Archive of the former Yahoo!Groups mailing list: The Mellotron Group

I'm a land use planning consultant - the zoning dude - currently mostly helping AT&T to get permits for towers and antennas, which they need desperately. I also work with property owners and builders to get throught the rigorous zoning processing here in most Southern California cities and counties.
I'm married to a wonderful lady and have two strapping boys, 20 and 16, one an Eagle Scout and the other on his way. How in the world did they grow that much!! I'm an assistant scoutmaster and love to organize and go out on long backpack treks (leaving for eight days in the Sierras in August) and I put on The Big Ride, the largest scout cycling event in the western US, where I help boys ride 100 miles in one day - way too much fun...
We live on 17.5 acres in the desert of Southern California with a bunch of critters (horses, goats, chickens, ducks, geese, cats and dogs). I'm a member of our local school board and do way too much volunteering...stretched very thin at times.
I got into music in Jr. High with my choir teachers Mr. Roy Klassen and Miss Mary Kolegraff (who, in 1974, turned us onto Jethro Tull; she married and became Mrs. Mary Rago, taught at John Burroughs High and became the inspiration for High School Musical and Glee) - and then in High School by Glenn DeLange and Regnal Hall, who later became Director of Orchestras at Disney. All great mentors. It was during all this that I joined a rock band and then learned to play guitar, bass and keyboards - and was influenced by The Moodies, Strawbs, BJH, et al - and became interested in that "sound" - and eventually bought my Chamberlin M2 in the early '80's for $1500 with money I earned over the summer. I gigged with the Chamby at several LA venues including while we were headliners/regulars at Gazzarri's on Sunset. I bought an M1 with custom tapes from Wayne Cook (keyboardist for Player) and eventually sold it to Dave Kean (when he was still in North Hollywood), but not before I took Wayne's digitally controlled motor set-up and put it in my M2. I'm pretty sure Dave still has it.
I don't get to play as often as I like and haven't been in an organized musical situation for too many years.

Vance

 

•   I am a senior artist for the American Museum of Natural History...meaning I build and work on the exhibits there. I've had lots of jobs to supplement my real life as a musician but I always sought work that could be applied somehow to my creative endeavors. 
•   I got my first real job in a furniture factory in 73 so that I could buy a mellotron and join a band called Odyssey. I made $73 a week! I then founded the band Cathedral and we made "Stained Glass Stories". I've worked as a damper installer at Steinway and Sons and as a production manager at Woodstock Percussion.
•   I've been very interested in building percussion and wind instruments and still have a little workshop that I tinker on marimbas and metallophones and other experiments. I am working on a sound installation these days.
•   I  founded a "production co." - Phoshorescent Records last year. Right now it is only a trademark but I plan to use it to release my own material and to collaborate with new musicians I have been meeting in and around the N.Y.C area. I have been outfitting my space "Tower Mews" to do audio and video abeit by the seat of my pants.
•   I've been married and seriously involved a few times now and I think I am finally getting pretty good at it and will eventually get it right. I have four kids and three grandkids. One of them (grandkids) is terrified of me which I find amusing but a little sad and altogether understandable.
•   Most of all I love making my music and of that process I love sitting at the M400 and M1 the best...those instruments never fail to inspire me. The tron is the centerpeice of my work. 

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From: newmellotrongroup@yahoogroups.com [newmellotrongroup@yahoogroups.com] on behalf of Mike Dickson [mike.dickson@gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, July 31, 2013 2:31 AM
To: newmellotrongroup@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [newmellotrongroup] Re: Job? Hobbies? Special Skills?

 

I do digital forensics for a law enforcement arm of the government.  It involves a fair amount of travel and I get to do some teaching too, usually to other law enforcement agencies or to University students taking courses in the same field.

At heart I think I would still describe myself as a mathematician who would rather be a musician but who does other stuff to finance his life. 

Twice married, twice divorced, no kids.  Now living with someone I met 26 years ago and have been with her for 16.  One enormous flat in the Edinburgh city centre and one beautiful cottage on the Scottish east coast, three cats, two grown-up stepchildren and very little else I could ask for.

--
Mike Dickson

Cockenzie, East Lothian