Tovio was born into an Athapascan Indian village in Alaska, raised partially in rural Kenya, in an 8 story commune in Chicago, at a new age retreat center in BFE Michigan, and in a poisonous factory town close to Flint, Michigan. He has dropped out of college numerous times and has traveled extensively around the world playing shows, performing in circuses and busking. He writes songs about the fallacy of the American Dream, sea life, dinosaurs and other important topics.
He is a resident artist at the Arcos Azules Gallery (http://www.arcosazules.org) in the Five Points neighborhood of Denver and is currently booking a european tour for February 2009. Accordion and tap shoes.

•  Like a bowl of chicken...

Biography
From Grandpa I got my storytelling. His visits were rare, as he and grandma lived in St. Catherines Ontario, and we lived just outside Calgary, Alberta. They spoiled all 8 of us children (according to my dad) but the biggest gift Grandpa always gave us was to tell us bedtime stories of the “olden days”.

Grandpa’s stories usually involved exciting stuff like runaway teams of horses, shooting at wolves, or somebody getting body parts torn off. His tales were filled with gestures and sound effects. He really had a way of bringing them to life. And he listened when a kid told him a story. He made you feel your stories were important.

From Mom and Dad I got music. My Dad and my other Grandpa were both musicians. Grandpa Hubele (of whom I knew very little) was a very good organ player. My dad played fiddle in his early years, touring around southern Alberta with a country dance band. He and Mom would, very occasionally, play duets on fiddle and piano when we were little kids.

I can remember waiting til my parents went out. Since I was the oldest, I often babysat my brothers and sisters. I would sneak into Dad’s fiddle case to take out the fiddle and play it. Except I was always trying to make it sound like a guitar, and I played it like one.

We moved back and forth across the country, from Ontario to Alberta and back many times as I grew up. Dad kept trading up for jobs, and I was in a new school almost every year. I became a loner and a rebel. I turned to humor to make up for my small size. I’d find the biggest kid in class, figure out how to make him laugh, and I didn’t have to worry about the rest of the bullies. It pays to have friends in high places.

I believe I had an undiagnosed hearing problem caused by a trauma (now confirmed as a severe hearing loss). I never could quite understand the lyrics on the radio which was always on in our house, so I made up my own.

My earliest memories were of crossing the big empty fields which made up the neighborhoods of my youth, singing at the top of my lungs and making up words as I went along. My mom says she could pick me out of the flocks of kids coming home from school. I’d be waving my arms and singing to myself as I walked across the prairie.

I started writing songs in a serious way when I was 21 years old. A friend, who had been showing me how to play guitar, and I went out to live on the beach on Vancouver Island at Pacific Rim Park. I was picking away when a simple line kept repeating itself in my head. I wrote it down, and in ten minutes I had a song. It seemed to open flood gates, and for the next 2 or 3 years I wrote a song or two a week. I average about a song a month now. But, they are better songs.

(over)

Biography, page 2

To write successfully, I usually have to be alone, have all my chores done and time on my hands. Words and melody most often develop at the same time. It takes from 10 minutes to 1 hour to write a song. It takes me two weeks to learn it. I like to wrap a song around a good story line. They always come from my own experiences.

I was fascinated with the blues from the get-go. I came in through the back door. J.J. Cale, then Hot Tuna. Then B.B. King, Freddy King, and Muddy Waters.

When I heard Bonnie Raitt play slide guitar, I was gone. I had to learn how to do that. I followed her trail back to Mississippi Fred McDowell. “You want rock, you gonna have to put me in a rockin’ chair. I plays the straight and natural blues.”

I also paid attention to the songwriters, my favorites being Paul Simon, Harry Nillson, Willie Dixon, and Tom Waits.

My interest in jazz developed through my association with other musicians like Calgary’s late Chuck Tracy, a gruff, funny, kind of crazy lounge musician. He introduced me to Tom Waits, Mose Allison, and Fats Waller amongst others.

As well, it became a habit to listen to the great Alberta radio station CKUA on Saturdays. Bill Coull’s Jazz Show was a fifteen year course in ‘Everything You Should Know About Jazz’.

I also have a life-long addiction to comedy movies and comic books. One of my Dad’s jobs was as a projectionist in a small town. Once a week on Saturday night the local community hall was turned into a theatre. I was very young (3 years til 7 years old) but those old black and white 16mm movies of the Marx Bros, Chaplin, and W.C. Fields remain deep in my psyche.

I think this was a great influence on my writing. Most of my songs have a little humor and a strange twist to them.

I have worked as a laborer and heavy equipment operator and truck driver since leaving the University of Calgary after 4 years of unrelated courses and wandering interests. Previous to that, I had worked at the CPR as a ticket clerk. I began working at age 14 at the steel mill where my father worked. I did not graduate from high school.

I have written songs for 32 years. Recording began for me in 1978 with the Acme Sausage Company with Holger Petersen broadcast on CKUA. Since then, I have been on countless radio and tv programs. I have recorded 6 albums of original material, and I just finished recording my demo for the 7th, and most exciting, CD - ‘Down In Davis Bay’.

•  Somewhere down the midnight cafe

Johnny Katchoolik is an independent musician & recording artist of many colors, personalities, sounds, and eccentricities. His sonic adventures began with the guitar but quickly progressed to include the bass, keyboard, percussion, synthesizer, various software & electronic instruments, and who knows what else Katchoolik will fancy next. Katchoolik thrives on breaking the rules, chopping up the conventional elements, inventing new concoctions, and exploring as many sonic dimensions as possible. For Katchoolik, an artist who inhales and exhales music 24/7, music is a way of life and an expression of the self. Although Katchoolik has performed with various progressive and alternative rock bands during the days of Seattle grunge, the Katchoolik of today composes and records solely in the Ghetto Sound Studio - his true playground and sanctuary, and that’s where quirky ideas and offbeat creations are surgically extracted from his cerebral cortex. Color your life with music!

•  Enjoy this song

We have survived
6 albums, 2 ep's and 12 singles, 5 different vocalists, 1 major label, 2 songs in Billboard and 1 in Rolling Stone, 1 tour with Zymox and gigs with Pete Shelley, The Fixx and The Cramps, 1 AWOL singer, 1 drunk guitar player shooting a gun outside our tour bus in Tijuana, 1 album with producer John Fryer (Wire, Fad Gadget, Love & Rockets), 1 nice letter from producer Martin Hannett (Joy Division), countless samples and endless laughter.

•  Killer Track
•  80's Feel
•  I thought this was New...
•  A killer tune
•  Awesome stuff, Tom!

RECENT 2006 STUFF@NIGHT, BOSTON INTERVIEW!

http://www.stuffatnight.com/rd0405/partying/documents/05211973.asp

DJ Dale Charles started DJ'ing around 1983 at some infamous Summer Beach House parties, playing mostly New Wave including B-52's, The Romantics, Elvis Costello, Rockpile, Buzzcocks, The Beat, The Pretenders, 999, Depeche Mode, The Go-gos and Prince. New Wave was it, a funner, fresh new scene and lifestyle had emerged, the birth era of synth-dance and the 12" remix single.

Connected by fate to the few important New England DJ's including Ed Fritz and Kevin Fennelly, Charles' interests grew stronger as the music grew more interesting. DJ Ed Fritz' "Baptism" and its parties in 1986-88 introduced Dale to the European and US' Techno, Industrial and House scenes. Kevin Fennellys excellent Summer Of 86 club "Level Vibes" also paved the way and inspired those who were lucky to be there.

But it was DJ Ed Fritz who schools all in attendance how to mix three different styles of music on three turntables (SL-1800's) at the same tempo at the same time. This was essentially the definition of "House Music", before it was so called - and the Baptism had taken place. DJ Dale Charles was formally reborn. Then in 1987, seeing it all in action again in Montreal at Club "Business" on St Laurent changed everything. This was it. The calling was about to be answered.

The East Coast residencies began in 1988 - in the small New England towns, on off nights, at first Decadence in Dover, NH, then Zoots Thursdays with Portland Maines Kris Clark. Then south to Bostons Hub Club in 1990-91, now club Felt, for a huge 1000 capacity International Night on Fridays.

On to a big move way out west in the fall of 1991 to San Diego, and the birth of the legendary SoCal and US Rave movement, at first pure in all its forms, joining music lovers together to experience exciting new music, advances in lighting technology, fine-tuned sound systems, and an uninhibited gathering of all races, religions, thinkers and do-ers, perhaps not experienced since the late 60's. It was a cultural phenomenon, a time to meet new people and stay up all hours and experience new music and expressions. DJ Dale Charles was a leading SoCal DJ in 1991-92, headlining most major events with residencies at the famous MicroRaves, Narnia, Opium, Playskool, Rubber, Evar, G.U.N. and countless other one-offs.

News of west coast Raves and its DJ's spread quickly across the US and Dale Charles started booking nationally, then to Mexico, Canada, Asia (sadly cancelled) and nearly every major US destination.

Producing several releases since 1992 as Sedona with Benny Blanco on OHM Records, Boston, and Rampant records LA, Dale Charles has maintained a MIDI synth studio since the late 80's, producing today under the names Too (Element Recordings), Sedona and Time Beings on both Syncopate and most recently Reversible Records.

DJ Dale Charles has DJ'ed with and has DEEP RESPECT for: Evar SD, Wicked SF, Primary UK, Benny Blanco, 333, Mgee, Gatherings SF, Sasha, John Digweed, Frankie Knuckles, Danny Howells, Derrick Carter, Moby, Tiga, Luc Raymond, Micheal Thomas, Tony, Paul Grogan, Barry Weaver, David Morales, Josh Wink, Anne Savage, Luv Dup, Doc Martin, Scott Hardkiss, Dominic UK, Marcus Wyatt, Dmitri from Dee-lite, Lil Louis, Frankie Bones, Adam X, Justin Johnson, Debo, Jellybean Benitez, Mark Farina, Pete Moss, Fred "kooky" Gianelli, Hector Romero, Jimmy Van M, Tin Tin, Taul Paul, Carl Cox, Rick Preston, Daeman, Mark E Quark, Jon Bishop, Thin e thin UK, Q-Bert, De La Soul, Primal Scream, Jonas Temple, Hipp-e, Armand Van Helden, Jeno, Garth, Marky, Joeski, Onionz, Ryde, Chocolate Factory NY, Felix Da Housecat, Brother Cleve, DJ Dan, Kevin Saunderson, LTJ Bukem, DJ Trixie, Misstress"... wanna come to my room and for some Kokanee...?" Barbara, Overload, Chicken Leg Crew, Caseroc, Shalako, Scott Bliss, Skye, Larry Love, Manolo, Pauloo, Deshaies, Sergio, Arturo, Mike Walsh, Pat Fontes, EB, dPl, Eli Wilkie, Steve Porter, Chris Reavey, Chris Micali, Hush & Bons, Paul Dailey, Charles Feelgood, Donald Glaude, Prima DJ and more.

Currently projects include a full Time Beings Concept LP, Sound Design, Film and Advertising scoring, along with a lifetime ahead of music production.