Tribute to Albert Hoffman for inventing the Roland TB-303

Bicycle Day II V1.2 WIP

Some of Grail One's first memories were watching his Father Merlin's punk bands practice in garages and Downtown Fresno Buildings like the Helm. Drums were the first interment he ever played at the young age of three years old.  Band practice spaces, and music production studios were a normal stomping ground for Grail One, and a young age he had access to drum machines and synthesizers and was allowed to play. His Dad would say "He's a good kid!" So they never had to worry about him messing up, damaging, or disrespecting their equipment. He was taught Guitar (which he seldomly practices) by Steve Ono, a legend in the Fresno Music Scene. Grail Must have produced his first tracks around the age of twelve, using Sonic Foundry Acid, Sound Forge, Rebirth and the Classic Groove Shark by Bram Bos, and was very adept at the early versions of Reason. He took piano lessons, but not very seriously around second grade. His Father Merlin is a very skilled pianist as well. So everything music was part of his household. He was an early IOS Music software developer and worked on a project called iSample, and did concept and UX design, as well as another app called SynthX, which was a ARP AXXE emulator for the ipad, that had a retro 8bit style user interface, and a scale grid that predated the Ableton Push. iSample and SynthX were created in with Jim Heintz, of Way Out Ware, who created the classic Timewarp 2600 software version of the ARP-2600 sythesizer, which was used by many big names in the music world such as Pete Townsend of The Who. Presets for iSample we created by Mark Mothersbaugh of DEVO. SynthX and iSample was later sold to AKAI. It is known that Jordan Rudess of Dream Theater was especially fond of SynthX, and there is a video out there somewhere of him playing it and admiring it. During his time in the Central Coast / Shell Beach / SLO he started learning Ableton Live around 2008, which is about the same time that he moved to Florence Italy to become a Classically Trained Realist Artist. During his time in Italy he got heavily into Ableton, sampling sounds from the streets of Florence, and incorporating them into his first works. From then on he has been fine tuning his craft and his sound, which has become immediately recognizable.
    Around 2017 Grail One went to his first music festival, (Not his first concert though) and watched his friend Abojee, and  “Nye” Hannaniah Ham spin some incredible Deep Tech / Minimal Techno sets into the sunrise, which inspired him to take up the craft himself. Nye is who taught Grail to beat-match. Now,  Grail One is what you would call, a "Swiss Army Knife of DJ's" and possesses multitude of tricks and transitions. His Mixing technique is impeccable, and his track selection is refined as french wine. His motto is "Right song at the right time" when he is behind the decks. He is capable of pure violence, and pure bliss, but it’s always about what is right for that specific moment, time, and place. He is part man, and must be part machine. He once played a twenty hour set, at Farming Man 2022 because "Someone had to do it." 
    Music has clearly, always been a huge part of Grail One's life. He is an obsessive listener, and hoarder of music, and his library spans many many genres. He is not capable of working on anything without music playing, and actually refuses to work in silence. It is very rare that any working time actually passes with no music on, which is quite ironic, because one of is most notable questions that he asked to his son's mother "Ivy" is "Do you ever listen to silence?
    
     Grail One is a strange and rare 'Wizard" whom some of have described as "Too weird to live, too rare to die. One of God's own prototypes."  
He has been described as a legend by many, and a menace by a handful.  His honesty can be a tough pill to swallow. He acquired this ability to see the truth first through his studies in naturalism, and by being critiqued by some of the best living naturalist artists of the century, (who's names shall not be named as there is simply too many to list) and through the practice of Vipassana. He has been touted as “The Voice of Reason” and is considered a very wise man.  One of his favorite motto’s is “Work like a slave, command like a king, and create like a GOD.”  

He is an avid “Burner” and was tasked to go to Burning Man at age 11 by Jim Heintz (WOW) who said: “You have to go see the Man Burn! You’re going to love it.” and he absolutely did. The Burn has become a big part of his life, and a source of constant inspration. Grail One, with the help of his friends and family has evolved into a versatile creative powerhouse, yet he remains in the shadows, not necessarily interested in the spotlight but more into enjoying life, and doing the things that his mildly autistic severely ADHD brain wants to do at the current moment. He   makes art and music out of habit, because that is what he has to do. He doesn’t produce a ton of music, because one of his mantra’s is “Slow and steady wins the race.” Therefore he is not in a rush to pump out a bunch of okay stuff. He has a lot of irons in the fire and MUSIC is definitely one of them.

New tracks tagged #albert hoffman