Back when I was reading Trouser Press in college, there was a Punk band that advertised in the back pages called Someone and the Somethings, which seemed like a brilliant name at the time. Mark Silverman probably never heard of them, but he was similarly inspired when he christened his one-man-band project That 1 Guy. For anyone whose idea of a one-man-band is a guy with a harmonica rack, a thrift store guitar and cymbals strapped to his knees, the Las Vegas-based Silverman will update your thinking.
T1G’s tale begins with a Jazz musician father, enrollment in the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and steady work as a Bay Area Jazz bassist. A growing dissatisfaction with the limitations of his instrument led him to the invention of the Magic Pipe, a 7-foot-tall contraption made of gears, plumbing, strings and electronics that resembles a harp but puts out a wall of sound tangible enough to hang Muse and Who posters on.
That 1 Guy performs at Southgate House Saturday. Go here to read Brian Baker's full Sound Advice.
