Ever wonder what happened to Shadowfax? This instrumental band, named for Gandalf’s horse in the Lord of the Rings, started as a progressive rock group with leanings toward the acoustic chamber sound of Oregon in the 1970s. After Will Ackerman resurrected their careers on Windham Hill they became leading exponents for an evocative, melodic and often energized brand of modern instrumental music. They released several highly acclaimed albums throughout the 1980s which all seem to be out of print at the moment except a few collections.
The band was already splintering when founding member, reed and Lyricon player Chuck Greenberg died of a heart attack in 1995. The band never played together again but at least one charter member has kept making music, often of an increasingly dissonant and fractured nature. Guitarist G.E. Stinson always had a lacerating style, best heard on the album, The Odd Get Even. As part of LA’s out-music scene with people like Nels and Alex Cline, he’s gone even further afield with albums of free distortion and roiling glitches. It’s a long way from Shadowfax. We had G.E. on the show a few years ago when we did an interview feature with Alex Cline. Howard Linton from Switzerland recently hipped us to some of GE’s recent endeavors which range from industrial noise workouts to electro-pop with singer Jen Hung. You can catch some of his projects with Sleepr Wave and Halfmonk here. And of course, there is a GE Stinson website.
There’s also a nice video of Sleepr Wave featuring Stinson playing guitar.
And if that’s not enough Shadowfax for you, I also stumbled on a biographical site written by Chuck Greenberg’s widow, Joy.
Comment posted by
at 8/21/2007 12:02:56 PM
hey yo, echo homeys. what’s up? how are you guys? hope all is good. everything is mostly great out here on the the pacific rim. a few weird moments now and then. the inmates get restless once in a while which is understandable. getter hotter by the minute. the fire season should be quite interesting this year.
thanks for the blog entry. stay in touch.
peace,
g.e.
aka halfmonk (my teacher at hazy moon zen center called me this once so i
co-opted it as a music moniker).