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After Oberlin
Obie Fighter
Pilots Take Manhattan
Joellen Craft '05
April 12, 2004 –
Pick a campus anywhere in the country. Stop early 20-somethings
at random and ask them if they've ever played in a band. Odds
are, they'll answer "yes" or say they "plan to."
For recent Oberlin graduate Dan Mintz '03 and current junior
Travis Johns, however, being in a band is more than an extracurricular
interest. It's a paying gig.
Mintz and Johns are Fighter Pilot, a duo whose self-titled debut
album was released in February. With music the two describe
as "pretentious experimental electro-acoustic" music,
Fighter Pilot drew a modest but enthusiastic crowd to its January
31 album-release party at the Tank, an art space in midtown
Manhattan. "It's hard to tell if people will be into something
that's not as popular as mainstream music. We don't try to get
people to get up and dance. It's not that kind of music. It's
the type of music that draws an already converted crowd,"
says Mintz.
Like a significant number of New York-based bands that originated
at Oberlin, Fighter Pilot evolved from academic interaction.
Mintz and Johns, both Technology in Music and Related Arts (TIMARA)
majors, began collaborating in December 2002 for Mintz's senior
recital. Realizing they both planned to be on the East Coast
the following summer, they decided to rendezvous at Johns' home
in upstate New York to record material. The result was an album
that took less than two weeks to finish.
"We'd just sit around and basically say, ‘What happens
when you plug this into this?'" says Johns, a bass, synthesizer,
laptop and electric piano player. Mintz plays synthesizer, laptop
and electric piano. "We recorded interesting sounds and
started layering them. Then we looked through what we'd been
composing on our own and began placing one sound with another."
To record and release their album, Mintz and Johns formed their
own recording label, thinktank, whose mixture of artistic talent
reaches diverse audiences. Even so, producing and marketing
their own album has strained both musicians' financial and personal
resources. The label's funding comes solely from Johns' and
Mintz's pockets. Thinktank's plan to bring more staff under
its umbrella should ease the burden of day-to-day duties, says
Mintz.
"You're so idealistic, but then you get the bills,"
Johns says, referring to the business and production aspects
of Fighter Pilot's debut album.
"But being in New York is an amazing opportunity. If you
can do it here, you can do it anywhere," adds Mintz, a
resident of what he terms the music-friendly, "upper, upper,
Upper West Side" of Manhattan.
"To be able to bring this music here was amazing. It may
be physically easier at Oberlin, but it's all Oberlin in New
York," Mintz says, referring to Oberlin's supportive alumni
community. Mike Rosenthal '01, a TIMARA major and New York resident,
helped Johns and Mintz secure their January performance space.
Aay Preston-Myint '03, who studies at the Chicago Institute
of Art, designed the album art for Fighter Pilot, while
junior Leif Shackelford, senior Patrick Richardson, and sophomore
Philip Raath performed in Fighter Pilot's January concert.
Mintz, who helps support the band and recording label by holding
down jobs in a bakery and a pediatrician's office, says his
dual life is like being back in school, when he spent his days
working and his nights practicing until 2 a.m.
"That kind of vibe, being up and about and making things
happen, was a really good experience," he recalls. "And
I'm finding that same vibe here in the city. When I talk to
people who are interested in music, they're all so open. They
want to listen to what you say. It's so much easier to make
it if you have that kind of community." Another benefit
of the city is the diverse and curious audience it offers to
bands outside the mainstream, like Fighter Pilot.
The fact that their brand of electro-acoustic experimentation
isn't likely to tear up the charts anytime soon doesn't faze
Johns and Mintz. "Even if Fighter Pilot isn't my primary
project forever, it'll be something that I'll always have going
on," says Mintz.
Johns agrees. "There are so many directions we could go,
it's just a matter of figuring out what we want to do."
For now, he says, "I'm living my dream—I couldn't
imagine myself doing anything else."
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