Wild Mercy Bios
Barry
Barry (bass, guitars, Roland GR-33 guitar synth, vocals) has a quiltwork musical past that includes solo coffeehouse singer/songwriter sets, a quirky proto-indie band (Barnacle Gonzo and the Chianti Brothers), a Bloomington poetry-and-music experiment (Third Wind), a semi-classified crew of sci-fi folk-rockers (Black Book Band) known for concertizing at science fiction conventions, and (with percussionist wife Sally) improvised incidental music for Indy's Theater of Inclusion on electric, acoustic, bass, and baritone guitars. (He also plays a bit -- quite a bit -- when he's home.) His background includes occasional immersion in classical and jazz guitar; though his musical tastes draw on the whole range of rock, they often detour through traditional ballads, blues, progressive jazz, Bluegrass, and Bach. He has confessed to having spent way too much time in school, and to nurturing an attitude problem toward most conventional wisdom. Instead of hunting mastodons, he helps provide for the household by copyediting computer books for one of the best-known publishers in the business. He and Sally share said household with a dog, a rowdy crew of ferrets, and (probably, but what the heck) too many instruments and books.
What good is music? None, and that is the point.
To the world and its states and armies and factories
and Leaders, music says, "You are irrelevant"; and,
arrogant and gentle as a god, to the suffering man it
says only "Listen". For being saved is not the point.
Music saves nothing. Merciful, uncaring, it denies and
breaks down all the shelters, the houses men build for
themselves, that they may see the sky.
-- Ursula K. le Guin
Without music life would be a mistake.
-- Nietzsche
