Biography of William Mylar - The Details
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William Mylar is a songwriter, singer, and musician, currently living in Galt, CA.

Mylar has played music nearly all of his life, beginning with piano at age 7. Mylar is a gifted musician and there is almost no instrument he cannot or has not tried to play. Mylar played flute for 3 years in grade school and trumpet for 2 years in junior high school. He began writing music in high school. While these were mostly intrumental pieces, he began writing lyrics after he taught himself guitar when he was 18. The guitar became his instrument of choice, since he also began to travel quite a bit. During high school, Mylar played piano for many of the popular bands and with many of the musicians in the Sacramento area. These included Craig Chaquico of the Jefferson Starship, Andy Samuels of Redwing, the Goorabian brothers of Steel Breeze, and just about any of the rock bands that emerged from north Sacramento area high schools. While this was going on, Mylar continued to work as an actor and stage technician in both community and professional theater.

Mylar acquired his vocal training while working as a child actor in theatrical stage productions in the Sacramento area, where he was born and raised. Theater remained his passion until 1976 when Mylar began to realize it was music that was his life long dream. He left the theater and began to pursue a career as a guitarist and vocalist for country, blues, and rock bands.

Just after high school and with one year of college under his belt, Mylar up and went to Israel in 1974. There he played in a band made up of people from around the world. He met Peter Bris and Fred Zout, South Aficans, there. The three began a collaboration that would eventually lead Mylar to become a songwriter. When Mylar came back to the states, he went first to New York and began playing Zout/Bris tunes along with some of his own. The smell of the grease paint brought Mylar back to Sacramento and he went back to work in the theater. Eventually the theater took him to Los Angeles and San Francisco. During a haitus, Mylar went to Texas, where he taught guitar and reunited with Little Billy Tucker in Lubbock. Mylar played rhythm guitar in the Kountry Kousins, Tucker's back up band, who played at Lloyd Hickey's 40 Grand in Del Paso Hights and the El Rancho Hotel in West Sacramento.

In 1977 Mylar began a solo career that would become his trademark. Influenced by everything from Gershwin, The Beatles, Dylan, and The Grateful Dead, to the sounds of New Wave and Punk, Mylar developed a unique solo performance that allowed him to be theatrical as well. He called this Folk Wave music.

While the typical Roots or Americana folk artist formula was to sit, strum, and sing, Mylar's presentation of originals and covers was much more animated. Folk Wave was a mixture of folk type songs with a hard edge and plain old rock and roll. With his natural booming voice, rather than attempt to sing softly, which was nearly impossible, he cranked up the volume by amplifying his Hummingbird acoustic guitar. In the beginning he was often asked to turn down. But he couldn't and, instead, sought venues that would acommodate his wild sound. In addition, Mylar could not stand still, let alone sit. So he added 100 feet of guitar cord so he could jump on tables and run up and down the room. Folk Wave was in-your-face amplified acoustic music that made people dance.

This pioneering expression of music rooted in folk and rock and roll was not always recieved warmly by Sacramento audiences. Where else could he perform so outrageously? The obvious choice was San Francisco.

Perhaps the greatest single impact on Mylar was his opportunity to perform with the late legendary Michael Bloomfied. This is also where Mylar began to write more original songs in earnest. In San Francisco Mylar was able to play and learn from some of the best. He briefly joined the punk band, The Wet Farts, who recorded one of his songs, "A Girl Like That". The Wet Farts performed at the Fab Mabuhay Gardens, one of the best know punk hang outs in the world. While he liked the attitude that went with Punk, Mylar found the sound a little too edgy for his tastes and still gravitated to melody. So he soloed once again. This time he began playing all over Northern California.

Up until 1982 Mylar had made tape albums of his live shows to sell at his performances. He then decided to record a tape album for commercial release and in 1983 released his first album, "Folk Wave Music". FWM became very successful when it recieved radio play on a number of college radio stations. The album not only carried Mylar's unique sound, but the recording itself was of great interest because the quality matched "industry" standards even though it was recorded on a simple Sony boombox and in various rooms of his house. Mylar had taken a course in acoustics at Sacramento State college and applied this knowledge to the recording. The result was a very sophisticated product. All songs had to be done in one take. There could be no over dubbing because there was only one track and even the pauses in between songs had to be timed perferctly. The album was unlike anything anyone had ever done before. Even major lable representatives, who came to Mylar with recording contracts could scarcely believe the way FWM was recorded.

Just as Mylar was approaching "the next phenom" status, he married his best friend and settled down to raise a family. He quit touring and instead immersed himself in home life. "There is absolutely nothing more important to me than family and friends," says Mylar.

It wasn't too long though before his great friend, Glenn Hair, who played with Mylar in the band Nobody, coaxed him back. From 1977 to 1983, Mylar was a staple at a local pub in Downtown Sacramento, The Fox and Goose. It was here he played with Joe Craven who would go on to be a founder of Mumbo Gumbo and then perform with David Grisman and Jerry Garcia. In 1989, Little Billy Tucker was in town and he and Hair had booked a show there. That was all it took and on a Thursday night a standing room only crowd witnessed Mylar's return to the stage. The Fox and Goose recorded its highest grossing performance ever on that Thursday night.

Mylar and Hair formed the band Carp with bass player, vocalist, and West Virginian blues artist, Paul Williams. Paul was also a Nobody alumnus. Hair left to form the Pocket Rockets and Mylar joined him there. The Pocket Rockets morphed into Late Nite with Pete Miller on drums and Mike Van Arkel on bass. Hair left to pursue his passion, jazz, and Late Nite became a trio and the house band at the New Place in Fair Oaks, CA. In 1996, Mylar moved his family to Galt, CA., where he could build a studio.

Eventually Hair, Van Arkel, Williams, and drummer/vocalist John Bianchi formed the Barking Spiders. Glenn got the BS project going just long enough before the jazz muse called him back. The BS recorded Demo 1998, an album which started out as a demo recording, but became a full album when the owner of EME Studio, Matt Erich, pressed them to record more songs. Mylar's originals were featured with some of the very first mp3s on the new MP3.com music site for the web. Demo 1998 sold out almost immediately. The Barking Spiders split up a year later and Mylar was without a band for the first time in 10 years.

In addition to jazz, Glenn Hair had been working with a number of bands as a guitarist and sound man. Mylar started hanging around and running sound with Glenn for Arbess Williams, Sacramento's blues diva. One night, Ms. Williams became ill. Glenn suggested that Mylar open with the band on some blues tunes. Arbess was so impressed that she asked Mylar to open for her again. This time, Mylar did some covers and also added some of his own material. Arbess told Mylar he shouldn't wait to form another band. He should perform solo once again.

In 2000, Mylar began his solo career all over again. With his children nearly grown up and wife Judy's support, Mylar decided it was time to give it a go. He recorded his 2nd solo album, Real Mylar, and began playing all over Sacramento. He recieved a SAMMIE nomination that very first year.

Hungry for the band scene, Mylar ran into bassist Jim Irion, a former hig school aquaintence, in an impromtu band put together for a private New Years Eve party. Mylar hooked up with mandolin player, David Molina, from Stockton, through a Skips Music ad. He called up his old drummer, Pete Miller, and formed the William Mylar Band. Mylar wanted a band that could present his original music in the jam band style he always loved.

During this time, Mylar was interetsed in seeing if he could arrange his music for a full band. He wanted to record an album to showcase his music for mainstream pop and rock. He went back into the studio and began recording the album which would become Listen.

Dave had other obligations and so Mylar remembered a madolin player he met in the back room of an open mike. Fate would have it when they both attended a Northern California Songwriters get together and Mylar asked Ken Burnett to join the band. WMB worked on material and performed for the Roseville Cable program, Friday Night Live, hosted by Art Brock. Mylar had been performing Friday Night Live TV shows since the Barking Spiders formed.

Eventually, WMB, as the band is familiarly known started playing more gigs. WMB continues today as does Mylar's solo shows. Real Mylar was rated one of the top 25 Folk albums in America. His new album, Listen, is completed and will be in stores in time for the 2003 holdays. Listen has already generated incredible interest from all over. Chadman Promotions, has signed Mylar for all booking and tour arrangements. They have already arranged shows in Los Angeles, where they expect Mylar will do well. An East Coast tour that includes New York City, is planned for February, 2004.

Besides the obvious songwriting and performing talents of William Mylar, the important things Mylar brings to music is his sense of professionalism and his belief that music is a learning process for which he has dedicated his life.

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