About
Alter
since circa 1995
**experimenting together on improvisational music for close to two decades and counting** you can call it free play, improvisation, jamming, neurotic, or weird…but whatever you call it you will never again hear these musical pieces played because they are created in the moment. Bringing no pre-conceived plan, these four musicians seek only to offer themselves as servants to each other and to listening for that living, breathing musical moment. The musical movements they create seem to have no beginning and no end but rather flow from, into, and through each other as waves, sometimes following a form, sometimes falling out of form – or, perhaps, free-floating through the formless prelude to yet another full portion of the endless and wondrous riches so freely offered to all who will listen, mixing flavors of rock, prog, jazz, pizzazz and razzmatazz to their recipe of refined rhythms recklessly pulsating through haunting harmonic undertones supporting melodic modal madness…
eclectic, eccentric, electric, effected, and sometimes a bit left of center, these four brethren of the high order of Muse-ik assemble to offer a collection of live creative constructs, sometimes cerebral, yet often exploding into emotive, musical escapades. Committed to the call of the Invisible Silence, they support each other in the task of ever listening and looking for that moment of artistic abandonment to reveal itself, to infuse, amuse, and even bemuse; they will follow that moment even when it takes them “way out there” where their collective longing connects and communes with the Great Conductor of all music who is all at once melodic & restful, wild & wanton, drawing into the open, the carefree, ever urging all to "Come, follow Me". And so they do.
brother Jason Dionne
basses, marbles (most entertaining when he loses them), triangle, shaker
a.k.a.: Friend of Low End, Basse Türd, Herr Lipp, Upright & Standing, Bass O Profundo
brother Greg Reid
keyboards, rants and random bouts of nonsensical silliness
a.k.a.: Bishop Mo Dzeet, Key Poff, Well-Read-Reid
brother Craig Townsend
guitars, sampler, blues harp, autoharp, battery operated dental utensils, Rivets, small motors, early science project items
a.k.a.: The Professor, Dr. Evil, Axel Griese, String Bean, Guitar Guru
brother Darren Schoepp
drums, percussion, sticks, stones and broken bones, raw pieces of meat slapping against cymbals, odd and diverse electronic sounds
a.k.a.: The Duke, Undt Poündt, Sticks & Stones
On Hiatus
Band Photos
Current Lineup
Darren Schoepp
Drums, Percussion, Sticks, Stones and broken Bones, raw pieces of meat slapping against cymbals, odd and diverse electronic sounds
1995 - present
Craig Townsend
Guitars, Sampler, Blues Harp, Autoharp, battery operated Dental Utensils, Rivets, small motors, early Science Project items
1997 - present