RELATED
SITES:
Ganymede
Ink Syndicate
CannonFilms.com
The Dunsel Report
SYNDICATION:
Atom Feed
BLOG LINKS:
John Gorenfeld
Paul Frankenstein
Jim Steinman
Soul of Trek
True Father
ST XI
ASSORTED
WRITINGS:
"Cannon
Films: The Rise and Fall of Menahem Golan" (2001)
"Fast Company" (2007)
"Last
Man Dancing" (2001)
"Our Alien, HE" (1987)
"Drummer
on Top: The Red Hot Chili Peppers' Chad Smith" (2002)
"Singin'
the Hi-Res Blues" (2003)
BIO:
I
grew up in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and now live in Brooklyn, New York.
I have a bachelor's degree in linguistics from Swarthmore College and
a master's degree in journalism from UC Berkeley. Feel free to email
me at patrick@runkle.info.
From
2000 until 2004, I was the editorial director for ArtistPro,
a music-industry trade publisher in the Bay Area. I also was
editorial director for ArtistPro's short-lived national magazine,
which was distributed to all the members of the GRAMMY organization.
(That includes Phil Spector.)
Current
activities include my band, Ganymede, my trips to Canada, and various other things I do. (See above for links.) I also have a large collection of oversize video boxes from the early 80s.
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I've been tucked away working very diligently on the new release by my band, Ganymede. Our fourth album is due this fall and we're very excited about it. The sound is complex and there should be some surprises on there for everyone. However, the final mixing and vocal work is always the worst. My ears are nearly shot after listening to every passage about a thousand times.
In related news, today I found a funny YouTube video poking fun at the dearly departed American synthpop scene. Dave and I appear in it uncredited as the first "every synthpop band ever" generic shot. Of course, the American synthpop scene was really bizarre to us, even though we were considered to be a part of it. There was a really strange interface with the goth scene; synthpop was considered "light" goth thanks to the towering influence of Depeche Mode. We never really felt at home as part of this scene, which we only caught the tail end of anyway. To us, the "scene" functioned in America mostly as bands trying to rip off DM of various eras and/or other Vince Clarke projects. In other words, it was a genre created from precious little seed material, which kept getting recycled. When "electroclash" hit in 2001, it was similarly created from a very similar set of limited early 80s electronic seed material. The death of both subcultures, I believe, is a blessing in disguise as it allows true fans to seek out more quality music, as opposed to endless rip-offs of "Enjoy the Silence."
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