Gary has been playing music since he was five. He started on the accordion, and switched to guitar somewhere around the high school/college transition when he figured out that the accordion was not exactly a babe magnet. He added piano, then bass, and has in the past gone so far as to direct a barbershop chorus and a church choir (he gave up the former involuntarily for lack of time, and the other voluntarily, for Lent). He composes original songs as well as parodies, and both of the CDs which he has released suffer from the distinction that any vocals or instrumentation heard on them were sung or played (or programmed, in the case of percussion) by Gary. Shades of Mike Oldfield...
His music is what is termed as 'Filk', a genre once roughly defined as 'science fiction folk singing', but which is making moves towards becoming the conscience music of the 21st century, when it's not being completely irreverent, comedic, or purposefully lewd, licentious, and vile. In the tradition of the Celtic bards, filk music is, as often as not, geared towards prodding thought about issues, spreading knowledge of the events of our times, and asking questions about difficult things, or about things that are simply never questioned.
His second CD, composed of parodies, is more along the lines of the sort of music typically played at a science fiction convention open filk. That is to say, 'borrowed' music with new lyrics bastardized in some lewd, licentious, or vile manner to fit the twisted enclaves of his state of mind at the time. As in the first album, the only thing in common is that all the songs were written as Filk songs.
Although willing to be lofted into that rarified segment of the music population that sells enough of their work to let the possibility of doing it full time begin to cross his mind, he has, in fact, been there and done that, and much prefers being able to afford room and board to trying it again. His strongest points, actually, are being able to at least approximately follow along with most of the music performed in filk circles whether he actually knows the music or not, and in being able to 'compose on the fly', neither trait being particularly easy to translate onto a CD.
When not doing music, he works as an engineer/scientist at Boeing. His background includes a BS in electrical engineering and an MS in computer science. Tom Smith (the World's Fastest Filker) is one of his current heroes, as well as Weird Al Yankovic, being one of the few accordion players out there who not only admit it but actually make something of a living at it.
The following is a brief synapse/description of the songs on the CD "Delusions of Adequacy"
%% Tribble Episode -- I love the original song. The lyrics seem to fit, particularly as both involved wheat...
%% Escape (from Tatooine) -- This was always a fun song, and when the connection occurred to me it was too good to pass up...
%% The Cat -- Every word in this song is true. If you have cats, then you know. If you don't, this probably helps explain why that is not necessarily a bad thing...
%% Sulu's Lament -- George Takai was a guest at Archon a few conventions back. I finished this in time for him to hear it, but he never did (timing, and what I expect was a complete lack of interest on his part). Oh well. I loved the original of this song too, the whole album, in fact, so it was fun to write.
%% Princess Leah -- The connection just sort of came to me one day. Once it did, it took only a day to get the majority of it.
%% Walked Myself Right Into It -- The original song was one of those songs that really grabbed the musician in me. Mickey Zucher Reichert had a song about reading, so that helped stimulate the idea for this one.
%% Going to Kitomer -- After I learned to play the original, the effort was too much to waste, and Kirk is always such an easy target...
%% Viva Viagra -- I wrote this one a while ago (yes, long before the comm
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