David First 30

iMMERSE! with Charlie Morrow

David First

“I define immersive as the first time I realized that there was a bigger universe than my daily life.”

David First is a many-sided composer-musician having played in Dead Cheese, a hippie guitar band in his youth, performed with Cecil Taylor in Carnegie Hall, produced many records of minimalist drone music some of which were released on Phill Niblockʼs XI label, he’s played in rowdy bar bands, led the no-wavish band the Notekillers, which had a significant influence on Sonic Youth and he has even conducted a Mummerʼs String Band in various Philly parades. The Village Voice once described him as "a bizarre cross between Hendrix and La Monte Young."

He’s performed at most of the avant garde’s hallowed halls including The Kitchen, Bang On A Can, Central Park Summerstage, The Knitting Factory, Tonic, the Deep Listening Institute, CBGBʼs as well as De Ijsbreker in Amsterdam and many festivals throughout Europe.
Other projects include working with the sonification of the atmospheric phenomena known as the Schumann Resonances and human brainwaves and other esoteric projects such as The Western Enisphere, a drone and micro-pulse acoustic-electric ensemble.

Samples Playlist
Wave Music III - 60 Clarinets & a Boat • Charlie Morrow
Tape Letter to Michigan • David First
Dead Cheese Twice Daily live @ Cheese Nation 1971 • David First
Harmonic Dance • David First
The Distant Softening Spirit Wave Pulse Tape Girder Interference Etude • Wreck, First & Morrow
Live at AmbientChaos • David First
Wave Music V - Conch Chorus and Bagpipe • Charlie Morrow
Tell Tale • David First
Etude 15 • David First
Distant Signals • Charlie Morrow
Pulse Piece • David First
Blossom Dearie Snippet of her Air • Wreck Mix
Spirit Voices • Charlie Morrow

Subjects touched upon: drones, bar bands, rock & roll bands, Lamonte Young, Dave’s Waves, Sunview Luncheonette Greenpoint, psychedelic revolution, poet Jerome Rothenberg, bending notes, Douglas Kahn, minimalist tendencies, free jazz, world music, Meteor Crater AZ, the heavens, the Kitchen, Phill Niblock, guitar, oscillators, signal generators, Muddy Waters, electronic music, Dennis Sandole, Hermann von Helmholtz, ancient voltaic cells, Harry Partch, Charles Ives, the minor third, blues, Gert Stern, new age, pseudo-science, Schumann resonances, improv, Discman, electrical engineer father, heterodyning, pursuit of magic, Canal Street ...