Bob Drake (born December 6, 1957) is an American

multi-instrumentalist A multi-instrumentalist is a musician who plays two or more musical instruments at a professional level of proficiency. Also known as doubling, the practice allows greater ensemble flexibility and more efficient employment of musicians, where ...

musician and recording engineer. He was a founding member of the

avant-rock Experimental rock, also called avant-rock, is a subgenre of rock music that pushes the boundaries of common composition and performance technique or which experiments with the basic elements of the genre. Artists aim to liberate and innovate, with ...

band

Thinking Plague Thinking Plague is an American avant-garde progressive rock group founded in 1982 by guitarist/composer Mike Johnson and bass guitarist/drummer Bob Drake. Based in Denver, Colorado, the band has been active off and on since 1982, taking on a ...

in the early 1980s, and a member of the 5uu's, Hail and The Science Group (with

Chris Cutler Chris Cutler (born 4 January 1947) is an English percussionist, composer, lyricist and music theorist. Best known for his work with English avant-rock group Henry Cow, Cutler was also a member and drummer of other bands, including Art Bears, ...

, Stevan Kovacs Tickmayer and Fred Frith). He formed his own band, Bob Drake's Cabinet of Curiosities in 2007. Drake's engineering credits include mainstream artists like Ice Cube,

Tina Turner Tina Turner (born Anna Mae Bullock; November 26, 1939) is an American-born Swiss retired singer and actress. Widely referred to as the " Queen of Rock 'n' Roll", she rose to prominence as the lead singer of the Ike & Tina Turner Revue before ...

and Engelbert Humperdinck. Drake has released a number of solo albums, all written, performed and recorded by himself. François Couture at

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databa ...

described each successive album as "a more twisted aural journey than the previous one".

Biography

Bob Drake was born in

Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

on December 6, 1957, and spent his youth in

Watseka, Illinois Watseka is a city in and the county seat of Iroquois County, Illinois, United States. It is located approximately west of the Illinois-Indiana state line on U.S. Route 24. The population of Watseka was 5,255 according to the 2010 census, which ...

. There he taught himself how to play guitar and drums, but after hearing Yes's ''

Fragile Fragile or The Fragile may refer to: Film and television * ''Fragile'' (film), a 2005 film by Jaume Balagueró * "Fragile" (''Smallville''), a television episode Literature * ''Fragile'' (manga), a 2016 Japanese series by Bin Kusamizu and Sab ...

'' in 1972, Drake decided he wanted to be a bassist and bought himself a

Rickenbacker 4001 The Rickenbacker 4001 is an electric bass that was manufactured by Rickenbacker as a two- pickup "deluxe" version of their first production bass, the single-pickup model 4000. This design, created by Roger Rossmeisl, was manufactured between 1 ...

bass guitar, which he still uses today.

Henry Cow Henry Cow were an English experimental rock group, founded at the University of Cambridge in 1968 by multi-instrumentalists Fred Frith and Tim Hodgkinson. Henry Cow's personnel fluctuated over their decade together, but drummer Chris Cutler, b ...

also had a big influence on him: " ey were doing something I felt was a lot closer to what I was imagining I'd like to do – 'complex' intricate songs and arrangements, noisy things going on which fit organically in the music, and less emphasis on 'perfect' studio overcooked impersonal perfection." Drake experimented with recording techniques and "warped rock", but soon found that no one was interested in "new and strange music" in his rural

Midwestern The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of the United States. I ...

home town. He moved to

Denver Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the wes ...

in 1978 where he worked for a while as a sound engineer on B horror movie sets. He also spent time recording local

underground Underground most commonly refers to: * Subterranea (geography), the regions beneath the surface of the Earth Underground may also refer to: Places * The Underground (Boston), a music club in the Allston neighborhood of Boston * The Underground ...

bands and playing bass guitar and drums with some of them. Drake put an advertisement at a local music store requesting a guitar player "into Henry Cow, Yes …", and met up with

experimental rock Experimental rock, also called avant-rock, is a subgenre of rock music that pushes the boundaries of common composition and performance technique or which experiments with the basic elements of the genre. Artists aim to liberate and innovate, with ...

guitarist and composer Mike Johnson. Drake and Johnson played in a few

cover band A cover band (or covers band) is a band that plays songs recorded by someone else, sometimes mimicking the original as accurately as possible, and sometimes re-interpreting or changing the original. These remade songs are known as cover songs. ...

s before forming

in 1982. By 1990 Thinking Plague had recorded three albums and established a name for themselves in progressive circles. In the late 1980s the Denver music scene "just evaporated" as musicians seeking "greener pastures" moved elsewhere. Drake, "flat broke" at the time, moved to

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...

where he found a job as a recording engineer. There he established a name for himself working with several mainstream artists like Ice Cube,

and Engelbert Humperdinck. During this time he also formed an

alternative rock Alternative rock, or alt-rock, is a category of rock music that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1970s and became widely popular in the 1990s. "Alternative" refers to the genre's distinction from mainstream or commerci ...

group, Hail with ex-Thinking Plague's singer Susanne Lewis, and joined Dave Kerman's avant rock group, the 5uu's. '' Hunger's Teeth'', the 5uu's' third album was praised for its "challenging music" and "production values", and made Drake a "sought-after engineer and collaborator". Drake released his first solo album, ''What Day is It?'' in 1994. It was a limited edition (1,000 copies)

self released Self-publishing is the publication of media by its author at their own cost, without the involvement of a publisher. The term usually refers to written media, such as books and magazines, either as an ebook or as a physical copy using POD (pr ...

record that Drake pressed himself. He later made five more solo albums, which were all released on ex-Henry Cow drummer

's UK independent record label,

Recommended Records Recommended Records (RēR) is a British independent record label and distribution network founded by Chris Cutler with Nick Hobbs in March 1978. RēR features largely "Rock in Opposition" and related music, but it also distributes selected mus ...

. In 1994 Drake and Kerman moved to an old farm house owned by Cutler and Henry Cow's sound engineer EM (Maggie) Thomas in

Caudeval Caudeval (; Languedocien: ''Caudavalh'') is a former commune in the Aude department in southern France. On 1 January 2016, it was merged into the new commune of Val-de-Lambronne.remastering of several albums and box sets, for example ''

The Art Box ''The Art Box'' is a six- CD box set by English avant-rock group Art Bears. It contains all Art Bears album and single releases, plus new material, including live and unreleased Art Bears tracks, and unreleased remixes and reworkings of Art B ...

'' (2004) and ''

The 40th Anniversary Henry Cow Box Set ''The 40th Anniversary Henry Cow Box Set'' (also known as ''The Road'') is a nine-CD plus one-DVD limited edition box set by English avant-rock group Henry Cow, and was released by RēR Megacorp in January 2009. It consists of almost 10 hours ...

'' (2009). He also joined Cutler's avant-rock band The Science Group in 1997, in which he played and engineered/produced the group's two albums. Drake continued to work on and off in the 2000s with Thinking Plague and the 5uu's. In 2007 he formed his own group, Bob Drake's Cabinet of Curiosities to perform material from his solo albums live on stage. The group comprised Drake (guitar, vocals, violin, banjo), Kerman (drums), David Campbell (guitar, bass guitar, vocals) and Jason DuMars (soprano/alto saxophones, keyboards). They played at

NEARfest The North East Art Rock Festival, or NEARfest for short, was a multi-day event celebrating the resurgence of progressive and eclectic music in the United States and around the world. The event was held annually in early summer in Bethlehem, Pennsy ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

in June 2007 with guests Olivier Tejedor (keyboards) and Lynnette Shelley (vocals).

Solo albums

Drake recorded six solo albums between 1994 and 2005. Musician and writer

Dominique Leone Dominique Leone is an American musician and writer based in New York City. He was born in Shreveport, Louisiana on December 29, 1973, and grew up in the Dallas, Texas area. Leone began writing music reviews for Pitchfork Media in 2001, and was ...

Pitchfork Media ''Pitchfork'' (formerly ''Pitchfork Media'') is an American online music publication (currently owned by Condé Nast) that was launched in 1995 by writer Ryan Schreiber as an independent music blog. Schreiber started Pitchfork while working ...

described them as "idiosyncratic to a fault", with songs unlike anything else he has heard. Drake plays almost all the instruments himself, and the music has elements of progressive rock, country/blues and "bizarro pop". Drake said that his first album, ''What Day is It?'' (1994) was influenced by "the climate, the deserts, the dusty hills around L.A.", and that his next one, ''Little Black Train'' (1998), largely an instrumental album, was "dirtier and messier" than the first. ''Medallion Animal Carpet'' (1999) consisted of different musical ideas strung together around a "medley of noisy country-ish songs", and ''The Skull Mailbox and Other Horrors'' (2001), recorded in a barn, was a collection of little "horror songs" played on a nylon stringed classical guitar and a "cheap little organ". Leone described ''Skull Mailbox'' as a "folk-horror-avant-semi-classical hybrid", and a "mix of psychological stress, garage-symphony grandeur and folk-ish retelling of very familiar horror stories". He also described ''The Shunned Country'' (2005) as a "rural horror story", saying that the 40-minute album contains 52 brief tracks that "employ as tight a form into the most compact space as possible". Banjos feature prominently that sound like "macabre-sentimental fanfares, ''

Deliverance ''Deliverance'' is a 1972 American survival thriller film produced and directed by John Boorman, and starring Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds, Ned Beatty, and Ronny Cox, with the latter two making their feature film debuts. The screenplay was adapt ...

'' in the hands of

Hitchcock Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock (13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980) was an English filmmaker. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of cinema. In a career spanning six decades, he directed over 50 featur ...

Solo discography

*''What Day is It?'' (1994, self released) *''Little Black Train'' (1998,

) *''Medallion Animal Carpet'' (1999, Recommended Records) *''The Skull Mailbox and Other Horrors'' (2001, Recommended Records) *''13 Songs and a Thing'' (2003, Recommended Records) *''The Shunned Country'' (2005, Recommended Records) *''Bob's Drive-In'' (2011, Recommended Records) *''Lawn Ornaments'' (2014, Recommended Records) *''...come at once, ANTIQUITIES!'' (2014, Recommended Records) – box set containing ''Little Black Train'', ''The Skull Mailbox'', ''13 Songs and a Thing'', ''The Shunned Country'' and ''Bob’s Drive-In'' *''Arx Pilosa'' (2016) *'' L'Isola dei Lupi'' (2018) *''The Gardens of Beastley Manor'' (2019) *''Planets and Animals'' (2020)

As a member of other bands discography

* The Capybaras – ''Stropicalia'' (2013, Cremíre Is Mó Records) * Bing Selfish and the Multiverts – ''In the Morning We Glow and in the Evening We Glow Again'' (2016, El Frenzy) *

Peter Blegvad Peter Blegvad (born August 14, 1951) is an American musician, singer-songwriter, writer, and cartoonist. He was a founding member of German/English avant-pop band Slapp Happy, which later merged briefly with Henry Cow, and has released many so ...

– ''Go Figure'' (2019, ReR Megacorp)

References

External links