Synthesizer Graffiti Artist Graham Marlowe Floats Above the Lair on Max Ink Radio

Jimmy, it's time for live in the layer.

Graham Marlow is a Madison-based keyboardist.

And you might call him a synthesizer graffiti artist.

Jazz, rock, ambient, and astrometric space music

with a solid background in classical avant-garde film

scoring and other formats.

That's all a big mouthful.

Graham, he can also be caught performing with this band,

Lake Waves Trio.

But tonight, Graham Marlow, aka Lake Waves,

is live in the layer.

Tonight I'm Maxi Gradyo.

Graham, welcome to the layer.

Yeah, thank you for having me.

It's great to see you, Graham, it's great to meet you.

I'm really, with that description right there,

I'm super stoked to hear you play live.

And do me a favor, get a little closer to that microphone please.

Okay, yeah.

Awesome.

So Graham, your hometown is in Polaski, Wisconsin.

That's where in the state.

About 20 minutes northeast to Green Bay.

Okay.

Polaski hosts the annual Polaski Pollock Days.

Is that right?

Yeah, yeah.

Polka Days.

Polka Days, I'm sorry, my apologies.

Polaski, Polka Days.

You see what I mean?

I can't run for office.

Just can't do it.

Anyway, it's one of the largest festivals dedicated to Polish,

the Polish immigrants here in Wisconsin.

Do you play polka?

There's a complexity to it that I appreciate,

but I've never picked up a accordion or that.

It didn't make musical sense to me.

So, yeah, I can appreciate it.

I'm not a genre I dabble in, I guess.

Have you been to the festival up there?

And do you dance?

Yeah, yeah, it was a fixture of growing up.

People come from all over the world to get smashed and parties.

And this, like Sherwood Anderson, kind of short story town.

You know, 11 bars in the Catholic church kind of place.

Right.

I think it's the official dance move of beer.

I like, well, yeah, here in Wisconsin,

there's no doubt about it, you know?

Well, because, you know, all you have to do

is count to three, right?

What?

Not four.

That's where I can roll.

That's a soundtrack, of course.

Is there any connection?

Obviously, Wisconsin also has a strong German history here,

German immigrants and beer.

And so does Polka, is there any intermingling or similarities

or are the beers or the polka kind of separate?

It almost seems like an oral tradition thing

in a sense of the polka.

Just because there's not like a lineage,

you know, like rock and roll,

there's different appendages, like historically, to things.

Like with polka, it's a little more like gypsy,

like as far as the history goes, it seems.

So, yeah, I mean, my grandma was first generation Italian immigrant,

so I don't necessarily have that in my, you know, ancestry,

but yeah, there was a big fixture of growing up,

a very Polish place to grow up, I guess.

Well, you've kind of started to tell us a little bit of your history,

which is, this is my first time meeting you, lovely.

Let's get to know you.

How did you get started playing music?

What's your back story?

Tell us all about it.

Yeah, I didn't really have awareness of it at the time,

but two of my, both older brothers,

I'm one of four.

The oldest was really involved in the professional jazz world,

kind of from a high school onward.

He took me to jam sessions, kind of taught me how to listen.

The other brothers had involvements with music,

and one of them went on to be a music teacher at the high school level,

but Justin was the one that really kind of impressed a lot of different styles

and discipline on to me.

And so, you know, he was kind of my history lesson for a lot of things.

My folks were more, kind of like conservative hippies,

like Crosby Stills and Nash, Neil Young.

It's like like hippies.

Is that an oxymoron?

Yeah, right.

Like, yeah, I mean, like policy-wise, pretty, you know, hippie-ish,

but, you know, maybe just in comparison to myself that seems conservative,

but anyways, like they're very, very cool.

I'm good at upbringing and all that, but my mom was more in a pop music.

My dad was more into like Prog Rock, jazz, exploration,

go off the page and come back, like have some musicianship, you know,

not necessarily know where the climactic moment was coming every two minutes.

Who was some of his favorite artists, your dad's favorite artists?

Pink Floyd, Rush, EOP, a lot of music comes in.

Wait, are you talking about me?

A lot of obscure stuff that I found later that I thought was really cool.

Yeah, he, they listened a little bit differently,

but they had kind of an opposite detract thing, I suppose.

But the music that you were just described from your dad,

did that bleed over to you for your liking in the music that you enjoy listening to?

I think I was like slowly absorbed it through osmosis over the years,

and like when I got into my 30s, like I really got some time.

Like I would hear that, like Rush album's album,

my dad was painting and stuff.

He was an insurance guy, but also had this creative stream that was active.

And that's kind of what he does in retirement now.

Like got into carpentry and all that sort of stuff again.

But yeah, in my 30s, that's where I really got a chance to listen to those albums

with a different attention, I guess.

And then it just, you know, had this newer layer of appreciation, I suppose.

I was listening to it more or less as a musician, as opposed to a fan of the music.

Consumer, right?

Yeah.

Tom Graham, you have a degree in music and English from St. Norbert College in

DePierre, Wisconsin, and you studied with some great academics,

including the late jazz director Fred Sturm of Appleton's Lawrence University.

Tell us about your college life.

I think everyone in and around me knew that I knew where the party was,

but that I was very serious about my studies as well.

You know, I made sure I got my work done and then, you know, the hat came off sort of thing.

But that was the conservative hippie in you, I suppose.

Yeah.

I don't like discipline can be really gratifying in that way, I guess.

But yeah, I had kind of tried out like social groups and that sort of a thing,

but never really found a core I was involved with film scoring.

I were Chinese students on exchange that I collaborated with musically,

wrote piano music.

I didn't think I had in me just from, you know, absorbing things about their culture,

conversation bits or this for that.

So I was, I just, I had my hand in a lot of stuff and I knew that, you know,

I was going to have to educate myself on certain things.

And I think the only thing that I would change from that time was just to get the art

of being, the business of being an artist together a little earlier and taking certain risks

earlier as opposed to later, like I think I'm kind of a late bloomer on that side of things

in some ways.

But yeah, I, I mean, it was kind of a small private liberal arts college.

I later on went on to Milwaukee to work on a second bachelor's that was more journalism.

And that's, you know, kind of where I developed a musical history there as well collaborating

around and did an album with jazz musicians, kind of set to poetry at the time.

I think most of it holds up, but might have seemed kind of hipster at the time.

It's also, it had to be really cool for you to stay close to home.

I mean, it's a normal college in Depurus, not that far from Alaska at all.

Right.

Get to stay home and be with the family too.

Yeah.

If I got freaked out, I could go run there or if I needed to get away from that, I would

just go back, you know, like kind of oscillating back and forth, I guess, but yeah, it was a good

balance.

So tell us about working with Fred Stern.

Yeah.

Um, he had done all kinds of like world class arrangement of full band, steely Dan arrangements

and just really imaginative re-workings of otherwise just like really slick pop music

and really well arranged pop music, but he had just a different way of hearing things.

His son, Ike, is a really renowned bass player in the New York area.

He does this jazz church, kind of a thing which is inspired by his dad and the way that

he listened.

One of the experiments that I really remember from working with him was when I was

gambling in film scoring, I want exercise that he had me do was just to take, it could

be a scene from a Kubrick movie, it could be a scene from some old like, you know, black

and white film strip, you're a short storyish type of thing, it could be anything, but just

take a scene that really spoke to me and subbed the music out with different things just

to notice the emotional response difference and I feel like that helped really kind of train

my ear to certain things.

I mean, there's like Tarantino where he'll use like weirdo soul music when someone's getting

to capitated and it's got this weird, yeah right, kind of, it works, you can't explain

why, but you know, these, anyways, look, a lot of that kind of got impressed on me and

a lot of that really shaped how I play later too.

Well, let's get to some live music in the layer with Graham Marlow presented by the

Aaron Weber group.

The first song you have for us tonight, it's called Phone Number Acquisition.

I mean, is this a song about a pickup line?

It could be in keyboard form or in keyboard based form, but it's just kind of a, I guess

inspired by that flash of courage that would put myself in a situation like that where

I meet someone new with this really cool connectivity and sometimes I wonder if I'm

a little bit on the spectrum.

So we being the initiator always works for our benefit, you know, which is really bold,

but I always get a better result that way too.

So just kind of, yeah, it's like a little, kind of an emblem of things I suppose.

Well, that's here, that's here and right now.

You're live in the layer on civic media, eight, four, four, nine, six, seven, two, seven,

eight, nine, eight, four, four, nine, six party.

You could call or text from the civic media app.

You're live in the layer presented by the Aaron Weber group.

Let's check it out right now.

It's Graham.

I'm Maxing Crinio.

Yeah.

That's right.

Yeah.

Wanna join them?

Yeah.

Very nice.

Grammar live in the lair here on Max and Cicc Media 844 967 2789.

Gramm or should I say a K a lake waves.

Part of a three piece band if I understand that you're in, right?

Yeah.

Lake waves is kind of my solo instrumental artist name, producer name, whatever you'd like to call that.

And I thought of that back in like 2013 when I started doing the solo lake waves albums in a more produced way.

It was kind of a tag team effort between my friend Devon who was going to Berkeley at the time in California.

We were trading demos back and forth, adding layers, adding layers until we got to finished ideas.

And then around 2016 it kind of split off.

I took the name with me.

I kept going in my own direction.

He went in this sign writer direction.

And then he ended up getting signed.

So I wasn't surprised by that.

But yeah.

And then the last thing I wanted to say about the live trios is just sort of my, you know, circus, extra curricular circus at the moment, my primary live experience.

And that's you on keyboards and a bass and drums.

Yeah.

From that, just like the black and white text, it will look like a jazz trio, but we're really more, you know, something like between a jazz club and a rave.

You know,

somewhere between more.

That's great.

Jam oriented, but not necessarily a jam band.

Interesting.

Where are you guys playing out anywhere soon?

Yeah.

I even have us potentially playing skate parks and Milwaukee, which, you know, Tony Hawk Pro Skater soundtrack real life.

Like how much better is it get than that?

But wow.

Yeah, we're a lot of stuff in the park system, like Peace Park in August.

Um, we just did a, uh, kind of straight to video audio concert last night at, um, it's a blue stem sponsored event at audio for the artist.

Oh, yes.

Some waiting to see what that looks and sounds like.

Um, coming up, um, around the corner is, uh, kind of a dual set day that I have for make music Madison.

So next Friday, I'm going to be in front of overture doing the solo thing for an hour.

Then I go home.

I don't know, take a nap or just come back to whatever the scene is down here.

Uh, and then at seven, the trio is playing down at over at gardens.

That seems kind of like a headlining thing for that event.

What time are you over here at the overture?

Uh, 10 a.m.

10 to 11.

There you go.

Make music Madison.

Right across the street.

Right across the studio and then out at over at gardens.

That's, is that going to be inside?

Is that inside or an outside show?

Uh, so long as it's not rained out.

Oh, okay.

Otherwise, you'd be in, I think they have artists inside of the, the, the dome.

I guess you would call it.

Yeah.

It's been more of a thing the last couple of years, yeah.

I can only imagine your music would make the plants happy too.

I mean, that's high praise.

You know, that's a great high praise.

I mean, plants, I mean, if you sing to them, they supposedly grow better and stronger and stuff and like that.

I thought there was heavy metal that did that, Jimmy.

Maybe so.

So let's get back to live music in the layer with Graham Marlow presented by the Aaron Weber group.

The next song you have for us tonight is called Manic Upswing.

Is this a song about ping pong?

Uh, I wish.

I like chess.

Uh, ping, like really anything that takes strategy.

I wish it was better at first than sports wise.

But, yeah.

Manic Upswing.

Um, last spring, I had a weirdo string of layoffs.

Um, I had to get out of my, there's just a kind of a cluster.

And I was living with a friend at the time in between job interviews, et cetera, et cetera.

Kind of waiting to get into the next place.

And, um, so I was also, you know, on this like sobriety kick and stuff at the time.

Um, just to kind of, you know, cleanse, uh, for whatever the next chapter was.

And, uh, it just kind of came to me in one stream.

Um, like it often does with the stuff that I write.

It's more felt out than thought out.

Um, then I guess it becomes more thought out when it's more arranged.

But anyways, yeah, it's just, um, I liked how I was able to just kind of sit down,

any moat at a high level like that.

And, um, it brought me back to some of my inspirations, like in the kind of event.

We're like, even classical rock jazz, all that mash, like Terry Riley.

They would just kind of do these concerts in the 60s and 70s.

And, and just kind of sit down and improvise for a few hours and get sequencers.

Go on, maybe have a drum machine.

Um, but basically do like the, the proto one man band thing as we know it with like looping and such.

And I was always really inspired by that.

Um, so it's just, it's a good example of the kind of improvisatory thing that I come up with.

Um, sometimes on the fly or just as the situation requires.

Well, let's, uh, let's hear this next song.

Manic upswing.

Uh, you're listening to live in the layer here on maxing on civic media.

Don't forget you can grab the civic media app.

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Just grab it right now at your favorite app store or at civic media dot us live in the

layer presented by the Aaron Weber group.

It's Graham Marlow on maxing radio.

Yeah.

Nice.

Yeah.

It's partly inspired by how a guy named Laraji got discovered by Brian Eno back in the early 80s.

He was just like a street performer. He had like this electrified dulcimer thing.

And he was just kind of sounded like an omnichord would maybe now.

But just kind of an electronicized mini sequencer type of thing.

But he could do all kinds of harmonic craziness with it.

Anyways, I think the image of the synthesizer graffiti artist is maybe where that came from.

But I think it more alludes to like the way I play in the way I hear.

Or I can, especially with the solo instrumental sets, I'm without a rhythm section or that.

I don't want to say I'm tasked with playing against myself or that.

But in a way, it's a good idea for me to like set a delay or like get a groove going with myself

or get some sort of repetitive structure underneath something that I want to improvise with on top and just kind of add layers.

So it's, you know, similar to like watching someone, you know, do a mural or something alongside a coffee shop wall.

And just the slowly unfolding, you know, inspiring thing that's happening in front of you.

And I was always really attracted to anybody, especially like Keith Jarrett or someone who's done these all improvised concerts that became famous

because they've just got into such a vibe there and there's just some high level stuff happening there.

But just anyone who can just sit down and emote at that really high level like that and kind of go across genre.

And just kind of wow you like that and just kind of be able to play it at the moment as well.

Would it be fair to say your performance or your live performances, no two or the same on the same song?

Yeah, I mean, it's kind of like the trio though two words like we have kind of a grateful dad-esque that come on, get on the bus and see what happens.

Feel like it'll like we trust our ability to throw down and to elevate the whatever the mood, the everyone that whatever's going on and the occasion.

But yeah, for where I was going.

But who are your inspirations? I heard Brian Nino, like Jean-Michel Jarrett and Van Jellis.

Tangerine dream.

Tangerine dream, right? Craftwork maybe even?

Yeah, yeah. They laid the groundwork for a lot of more modern guys that I really like that are on kind of a continuation of that vibe.

And we're even like a part of that band at one point like Ulrich Schnauss, he's like a German electronic artist.

But he like performed with them before they all died for the last few years and really like kind of carried that torch.

And so like with the some of the imagery, but like the synthesizer graffiti artist, it just seems like a very simple way to present the complexity that I bring to the table at times.

Well, you've been talking about the musical layers and this rig is like a spaceship and looks amazing.

Can you tell us a little bit more? There's all these like lights and buttons. I kind of want to get hooked up to it.

What does it do? Tell us about it.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I've had people comment on my sets, even like state street walking by.

It sounds like you're contacting aliens, but like in a complimentary way.

So like my mind's kind of always there a little bit, but with this setup, I have one, it's basically three main pieces, one that's a performance piano.

You know, you get your classic roads, vintage electric pianos, organ, et cetera.

Then you get like a more of a sequencer synth lead with the corgop six and then like corg many log is more for more for texture than anything, but you can't get a groove going with that.

Especially if you have a way to sustain the signal that you're holding.

You know, so it's like I can really get into something in a few minutes that I'm, you know, is kind of like Rajaz meets rock or whatever, you know, somewhere I can go somewhere with.

Interesting.

Well, let's get back to live music in the layer with Graham Marlow presented by the Aaron Weber group.

The next song you have for us tonight, it's called solo improv one is, is this a synthesized version of like losing a.

I guess we'll call that for now, but yeah, I mean, you probably saw it on my, especially with the live band, some of the titles that we use are pretty ridiculous, but.

I think what inspires that is groups like the flaming lips where you'd have these bonkers titles, but then this really cool.

Often instrumental experience like they have a track called Virgo self is team broadcast.

I think it's on embryonic. It's an all vocal piece. It's just like word salad right.

I heard you know, Virgo's that sounded exactly like a Virgo.

But it's like reminding me of the end of a David Crosby Elmer. There's this really awesome all vocal thing going.

He just layers his voice over and over and over and over and it just it sounds like a choir and this.

Yeah, impressive.

So definitely some talented music. Well, let's hear this right now. Graham Marlow is live in the layer.

Feel free to give us a call. Throw us a text 844-967-2789. 844-967 party. We'll get you on there.

It's Graham Marlow live in the layer on maxing radio.

Music.

Awesome.

Graham Marlow live in the layer here on maxing radio.

Give us a call right now. 844-967-2789. Call our text from the civic media app.

Yeah. Wow. That is like spiritual. Great. Great music. I really am enjoying it.

It is not commercial. What have you done to navigate your role in music and that slippery slope

of being an artist of being commercially accepted and just jamming out and doing what you want?

Yeah. I mean, one thing I didn't get to flesh out from earlier in a question was the influence of my brother there.

He was playing with Miles Davis alum like electric band alum in these like Clark Terry's five o'clock band in college.

And also like planes with some of these guys professionally.

So like that was really intimidating later to find out you know like where he was.

No doubt.

Yeah. How much older is he than you?

He's born in 78 so 45.

Okay.

Yeah. And I see how that some of that experience kept him young and that.

But as far as how I've navigated things.

I mean, I was always kind of in on the more instrumental side of things.

Part of that is living in an apartment buildings where like I felt like if I tried working on a vocal element,

you just start to hear the wall punch after a few minutes.

All right. Well, I guess we're doing the no work on instrumental stuff tonight.

So or you can sell Mercedes one of the two.

You know, like I don't know certain I could find a swath of songs with a few glasses of wine in me.

I could get it right or whatever.

But yeah, I just that's where I always felt more expressive doing things like film scoring and an album for float centers out here and having my hand and all these these things.

And I was just kind of like I saw it out a lot of it as well.

And I in some really gratifying ways.

I feel like the trio is kind of what I always envisioned in my head kind of an extension of really every idea I've had in an electrification of a lot of ideas that I had had.

You mentioned film scoring.

Have you ever connected with any of the local filmmakers here in Wisconsin to try to score like some independent films?

I think the only impediment I've had up until more recently was equipment.

I don't know that I had a rig that really kept up with my musician ship and my imagination and the opportunities trickling in.

Up until you know three, four years ago, I mean, I had like what felt like a souped up 98 Honda Accord and everyone else is getting like Teslas and Corvettes.

I'm like, I didn't no one asked me to leave and I got paid at the end of the night.

So I had some skills, but I knew I could be much better.

And now it's this is more, you know, adapted to what I can do.

You're always trying to expand things, you know, but.

Yeah, I mean Madison, I think we do equally well like my music solo as well as Milwaukee.

I do have a little bit of a history there.

So I know the venues, my friends tend to show up, etc.

Whereas here it's a little more girl marketing, but I can get a similar result, you know.

And I think that's really the primary way that I've been able to do it.

It's not necessarily having a manager having like 1100 friends that will come to high noon or whatever is going on.

But yeah, just and just the instrumental thing itself is a little bit of a harder cell alone.

And so yeah, it's more gratifying to do all those things myself, but you know, I can find myself in some deep water with tasks sometimes.

But you had mentioned playing on state street.

Have you bust gone busking with this rig or just a single keyboard or once busking like for you?

It's very similar to what you see.

I don't want to say unfortunately, but it's terms of like the number of pieces and involved and it was a lot of suitcases.

Are you considered a power to hear it Madison anyway?

You would have to get a permit for the city to do that, right?

Or if, you know, like I worked a night market for like security and vendor support for a few summers.

And then this year kind of opened up like, hey, we'd rather have you play at this than.

And so that was a different conversation.

But yeah, I mean, I'd rather have like a long night market set.

I think my music is conducive to that.

It's kind of got that like almost like trip up 90s feel where you're like walking down like a market or something.

You're like a little bit of Thai food. You smell that.

That's an incense or this or that.

And it's like, you start to form a picture in your mind pretty quick.

So like, Madison's been good that way.

I can create my own venue. I can work with the park system or the city.

I can work with the major venues.

I don't think there's anywhere that would turn me down for a gig.

But there are a few places I wouldn't still like to break into.

I think Cardinal is a step for us coming up next weekend.

Nice. So yeah, I think our audience is hiding downtown in spots.

And we're trying to work on.

Come out of hiding. Come and enjoy some music from Graham Marlowe.

One question. Have you ever get up to Green Bay or did Peter played all in the homeland up there?

It's the other guys have a couple of groups that they're in that they're busy with as well as, you know, partners and houses.

Not so much kids, but that can be a little bit of a logistics deal.

But we would like to kind of expand.

Like I'd like to play like a winery in Green Bay and have them really dig it and stuff like that.

I think there there's a lot more of a scene in those cities.

Whereas when I grew up, there was there wasn't really a music scene.

It was just cover bands really. And now it's.

Green Bay is blowing up with stuff happening.

Great artist up there too. Yeah.

So it's the scene has changed definitely for the better.

I just I haven't.

I think that's like on the horizon as we go into next year more so.

But we kind of oscillate between here and Milwaukee and our base here.

Just the shows that we find and the shows that come to us.

It just kind of falls together that way, I suppose.

Now briefly, you also have some strong feelings on artificial intelligence.

What's the big karmic payback you fear?

Payback.

Man, that's a that's a stumper there.

Sorry Dave, you can't do that.

As far as artificial intelligence, I think I'm just generally a little bit freaked out by the idea,

especially when there's music integrated.

But like if AI can pull a isolated keyboard track out of a who song,

so I can hear everything that he was doing, all the better.

Just on the keys.

He uses a learning experience.

But if it like makes all mad bass and musicians broke in eight years,

then you know, like, I don't know AI.

I don't know where that's going exactly.

But that's a big issue in music and.

Fascinating and terrifying.

Yeah, exactly.

Because you know, they can do some good stuff.

There's some definite, you know, is this song real?

Are these real musicians playing?

Right.

It gets to that point.

And then we're like, who is touring?

Or is it just every bandy comes like the gorillas?

Like they're a cartoon until they're not anymore?

Yeah.

Well, as a drummer, we've been dealing with the Mr. Boss drum machine for a long time already.

They've been taking jobs forever.

Is auto tune part of AI?

I don't know.

It's made a lot of rock stars out of.

It could be what now Caleb over here.

He was just telling me about a new microphone that senses how close or how far away you are

and adjust the volume automatically using AI to keep your volume perfect.

Perfect.

And sounding sexy.

So there you go.

That's all about it.

We have one more song tonight that we can get to in the in the layer with Graham Marlow,

presented by the Aaron Weber group.

The next song you have for us tonight, it's called Solo Improv 2.

Tell us about the concept of your improv.

Well, you know, like my brothers or some of the more professional musicians that I've been around,

you know, were in worlds where like jazz standards ruled the jam session or just a variety of lenses

into looking at like open mic, et cetera.

And I think for me, what I go for with improv is to try to just absorb all my influence

and burp out something that's got an original flair or is like dipping into,

I don't want to say dipping into a genre that doesn't exist yet,

but like just something that's hard to place or describe.

And maybe that's part of why I've always ventured more to the instrumental side of things

because I mean like accompaniment and stuff, you're in it more of a supportive role,

whereas this I can be more, I just kind of let my mind wander, I guess, but have it succeed.

I like the fact where you mentioned genre and making up genres or dipping into a genre that's not there,

you definitely nailed that.

Well, let's hear this.

In Prove 2, we got a Gram Merlot live in the layer.

You got time for one more text or phone call.

If you want to give us a do that right now, 844-967-2789.

Live in the layer is Gram Merlot.

This is Gram Merlot.