Walter Ehresman

Called "the quintessential Austin DIY musical artist" by long-time KOOP DJ Charlie Martin (host of local music show Around the Town Sounds), Walter Ehresman has been musically peaking under rocks, pointing at nude emperors and generally kicking the antbed in and around Austin for over 25 years. A musical iconoclast with a voracious appetite for the world's music, a myriad of influences swirl around in his exceedingly odd brain until they generate his own unique recordings that are almost always unclassifiable. Self-taught on a wide variety of stringed instruments, percussion, keyboards and electronic oddities, Ehresman cut his teeth as a lead guitarist in various Central Texas bands. His goal has always been to improve his playing and songwriting, he says, and his 28 years journey along this road has certainly shown his chops and his songcraft catch up to the imagination that seems to have always been there. No matter what band project he's involved in at any given time, Ehresman has always placed equal priority on his solo projects. Greatly inspired by Todd Rundgren since his high school days in the late 70s, Ehresman's albums almost always feature him singing and playing all the instruments himself. He sequesters himself away in his Snipe Bog Studios in Austin, and emerges with strange, emotionally-packed instrumental and lyrical pieces that merge many genres and end up fitting in none. He exists in a commercial vacuum. What does one do with music like this?Ehresman has founded several Texas bands over the years, including Dirty Dog, Biological Emergency, Loper, and Swine Patrol, and played with The Spanks and Brainiac (precursors to Joe Rockhead). He has also provided live percussion accompaniment for Austin choreographer/dancer Michelle Owens-Pearce, and performed solo at local art exhibits, coffee houses, "down by the docks" (as Bill Hicks would say), etc. Ehresman also performs live ambient exotic soundscapes, featuring electric oud, sitar, and bouzouki run through multiple delay and reverb units, at Austin's "artier" venues. His songs have appeared on three national samplers: "Monkey Boy Sampler" ('01, '05); and "Several Famous Orchestras" ('03). For much of 2007-8 he filled the lead guitar slot for the Austin band Los Platos, featuring the enigmatic and famous LA punk diva Texacala Jones. Touring the American West with Los Platos in February of 2008, the band was able--on at least three separate occasions--to avoid arrest. But it was a near thing. Currently, aside from his continual work on songs for his solo albums, and production work, Ehresman has rejoined with Snipe Hunt rhythm guitarist/vocalist Vic Ramirez and a new rhythm section and is gigging and recording under the name Delphi Rising. Look for an album from the band in the Summer of 2009.A writer whose short stories, humor pieces, commentary and music reviews have appeared in regional publications, Ehresman is also editing a series of novels for Austin eccentric artist Steve Jones (Walt also produced Jones' first three solo albums, providing the majority of musical accompaniment as well).From 1999 to 2007, Ehresman was a participant at the Burning Man Festival in northwest Nevada, performing live at various venues, DJing dance events, and hosting various radio shows as a disc jockey on the playa's principle pirate radio station--Radio Electra. He served as the musical director of two major theme camps--The Solo Collective, and SCARAB Camp--and created many art installations for display at the event. Ehresman also composed, recorded and donated original music for several large art installations by other artists from around the country (eg. the Egeria fire fountain; the Ambient Dream Garden). In 2008, he performed (both solo and with Delphi Rising) at the touring Maker Faire in Austin, which has an overlap of Burning Man mad inventors.Ehresman's motto? "Keep an eye on the bastards."