Long a best, well-kept secret on the NW Music Scene, Portland, Oregons' Virtuoso Pop Guitarist-Vocalist David Messenger has released his first CD, "Frictional Reaction" independently on his own label, NoizGodz Recordings Company. A mix of modern electronic textures and more traditional guitar and vocal performances works to combine to create a neo-impressionistic example of the possible future of NW electronic pop devoid of the constraints of having to conform to the current post-punk and post-indie rock tunnel vision that permeates modern NW mainstream and independent musics' expectations.
Working largely alone in his home studio, Chaotica Production Facilities, Mr. Messenger composes, arranges, orchestrates, performs, engineers & produces his music by himself, he has indeed paid his share of "dues" and acquired some "chops" here and there along the way. He began music studies on the guitar at seven years of age and began singing and teaching himself the keyboard about the same time. He joined his first professional group at fifteen. By the time he was old enough to drive he was asked to join the Lewis & Clark College lab band, "Jusst Passing" well before Monica Lewinsky was a student there. In the early seventies he went to work in the music profession out of high school both as a casual professional musician and in stage and staff support personnel at both the Paramount Northwest Theater and Memorial Coliseum in Portland, Oregon.
At this time he began to work in small combos specializing in what is now thought of as out-fusion, playing charts by Hancock, Davis, Corea, Clarke, Abercrombie, Cobham, Zawinul & Shorter later also moving to sound reinforcement and record production. He started building his home recording project studio, "Chaotica" in 1983.
Always interested in Vintage keyboards, synthesizers and Midi Synth Guitars, as well as traditional electric guitars he has acquired quite an arsenal of instruments which he employs in producing his musical vision.
He has worked production with numerous NW artists.
He lives in Portland, OR where he owns and operates a small business and spends time critically analysing modern cultural and social trends for his own entertainment. Working on his next release, titled "Definite Bummer" we asked him about future plans. "We have no plans for any touring at this time," he says, "we have at least two more full length CD's worth of material we are working on recording now, and I' ll re-examine my touring options when I finish them!"
When he says "full length" he might be hinting at a good volume of material, as "Frictional Reaction" clocks in at over 74 minutes with only 9 songs, placing the average time per song of well over 7 minutes - well beyond the acceptable standard rock critic time limit of 2 minutes 50 seconds.
He continues,"Well first of all, the last thing I ever want to be associated with is anything as limiting as a finite example of "rock", which is why I refuse to be catagorized as a "rock" musician. If anything it's what I've strived _NOT_to be for at least 30 years! Don't make the mistake of identifiying what I do as rock, there may be elements of rock in the production but the whole should be greater than the sum of it's parts, and one should in no way make the mistake of catagorizing that whole in a limiting term which is what "rock" is..I don't like limits, and that is what I see "rock" and peoples' expectations of what "rock" is for, a limit."
Heady stuff that, and maybe more than some people want to hear, but there he's said it! This ain't your old "rock and roll" by any stretch of the imagination! "Frictional Reaction" moves from subtle ambience through guazy electro-pop dance rhythms rolling on to places where Female Secret Agents perform Tantric exercises with Unnamed Detached Western Heroes in the darkness of rooms (up those stairs) we can't quite see into. And just when you catch your breath you are at a party with a Bicycle Girl where stripper girls have not-so-well censored illicit sex with each other on a Holy Mission For Goddess... strange things may lurk and then withdraw themselves from your consciousness as they pass through and then you find that you are only halfway through a journey that has yet other mysterious places to take you, and that even darker things may loom in the light on the otherside of all!
You can take "Frictional Reaction" a song at a time, or you can sit down on a quiet night with really good headphones and your attitude well adjusted and drink the whole cup down by yourself at once, but a better hint should be to do so with your significant other...David continues... " For me the ideal result from listening to the music I love the most is the ability for it to captivate me and take me somewhere else. I want my music to attempt to actually alter consciousness on the way there, and in that respect I would define what I do as "psychedelic" music, that is, it should change your conciousness in your perception of it." Call it "Modern Psychedelia"..BUT DON'T CALL IT "ROCK!
Also available is the EP release for "Definite Bummer".