Grasshopper (musician)
Encyclopedia
Grasshopper is an American musician with the band Mercury Rev
. He has also appeared with Rev side-project Harmony Rockets, his own band Grasshopper and the Golden Crickets, and as a guest musician on numerous other recordings.
, which claimed that he met Rev singer Jonathan Donahue
in Camp Sunshine, a reform camp for juvenile delinquents, at the age of ten.
The reliability of the story is unknown, though the claim to have met in a reform camp was repeated to the NME
in 1998.
Grasshopper was born in upstate New York and was introduced to music by his uncle, an Atlantic Records
employee who gave him records by John Coltrane
, Ornette Coleman
and Miles Davis
, as well as novels by Jim Carroll
. Growing up close to the border, he was in range of Canadian radio stations, further broadening his musical education.
In the early 80s, Mackowiak was a member of The People's Front (name taken from the Monty Python film Life of Brian), which played concerts in Fredonia, Dunkirk and Buffalo, NY. There was a film made of the band but has since gone missing. The film showed the band in concert and in a mock documentary with the storyline predicting great success not in the US, but "across the pond" in England. The film ends with a crash that was a foreshadowing of the fate that befell the actual guitar player for the group, Kyle Gaszynski.
Grasshopper undertook a BA in the renowned Media Studies program at the State University of New York at Buffalo
(1984–1988) where he studied with avant-garde filmmakers Tony Conrad
and Paul Sharits
as well as Viennese action artist Peter Weibel
. He later received a master's degree in the same subject at New School University, 1990-1993.
While studying at Buffalo around 1986/87, Mackowiak began to play bass guitar with avant garde group Shady Crady, an embryonic Mercury Rev incarnation which also featured Donahue, a member of The Flaming Lips
until 1991. These formative years brought him into close contact with other members of the Flaming Lips/Mercury Rev sphere, such as producer Dave Fridmann
and early Rev singer David Baker
, also a media student.
Other activities in the late 1980s included working in the video department of a legal transcription company, as a percussionist for the local Buffalo band Sunny in Chernobyl and as a medical research subject: "I did this thing at a medical school where I got paid to take various drugs they were developing. You're in this controlled environment for 3 days and they give you all these drugs then suddenly stop then watch you suffer," he said.
Mackowiak is most commonly known by his childhood nickname Grasshopper, derived from how his family's Polish surname translates into the Polish language - "from where the poppies grow" - and his hyperactive nature as a child.
(1991) and Boces
(1993) were intricate yet deafening soundscapes dominated by the feedback-strewn, heavily effects-processed guitars of Grasshopper and Donahue. The spirit of experimentation was manifested by the band's use of the Tettix Wave Accumulator, a home made tone generator of Grasshopper's invention. Boces, remembered by the band as a particularly troubled record, was recorded under the influence of the drug rohypnol. When asked by Melody Maker
in 1993 what he liked most about the album, Grasshopper replied: "that it's done."
Chaos also manifested itself outside the studio: a legendary, oft-repeated story holds that either Donahue or singer David Baker
tried to gouge the guitarist's eye out with a spoon. The band's first UK interview, with the now-defunct Melody Maker in 1991, contained this memorable exchange, reported by Chris Roberts:
The year 1995, however, saw the departure of Rev singer Baker and a radical change in direction for the band, which drew on Broadway, jazz and doo-wop
influences helped along by Grasshopper's clarinet. The album See You on the Other Side
, and resulting tour, saw the band virtually ignored.
With Mercury Rev in disintegration and Donahue suffering a breakdown, Grasshopper retreated to a Jesuit Retreat House monastery in Spain. "I was there for six months. Then I left. I mean, you get up at six AM, you make your bed...it was the complete opposite of everything I had been doing for the past six years," he recalled in 1998. Ten years later, he remembered being "pretty scrambled up inside and it just helped me to reflect and to bring some brakes on certain things in my life that were spinning out of control... For anybody who wants to go there, it's highly recommended. Just step out of reality for a second, empty yourself out, all the baggage."
Between Rev records, he also issued a solo record under the moniker Grasshopper and the Golden Crickets on the Beggar's Banquet label. Orbit of Eternal Grace featured several Rev members, home-made electronic instruments and "N.Y. Avenue Playground", effectively a draft of "The Hudson Line", which would appear on the next Mercury Rev album. Around this time, he effected a radical change in appearance by cutting his bottle blond hair into a style which has remained constant since.
Grasshopper was also active in Harmony Rockets, a sprawling Mercury Rev side-project responsible for Willy Wonka theme covers and Paralyzed Mind of the Archangel Void, a full-length LP which contrasted ambient drones alongside full-on noise. "...Paralyzed Mind is nocturnal trance music that never gets monotonous, a stunning feat for a piece this long....In 2015 we'll be talking about this mercurial, revolutionary CD in the awed tones reserved for The Velvet Underground & Nico, Revolver
, A Love Supreme
, or Bitches Brew
," claimed Alternative Press in 1996.
Reconvening and moving to the Catskill Mountains
in these in-between years, the band attempted to record what they deemed likely to be their last chance. The resultant record, Deserter's Songs
(1998), was a critical and commercial triumph, leading to an extensive and lengthy tour. With each of the band members in emotionally difficult waters, Grasshopper's contribution on the record drew from the heartfelt death of his uncle. His guitar style, particularly onstage, had evolved from the squalls of the early '90s and was now strongly influenced by the pentatonic blues, albeit retaining an avant-garde edge.
In 2001, Grasshopper was injured in a mugging attack which affected the recording of that year's All Is Dream
album:
Making a full recovery, the guitar solo on the track 'Little Rhymes' was played with his arm in a sling. 2005's The Secret Migration
was performed under less dramatic circumstances. Preparations for 2008's Snowflake Midnight
album included a period of withdrawal from the guitar, as the band explored new directions with the introduction of software-based instrumentation.
Aside from music, Mackowiak's interests include film and modern literature, particularly of the Beat Generation
, The Situationists, Minimalism, Fluxus, and Dada. He lives in Kingston, New York
.
He is credited with playing - and inventing - the Tettix Wave Acumulator on various Rev releases, telling Cokemachineglow:
"I started out playing clarinet and, I think when I was younger, a lot of my influences were horn players - like Miles Davis, John Coltrane, or John Gillmore, who played with Sun Ra," Grasshopper explained in 2001. "Then as I started playing more and more guitar, as a kid I liked [laughs] The Allman Brothers and Neil Young's guitar playing. Then I got into, obviously, Sterling Morrison of The Velvet Underground, and Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd - I love that stuff. I like Robert Quine, who played with Richard Hell, and Lou Reed. I've also got some jazz and punk rock influences, but Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd [are the big ones]."
On the 2005 Secret Migration tour, he provided additional harmonica, clarinet and electric piano during guitar-less moments. For the creation of Snowflake Midnight, the band bought Macbook
s and experimented with various software packages. "I was very interested in the Native Instruments
programs Absynth
and FM8
after seeing some demos about them at an electronic music conference I attended in Miami," Grasshopper explained to Cokemachineglow.
His record The Orbit Of Eternal Grace, recorded around 1996 with a loose group dubbed The Golden Crickets, features Grasshopper's vocals, electric, acoustic and bass guitars as well as a Micromoog
, Casio PT-30, ENL Synkey, Vox Continental
, Mellotron
, tape loops, turntables, guitar synth, tone generator, 'rex', alto and tenor saxophones and 'Scotch 201 (1.5mil acetate)' - a type of analogue tape.
He has tended to favour Fender Telecaster
s since the See You on the Other Side tour, often with customisations such as double humbucker
pickups and tremolo arms. These have been decorated with NASA
stickers, the logo of the American Revolution Bicentenary (used frequently on album artwork)and stars on the headstock. A Fender Tele-sonic made its appearance on the All Is Dream tour, later acquiring a Bigsby tremolo unit. As the band's sound changed radically with the release of Snowflake Midnight, Grasshopper switched to a hardtail, double-humbucker Fender Jaguar
and Yamaha
electric guitar.
He and Donahue both used Fender Hotrod DeVille 4x10 combo amplifiers since 1998's Deserter's Songs tour, but switched to comparable Peavey
models to tour Snowflake Midnight in 2008. A Boss GT6 was added to the already-extensive array of assorted pedals in 2005.
Mercury Rev
Mercury Rev is an American alternative rock group, that formed in the late 1980s in Buffalo, New York. Original personnel were David Baker , Jonathan Donahue , Sean Mackowiak, a.k.a...
. He has also appeared with Rev side-project Harmony Rockets, his own band Grasshopper and the Golden Crickets, and as a guest musician on numerous other recordings.
Early years
Mackowiak's early years have been colored by a 1991 interview given to music publication Melody MakerMelody Maker
Melody Maker, published in the United Kingdom, was, according to its publisher IPC Media, the world's oldest weekly music newspaper. It was founded in 1926 as a magazine targeted at musicians; in 2000 it was merged into "long-standing rival" New Musical Express.-1950s–1960s:Originally the Melody...
, which claimed that he met Rev singer Jonathan Donahue
Jonathan Donahue
Jonathan Daniel Donahue is an American rock musician. He has been an integral member of two of North America's more influential indie/experimental bands of the 1990s; The Flaming Lips and Mercury Rev....
in Camp Sunshine, a reform camp for juvenile delinquents, at the age of ten.
Grasshopper was throwing dead squirrels and rats into a lawnmower when Jonathan met him. The blood spattered over a watching group of retarded kids and they screamed and yelled. They yelled, "Now throw the possum in! The Possum! The possum too!" Muses Jonathan, "When you're younger, these things make a more vivid impression. I remember huge adrenaline rushes as the guts flew and hit people on the legs. I don't know what Grasshopper had done to get in there. He doesn't talk about it much."
The reliability of the story is unknown, though the claim to have met in a reform camp was repeated to the NME
NME
The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...
in 1998.
Grasshopper was born in upstate New York and was introduced to music by his uncle, an Atlantic Records
Atlantic Records
Atlantic Records is an American record label best known for its many recordings of rhythm and blues, rock and roll, and jazz...
employee who gave him records by John Coltrane
John Coltrane
John William Coltrane was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Working in the bebop and hard bop idioms early in his career, Coltrane helped pioneer the use of modes in jazz and later was at the forefront of free jazz...
, Ornette Coleman
Ornette Coleman
Ornette Coleman is an American saxophonist, violinist, trumpeter and composer. He was one of the major innovators of the free jazz movement of the 1960s....
and Miles Davis
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...
, as well as novels by Jim Carroll
Jim Carroll
James Dennis "Jim" Carroll was an author, poet, autobiographer, and punk musician. Carroll was best known for his 1978 autobiographical work The Basketball Diaries, which was made into the 1995 film of the same name, starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Carroll.-Biography:Carroll was born to a...
. Growing up close to the border, he was in range of Canadian radio stations, further broadening his musical education.
In the early 80s, Mackowiak was a member of The People's Front (name taken from the Monty Python film Life of Brian), which played concerts in Fredonia, Dunkirk and Buffalo, NY. There was a film made of the band but has since gone missing. The film showed the band in concert and in a mock documentary with the storyline predicting great success not in the US, but "across the pond" in England. The film ends with a crash that was a foreshadowing of the fate that befell the actual guitar player for the group, Kyle Gaszynski.
Grasshopper undertook a BA in the renowned Media Studies program at the State University of New York at Buffalo
University at Buffalo, The State University of New York
University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, also commonly known as the University at Buffalo or UB, is a public research university and a "University Center" in the State University of New York system. The university was founded by Millard Fillmore in 1846. UB has multiple campuses...
(1984–1988) where he studied with avant-garde filmmakers Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad is an American avant-garde video artist, experimental filmmaker, musician/composer, sound artist, teacher and writer...
and Paul Sharits
Paul Sharits
Paul Jeffrey Sharits Paul Sharits was a visual artist, best known for his work in "experimental" or avant-garde filmmaking, particularly what became known as the Structural film movement, along with artists such as Tony Conrad, Hollis Frampton, and Michael Snow.His film work primarily focused on...
as well as Viennese action artist Peter Weibel
Peter Weibel
Peter Weibel is an artist, curator and theoretician.Raised in Upper Austria he started to study French and cinematography in Paris...
. He later received a master's degree in the same subject at New School University, 1990-1993.
While studying at Buffalo around 1986/87, Mackowiak began to play bass guitar with avant garde group Shady Crady, an embryonic Mercury Rev incarnation which also featured Donahue, a member of The Flaming Lips
The Flaming Lips
The Flaming Lips are an American alternative rock band, formed in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma in 1983.Melodically, their sound contains lush, multi-layered, psychedelic rock arrangements, but lyrically their compositions show elements of space rock, including unusual song and album titles—such as "What...
until 1991. These formative years brought him into close contact with other members of the Flaming Lips/Mercury Rev sphere, such as producer Dave Fridmann
Dave Fridmann
Dave Fridmann is an American record producer and musician. From 1990 onwards he co-produced all releases by Mercury Rev and The Flaming Lips...
and early Rev singer David Baker
David Baker (singer)
David Baker was the lead singer and founding member of the band Mercury Rev. He is prevalent on the albums Yerself is Steam and Boces and all of the singles and Peel Sessions the band did concurrently...
, also a media student.
Other activities in the late 1980s included working in the video department of a legal transcription company, as a percussionist for the local Buffalo band Sunny in Chernobyl and as a medical research subject: "I did this thing at a medical school where I got paid to take various drugs they were developing. You're in this controlled environment for 3 days and they give you all these drugs then suddenly stop then watch you suffer," he said.
Mackowiak is most commonly known by his childhood nickname Grasshopper, derived from how his family's Polish surname translates into the Polish language - "from where the poppies grow" - and his hyperactive nature as a child.
Mercury Rev
Mercury Rev properly began in 1989, with Grasshopper moving to electric guitar and the band playing along to footage of TV wildlife documentaries. The band's first two albums, Yerself Is SteamYerself Is Steam
Yerself is Steam is the 1991 debut album by Mercury Rev. The title is a malapropism of the phrase "Your self-esteem," and is taken from a recurring lyric in the opening "Chasing a Bee." "Car Wash Hair" was released as a single before the album...
(1991) and Boces
Boces
Boces is the second album by Mercury Rev, released in 1993. The band has explained the title as being inspired by the name of the Boards of Cooperative Educational Services in New York State, a vocational school system in the band's home state....
(1993) were intricate yet deafening soundscapes dominated by the feedback-strewn, heavily effects-processed guitars of Grasshopper and Donahue. The spirit of experimentation was manifested by the band's use of the Tettix Wave Accumulator, a home made tone generator of Grasshopper's invention. Boces, remembered by the band as a particularly troubled record, was recorded under the influence of the drug rohypnol. When asked by Melody Maker
Melody Maker
Melody Maker, published in the United Kingdom, was, according to its publisher IPC Media, the world's oldest weekly music newspaper. It was founded in 1926 as a magazine targeted at musicians; in 2000 it was merged into "long-standing rival" New Musical Express.-1950s–1960s:Originally the Melody...
in 1993 what he liked most about the album, Grasshopper replied: "that it's done."
Chaos also manifested itself outside the studio: a legendary, oft-repeated story holds that either Donahue or singer David Baker
David Baker (singer)
David Baker was the lead singer and founding member of the band Mercury Rev. He is prevalent on the albums Yerself is Steam and Boces and all of the singles and Peel Sessions the band did concurrently...
tried to gouge the guitarist's eye out with a spoon. The band's first UK interview, with the now-defunct Melody Maker in 1991, contained this memorable exchange, reported by Chris Roberts:
I ask Grasshopper's mother, who must be about 50-odd, if she enjoyed the show.
"Oh yes," she beams, "it induced orgasm." I'm sorry? "It induced orgasm."
After 36 hours in the vicinity of Mercury Rev, nothing on earth should throw me. This does. "Can I take your photograph?" she asks. I run away and tell Grasshopper that his band has just sexually aroused his mother. "Uh-huh," he says, like I've just asked him if he wants a beer. "She's kinda cool. And she smokes a lotta dope."
The year 1995, however, saw the departure of Rev singer Baker and a radical change in direction for the band, which drew on Broadway, jazz and doo-wop
Doo-wop
The name Doo-wop is given to a style of vocal-based rhythm and blues music that developed in African American communities in the 1940s and achieved mainstream popularity in the 1950s and early 1960s. It emerged from New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Baltimore, Newark, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and...
influences helped along by Grasshopper's clarinet. The album See You on the Other Side
See You on the Other Side (Mercury Rev album)
See You on the Other Side is the third album by Mercury Rev, released in September 1995.This was the first Mercury Rev album following the departure of former lead singer Dave Baker...
, and resulting tour, saw the band virtually ignored.
With Mercury Rev in disintegration and Donahue suffering a breakdown, Grasshopper retreated to a Jesuit Retreat House monastery in Spain. "I was there for six months. Then I left. I mean, you get up at six AM, you make your bed...it was the complete opposite of everything I had been doing for the past six years," he recalled in 1998. Ten years later, he remembered being "pretty scrambled up inside and it just helped me to reflect and to bring some brakes on certain things in my life that were spinning out of control... For anybody who wants to go there, it's highly recommended. Just step out of reality for a second, empty yourself out, all the baggage."
Between Rev records, he also issued a solo record under the moniker Grasshopper and the Golden Crickets on the Beggar's Banquet label. Orbit of Eternal Grace featured several Rev members, home-made electronic instruments and "N.Y. Avenue Playground", effectively a draft of "The Hudson Line", which would appear on the next Mercury Rev album. Around this time, he effected a radical change in appearance by cutting his bottle blond hair into a style which has remained constant since.
Grasshopper was also active in Harmony Rockets, a sprawling Mercury Rev side-project responsible for Willy Wonka theme covers and Paralyzed Mind of the Archangel Void, a full-length LP which contrasted ambient drones alongside full-on noise. "...Paralyzed Mind is nocturnal trance music that never gets monotonous, a stunning feat for a piece this long....In 2015 we'll be talking about this mercurial, revolutionary CD in the awed tones reserved for The Velvet Underground & Nico, Revolver
Revolver (album)
Revolver is the seventh studio album by the English rock group The Beatles, released on 5 August 1966 on the Parlophone label and produced by George Martin. Many of the tracks on Revolver are marked by an electric guitar-rock sound, in contrast with their previous LP, the folk rock inspired Rubber...
, A Love Supreme
A Love Supreme
A Love Supreme is a studio album recorded by John Coltrane's quartet in December 1964 and released by Impulse! Records in February 1965...
, or Bitches Brew
Bitches Brew
Bitches Brew is a studio double album by jazz musician Miles Davis, released in April 1970 on Columbia Records. The album continued his experimentation with electric instruments previously featured on his critically acclaimed In a Silent Way album...
," claimed Alternative Press in 1996.
Reconvening and moving to the Catskill Mountains
Catskill Mountains
The Catskill Mountains, an area in New York State northwest of New York City and southwest of Albany, are a mature dissected plateau, an uplifted region that was subsequently eroded into sharp relief. They are an eastward continuation, and the highest representation, of the Allegheny Plateau...
in these in-between years, the band attempted to record what they deemed likely to be their last chance. The resultant record, Deserter's Songs
Deserter's Songs
Deserter's Songs is the fourth studio album by the Buffalo, New York-based rock band Mercury Rev, released in late September 1998. British music magazine NME named Deserter's Songs album of the year for 1998...
(1998), was a critical and commercial triumph, leading to an extensive and lengthy tour. With each of the band members in emotionally difficult waters, Grasshopper's contribution on the record drew from the heartfelt death of his uncle. His guitar style, particularly onstage, had evolved from the squalls of the early '90s and was now strongly influenced by the pentatonic blues, albeit retaining an avant-garde edge.
In 2001, Grasshopper was injured in a mugging attack which affected the recording of that year's All Is Dream
All is Dream
All Is Dream is the fifth album by the rock band Mercury Rev, released in the UK on August 27, 2001, in France on August 28, 2001, and in the US on September 11, 2001.-Track listing:...
album:
I was at the Jazz Festival in New Orleans, in this bar watching a Cuban band, with a friend of mine. We were the last ones there. We walked out and we just went around the wrong corner. It happened really fast. There were two guys. They had a gun on my friend and they cut me, and took our wallets. I was bleeding pretty badly. When I went to the hospital, the doctor said, "I don't think this is very good; three of your fingers might be paralyzed."
Making a full recovery, the guitar solo on the track 'Little Rhymes' was played with his arm in a sling. 2005's The Secret Migration
The Secret Migration
The Secret Migration is the sixth album by the alternative rock band Mercury Rev, released on January 24, 2005 in the UK...
was performed under less dramatic circumstances. Preparations for 2008's Snowflake Midnight
Snowflake Midnight
Snowflake Midnight is the seventh studio album from Mercury Rev. It was released on September 29, 2008 in the UK, and September 30 in the US.From the band's website:...
album included a period of withdrawal from the guitar, as the band explored new directions with the introduction of software-based instrumentation.
Aside from music, Mackowiak's interests include film and modern literature, particularly of the Beat Generation
Beat generation
The Beat Generation refers to a group of American post-WWII writers who came to prominence in the 1950s, as well as the cultural phenomena that they both documented and inspired...
, The Situationists, Minimalism, Fluxus, and Dada. He lives in Kingston, New York
Kingston, New York
Kingston is a city in and the county seat of Ulster County, New York, USA. It is north of New York City and south of Albany. It became New York's first capital in 1777, and was burned by the British Oct. 16, 1777, after the Battles of Saratoga...
.
Instruments and musicianship
Grasshopper is nominally the group's lead guitarist, credited in the band's peculiar vocabulary with "guitar shapes" and "single-exhaust clarinet" in the See You on the Other Side liner notes, and with "guitar reels" and woodwind on Deserter's Songs. The Secret Migrations 'Moving On' features prominent singing from him and Jeff Mercel, though 'The Hudson Line', on Deserter's Songs and 'Blood on the Moon' on Lego My Ego feature Grasshopper's only lead vocals with Mercury Rev. He also sings backing vocals live.He is credited with playing - and inventing - the Tettix Wave Acumulator on various Rev releases, telling Cokemachineglow:
The Tettix Wave Accumulator is basically a huge bank of oscillators, high and low pass filters, and wave shape manipulators. It can use any sound source to manipulate sounds. It also can then sample the manipulated sound and then store the sound on discs. It is still a very wonderful instrument. In 1994, when it was developed, we threw together a bunch of existing technology that hadn't been used together in quite that way before. Now of course, you can achieve many of these sounds with computer programs like Reaktor. The Tettix Wave Accumulator is now housed in the basement of a bar. We were trying to develop a smaller version, but the funds have recently dried up. You could say that Tettix Inc. has been acquired by the Carlyle Group.
"I started out playing clarinet and, I think when I was younger, a lot of my influences were horn players - like Miles Davis, John Coltrane, or John Gillmore, who played with Sun Ra," Grasshopper explained in 2001. "Then as I started playing more and more guitar, as a kid I liked [laughs] The Allman Brothers and Neil Young's guitar playing. Then I got into, obviously, Sterling Morrison of The Velvet Underground, and Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd - I love that stuff. I like Robert Quine, who played with Richard Hell, and Lou Reed. I've also got some jazz and punk rock influences, but Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd [are the big ones]."
On the 2005 Secret Migration tour, he provided additional harmonica, clarinet and electric piano during guitar-less moments. For the creation of Snowflake Midnight, the band bought Macbook
MacBook
The MacBook was a brand of Macintosh notebook computers built by Apple Inc. First introduced in May 2006, it replaced the iBook and 12-inch PowerBook series of notebooks as a part of the Apple–Intel transition. Positioned as the low end of the MacBook family, the Apple MacBook was aimed at the...
s and experimented with various software packages. "I was very interested in the Native Instruments
Native Instruments
Native Instruments is a technology company that develops software and hardware for music production and DJing. The company has originally been identified mostly with software instruments, but has also expanded to various other music equipment segments in recent years.Current products of Native...
programs Absynth
Absynth
Absynth is a commercial, proprietary software synthesizer originally written by Brian Clevenger, and developed by Native Instruments GmbH. It combines a range of traditional synthesis techniques and modern to create complex sounds and timbres...
and FM8
FM8
FM8 is a commercial, proprietary software synthesizer from Native Instruments. It is the successor of FM7, a software emulation of the Yamaha DX7. FM8 includes many new features, for example: an arpeggiator, real time morphing, effects, a preset browser, and an updated interface...
after seeing some demos about them at an electronic music conference I attended in Miami," Grasshopper explained to Cokemachineglow.
His record The Orbit Of Eternal Grace, recorded around 1996 with a loose group dubbed The Golden Crickets, features Grasshopper's vocals, electric, acoustic and bass guitars as well as a Micromoog
Micromoog
The Micromoog is a monophonic analog synthesizer produced by Moog Music from 1975 to 1979.The Micromoog was designed by Robert Moog and Jim Scott as a scaled-down, cheaper alternative to the Minimoog. It was designed to tap into a market of musicians who wanted an introduction to synthesis, but...
, Casio PT-30, ENL Synkey, Vox Continental
Vox Continental
The Vox Continental is a transistor-based combo organ that was introduced in 1962. Known for its thin, bright, breathy sound, the "Connie," as it was affectionately known, was designed to be used by touring musicians...
, Mellotron
Mellotron
The Mellotron is an electro-mechanical, polyphonic tape replay keyboard originally developed and built in Birmingham, England in the early 1960s. It superseded the Chamberlin Music Master, which was the world's first sample-playback keyboard intended for music...
, tape loops, turntables, guitar synth, tone generator, 'rex', alto and tenor saxophones and 'Scotch 201 (1.5mil acetate)' - a type of analogue tape.
He has tended to favour Fender Telecaster
Fender Telecaster
The Fender Telecaster, colloquially known as the Tele , is typically a dual-pickup, solid-body electric guitar made by Fender.Its simple yet effective design and revolutionary sound broke ground and set trends in electric guitar manufacturing and popular music...
s since the See You on the Other Side tour, often with customisations such as double humbucker
Humbucker
A humbucker is a type of electric guitar pickup, first patented by Seth Lover and the Gibson company, that uses two coils, both generating string signal. Humbuckers have higher output than a single coil pickup since both coils are connected in series...
pickups and tremolo arms. These have been decorated with NASA
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
stickers, the logo of the American Revolution Bicentenary (used frequently on album artwork)and stars on the headstock. A Fender Tele-sonic made its appearance on the All Is Dream tour, later acquiring a Bigsby tremolo unit. As the band's sound changed radically with the release of Snowflake Midnight, Grasshopper switched to a hardtail, double-humbucker Fender Jaguar
Fender Jaguar
The Fender Jaguar is an electric guitar introduced in 1962. A descendant of the Jazzmaster, the Jaguar quickly caught on in the emerging Surf music scene...
and Yamaha
Yamaha
Yamaha may refer to:* Yamaha Corporation, a Japanese company with a wide range of products and services** Yamaha Motor Company, a Japanese motorized vehicle-producing company...
electric guitar.
He and Donahue both used Fender Hotrod DeVille 4x10 combo amplifiers since 1998's Deserter's Songs tour, but switched to comparable Peavey
Peavey Electronics
Peavey Electronics Corporation is one of the largest audio equipment manufacturers in the world, headquartered in Meridian, Mississippi in the United States.- History :...
models to tour Snowflake Midnight in 2008. A Boss GT6 was added to the already-extensive array of assorted pedals in 2005.
External links
- Mercury Rev's official website
- Leading Mercury Rev unofficial website
- Grasshopper on Myspace
- Silvertone Series #2 Grasshopper and Mercury Rev in Russia. An interview for Podstantsiya.ru