David First

David First has had a musical career filled with opposites and extremes. At the age of twenty he played guitar with renowned avant-jazz pianist Cecil Taylor in a legendary Carnegie Hall concert. Two years after that he was creating electronic music in the studios at Princeton University and leading a Mummer’s String Band in local (Philadelphia) parades. He has played in raucous drunken bar bands and in pin-drop quiet concert halls with classical ensembles. As a composer First has created everything from finely crafted pop songs to long, severely minimalist droneworks. His performances often find him sitting trance-like without seeming to move a muscle, unless he is playing with his psychedelic punk band, Notekillers, when he is a whirling blur of hyperactive energy. First has been called "a fascinating artist with a singular technique" in The New York Times, and "a bizarre cross between Hendrix and La Monte Young" in The Village Voice. There have been articles about him in Guitar Player, Keyboard, MusikTexte, Arude, Atlantica and Tape Op. Entries on his music can be found in the books American Music in the 20th Century (Gann/Schirmer), La Musica Minimalista (Antognozzi/Edizioni Textus) and Music Downtown (Gann/UofC Press).