Myke Reilly
1977 Teenage Wasteland
Growing up in the oppressive isolation of the suburbs was not exactly easy for a queer-artist child back in the 1960's -70's. Yes, while all the other children were listing to Deep Purple and Led Zepplin, I was firmly transfixed with Kraftwerk, Bowie and Eno. After 16 years of alienation, 5 friends and I started a band called The Situations, a suburban new wave punk band. Underage and with no living skills we packed up our gear in my parents 1964 Chevrolet station wagon and drove into San Francisco were we were some how booked to open for "The Mutants" at Mabuhay Gardens. Mabuhay was the center of the exploding punk/art scene of the late 70's. We didn't realize that we were still children but somehow it wsorked to our advantage and we became an overnight sensation, cared for and guided by punk rockers and students from the Art Institute. Within a few weeks we had all left our suburban homes behind and began what would be a very new and unusual life for children brought up on television and processed food. This is really were my creative bio begins.
1978 He's Leaving Home, Bye Bye
People often ask what it was like leaving home at 16. Truth is, it wasn't very dramatic. Just sort of sad. I put some things in a paper bag, said goodbye to my mom and left. It really worked to my advantage that my family didn't practice confrontational or verbal communication (normal in the 1970's). Also, one could move into a Tenderloin hotel right behind Union Square for $25 a week. Within a week the Situations were performing at night with now infamous groups such as The Avengers, Devo, The Cramps and even an opening for the B-52's.
After a performance at Mabuhay Gardens in 1980 3 people were waiting backstage who would change my entire lifes path. Charly, Barbie and Gary. (the original Voice Farm and Oblong Rhonda art group) I immediately liked them and they invited me to come over and jam on their new Kat synthesizer and drum-box backed up with a cassette recorder. Oh my god, I had finally stumbled upon the bright shiny future I had only dreamed of. Something about electronic synthesis and media manipulation had always resonated with me and I pretty quickly jumped ship and moved in with my new avante-garde-bisexual-artist-friends.
The first Voice Farm performances were way outside of the then current trend of nihilistic punk bands with guitars. Charly and I always agreed on one thing. Stark minimalism and modernism with a subversive undertone throughout. Bauhaus inspired dancers dressed as downtown executives provided a syncronized backdrop for our live shows. The audiences were split on us as we defied the punky nihilsm of the era with our new brand of modernist art house pop. By the early 80's a we had attracted a large cult following and we were being approched by nightclubs, managers, labels etc.
1981-1984 Skyrocket to Cult Stardom
By the early 80's Charly, Barbie. Dog and I had moved into a dilapidated 3 story building in the south of Market district . Barbies fashion company Japanese Weekend occupied the mid floor while Voice Farm and The Longshoremen rehearsed on the street level. We were emerging in the center of the San Francisco new wave-post punk art movement of the 80's along with local bands such as Romeo Void, Pink Section and The Units. Although bi-sexual, I was living as a couple with fashion designer Barbie White who soon became our head choreograper. Her experimental dance group group "Oblong Rhonda" became our backup dancers and the stage show took off. We released our 1st single Modern Things-Sleep and hand silk screened the cover designed by Charly. Producer David Kahne ( Go-Gos Romeo Void The Bangles) approached us and volunteered to produce our 1st album at the infamous Automat recording studios in SF for free (what a sign of the times). The album "The World We Live In" was released and became an instant cult hit largely because of our unusual album cover (We broke into an under construction skyscraper downtown at 4am in our underwear for the photoshoot) and Album title"The World We Live In".
The art scene in Sf was attracting a lot of attention. We sent our absurdly arty demo tape to an A&R executive / producer at A&M Records named Wally Brill. He loved it. Wally was a sort of mad man and a mentor to us. He flew to san francisco and signed us up immediately. The magic of this meeting was that Wally brought us into A&M through the back door and procured for us money to set up our own recording studio instead of recording out of house. Wally became our producer / manager for many years. We flew to his recording studio in Somerset England And recorded our second album "F" . Wally then divorced his then british popstar wife Annabel Lamb and moved to San Francisco.
1985-1989 San Francisco Darlings - a turning point
"F' really defined our sound with cover art by our friend and now celebreted graphic Artist Tom Bonauro. Our 2 hit songs Johnny Belinda and Super EQ Team went into heavy rotation on west coast "rock of the 80's" radio stations and in a sort of fluke we were picked up as an opening act for Depech Mode's international Music for the Masses tour. Their original opening act Nitzer Eb were denied visas and we were given 24 hours to quit our day jobs, rent a van and drive overnight to Perform in front of 60.000 people at Los angeles forum stadium.
On to Dallas where we were invited to stay with now infamous designer Todd Olham. Depeche Mode were an odd group to tour with. My impression was that they became famous at a very early age and lived in a kind of isolated celebrity bubble. After every show they had a stage manager go out and pull a herd of groupies. They were brought backstage and allowed to worship the band for an hour, given a free t-shirt and then let go. It seemed to be the only social exposure that they engaged in. Artistically, I found them pretty amazing.....After 4 weeks of touring we closed at Madison Square Gardens and returned to SF.
When we returned to sf we were elevated in some way to cult stardom. A fun period. At the time I recall feeling validated and accepted for the first time in my life. Beyond that, I think the celebrity temporarily soothed my lifelong experience of alienation and insecurity.. I remember consciously observing this. At this time the popularity of groups like Deelite , The Eurythmics and the B-52s were exploding and we sort of fit in with the genre.
1990 Bigger. Cooler Weirder
We were picked up by Morgan Creek records and released our third album, Bigger Cooler Weirder. Graphic artist Tom Bonauro directed the video for our hit "Freelove" which was imediatly pulled from MTV rotation but started to appear on the Playboy Channel. Funny, I could feel that we were already hitting a ceiling. As we entered the commercial music arena a whole new set of problems emerged. Managers, lawyers and music executives all had thier fingers deeply in the pie and it was becoming apparent that Voice Farm did not fit neatly into any marketable catagory. We were constantly asked "how do you define your sound? It wasn't dance, rock or pop. The executives knew that we were popular but they couldn't really understand why. Nitch marketing was not popular until the 90's. Then came the big blow. Grunge. Within 3 months time all of the radio stations and music video channels were hoping on the new trend. We could feel it approching like a recession as groups like Pearl Jam and Nirvana (one of my favorite bands of all time) started taking over the airwaves. Angrogenous art freaks were OUT.and DUDE ROCK was in. On top of this things at Morgan Creek records were changing. Once again we had been snuk in the back door by people who liked us . When executives started to notice that they were spending money on an avante garde queerish art band from San Francisco, eyebrows were raised and Voice Farm was given the ax. I remember vividly the uproar when a jewish layer heard our song "Freethinker" with it's opening rap 'Blacks, whites, homos and jews, Voice Farm has a message for you. I love life and I love people but i'm not living under a churches steeple.
Entering the world of Film and Television
By the mid 90's we stopped performing and began scoring music for film and television. Although still incompetant as musicians we did what we had always done. Rely on sheer creativity and digital sampling. We were creatively successful in the field and composed music for companies such as Samsung, Levis and Kikomon Soy Sauce.The truth is that even after 13 years as a musician and nominated for Bammy keboardist of the year and on the cover of Keyboard magazine, I still could not play with both hands and I could not tell you what a Csharp chord was. Although not recognized or diagnosed at the time, I was one of the early A.D.D generation brought up in front of a television screen eating sugar coated coco-puffs. This was not something that I had conciously put into perspective until 2007. I now view my lifes path as being largely largely by having ADD. I could not focus on anything for more than a few minutes especially a traditional musical instrument. i like the instant gratifiacation synthesizers and sound design. I had to be EXTRA creative to compensate for my complete lack of skill. The only thing that I ever did really well was experiment and have the vision to know when the experiment had worked. Charly was always a great balace as he has a deep deovotion to detail and perfection.
1997 The Banckrupcy Years | Starting Over
I remember it clearly. Charly and I were finishing a soundtrack for a new Pillsbury Dinner Rolls commercial and I had a sinking feeling that my life as a musician was over. My heart was no longer in it. I wanted a stable income. I no longer had excitement or passion for what I was doing and with mounting credit card debt I was pushed into bankruptcy. This was the suckiest part of my life. It was sort of like going through a divorce when you got into a marriage at a very early age. My formative years were spent in a kind of creative microcosm and I had never lived in the common world were I had to make friends or hold a job on my own.
After a sad talk and some tears we closed down the studio, put all of our recordings into a vault and I began to venture out in the world for the first time since leaving home 20 years previous. Again, I had no skills and was barely capable of even holding a temp job. All i had was a computer so I boot-legged some Adobe software and taught myself how to create websites. I started building websites for friends and associates and within a year had a freelance web business which I still operate today.
2001 The World We Live In
In my new life as a single freelancer with a rent control cottage in San Francisco's popular Upper Market District I quickly figured out that I could sublet my cottage and travel the world on the profits. Over the next few years I traveled India, Thailand, Laos, Italy, France, Hawaii and Agentina. I lived in Buenos Aires for 3 months and still go back occasionaly. I've also made a career out of social engagement. I have a loose network of friends around the world and enjoy spending time with my pals more than anything else. i also campaigned for Barack Obama in nevada before the election.
2009 - Oh yes, back to Voice Farm.
Oh yes, back to Voice Farm.
I always kept a connection with Charly and in 2008 we simutaneously thought that it would be "interesting" to pull all of those archives out of the vault and take a look. Before you could say AVANTE-GARDE BOHEMIAN PERFORMANCE ARTISTS we were shooting videos for YouTube, remixing songs and mastering a new album "Super Nova Experts" which is now on Itunes. Plans are underway for several videos for tracks on their new Album.