly known is the xylophone, consisting of rosewood bars with brass reverberation tubes beneath. The Marimba is the lower range of the xylophone and used extensively in Latin music.

A Vibraphone is created by taking a Steel Marimba and adding motor driven rotating discs in the reverberation tubes to add vibrato to enhance the sound. This instrument is found everywhere in jazz bands and orchestras.

Deagan is one of the oldest and highest quality mallet instrument makers, and was motivated to create a more portable, compact, lighter weight, easily transported, electric version of the large, heavy concert vibraphones. I had other ideas for it, and was glad that they had saved me from miking a regular vibraphone half to death, and making it even heavier. Deagan used smaller bars, and got rid of the tubes, and glued crystal pickups to each bar, connected them to a bus running inside the damper bar, and into a preamp with an electronic vibrato control, ending in a standard quarter inch phone jack.

As a skilled, professional, multi instrumentalist who had diligently taken lessons and studied guitar for a year or so, I was able to definitively prove to all and sundry, that in no way could I ever hope to play anything remotely resembling music on the guitar. But I loved the electric guitar sounds…

The same day I bought the Electrovibe, in 1973, I also bought a small practise amplifier and an Acetone Fuzz (distortion) pedal! To my knowledge, and to this day, no one else has ever seen fit to do this. Wow! Who needs a guitar! I found I could fake most guitar stuff, and since then have added slaved in Sythesizers and Vocorder with transposing functions, and numerous effects all simultaneously played live. It’s kind of like a giant heavy metal guitar, towing a demented pipe organ with my vocals backed up in unison or harmony, or occasionally eclipsed, by a synthesized choir.

My first professional work was in 1963 as a cabaret drummer at age 19, at the notorious Smilin’ Buddha, then at 20 on Marimba as leader of The New Dimension Jazz Trio as the default house band in the last days of the Flat Five Jazz Club. By 1967 I played alto sax with a 5 piece Soul and Rock band, moved to San Francisco, San Jose, then Hollywood, recorded there in a state-of-the-art studio. (8 tracks! Sergeant Pepper was recorded by ping-ponging 2 -4 tracks!) Flaky management, and time sensitive army draft eligibility sent us home again. Then I got married, drove buses for Public Transit for 48 years, now retired, had a daughter who had twin daughters, (one of whom now has a daughter who is turning 2.) then a son who plays sax too, and has been my fiendish drummer for over 20 years who had a son who is a young Alto Sax prodigy and is worming his way well into the group. The bass player is my stepson, who began on guitar and got hooked on bass and is a virtuoso finger style player with a huge pedal board! We considered calling the group TMI because of the density and speed of playing. We have been working with Roland V-Drums to try to clarify the crowded recordings. We are currently working in our necessarily large diy insulated, basement studio, on 30+ original songs and some covers, which we plan to inflict on the unsuspecting public.