Welcome! Snoop around!
Get in touch: dan.robinson [at] pobox100.com

My musical journey:

2023-Future

One+ new directions
More sensitive musical haiku is one goal. (like these). Another is to write short stories/plays with background music (like these). I'll continue with songs, too (like these).

I made a living as a small businessperson and tech entrepreneur. All along I've played, written, and taught music, and earlier spent some time in the theatre as a sound designer and occasional actor. I've written and directed some video shorts for clients.

'February Album Writing Month' is an online extravaganza which also runs in late summer. Thousands of musicians from around the world upload songs and comment on each others' work. I joined last year and the collaborative push has kicked my creative butt.

In the fall of 2023 I taught two series on songwriting, performance and musical haiku composition, one at a local bookstore and one at Rhizome DC, an art/learning/DIY/culture center.

My FAWM work - recorded quickly in a home studio - is all here, with comments from fellow musicians made on the FAWM site. You'll also find the Karma Casino album from 2015.

2008-2023

teaching, Karma Casino CD
Throughout this period I was writing songs and performing alone and with others.

In 2015 a great group of fellow musicians helped me record a CD: Karma Casino.

Between 2008 and 2015 I taught guitar club through the PTA before and after school for 10 3/4/5th graders a couple of times a week at the local elementary school.

2000-2008

TakomaZone
A group of us started TakomaZone, which was a 14-person collaborative in Takoma Park. We had a weekly cafe gig for 7+ years. Much original music was spawned during this period. I also sang with the Takoma Singers, and happily introduced a couple of Moondog tunes to the repertoire.

1973-2000

Magic Theatre in SF, then DC
After college I worked my way up from a backstage sound technician to a nighttime composing/sound design gig at an experimental theatre - The Magic Theatre - in San Francisco. My next step would have been to go to L.A. and work in the movies. Instead, I moved to the east coast, stumbled around for a few years until Sally and I settled in Takoma Park and started raising a family. I got back to playing music and developing musical relationships.

1968-1972

electronic music and John Cage
In college I studied electronic music, played in a couple of bands with friends, and was lucky to attend a class taught by John Cage, a revolutionary who pushed music past any boundary anyone could think of. His message: it's all music.

1964-1968

Charlie Brown and the Peanuts
While in high school in California I was taken under the wing of a union musician (real name Charlie Brown) and made some serious gas and date money playing rhythm guitar all around the Monterey Peninsula.

1962-1964

folk, surf, rock, country, Wolfman Jack
At 12, on Nantucket Island one night I went alone to a club where a Kingston Trio era folk band was playing and was entranced. Back in Tucson, Tom - my neighbor across the street - and I started to play the guitar. A Silvertone electric, a little amp, and a Framus acoustic came into my world. Surf, country, rock and roll, then the British Invasion, all initially brought courtesy of a tiny transistor AM radio crushed against my ear. Thanks Wolfman Jack and the station from Oklahoma!