Travis Dickerson

Travis Dickerson is an American musician and producer, best known for his work with Buckethead and Viggo Mortensen. He also runs TDRSmusic, a recording studio with its own record label that has recorded and released albums by Bill Laswell, Jethro Tull, Linda Ronstadt, and Vince DiCola. Dickerson can be heard playing keyboards on many albums he recorded and produced.

Life and work

Travis Dickerson was raised in Michigan, where his father, Burton Dickerson, was professor of fine arts at Central Michigan University. When Travis was ten years old, his father traded a painting for an old piano and Travis began to teach himself to play.

Together with his brothers he built his first recording studio, writing and recording songs in Michigan. Soon after he moved the studio to Los Angeles where he met the punk band X. In his new studio in Chatsworth many of the band's releases as well as some solo projects were recorded. Singer Exene Cervenka introduced Dickerson to Viggo Mortensen, starting a long friendship. Nearly all of Mortensen's albums since then were recorded or distributed by TDRS.

In 1994 Dickerson recorded and played keyboards on County Fair 2000, an album by Phil Alvin (of The Blasters) and throughout the 1990s worked on projects with X, The Plimsouls, Viggo Mortensen, Vince Dicola, Jethro Tull, Linda Ronstadt, L7, Eliza Gilkyson, Top Jimmy, The Negro Problem, and many others. In 1998 he produced and played on Shocking Pink Banana Seat by singer–songwriter Susan James. He also wrote the liner notes for the anthology Beyond And Back by X in 1997.

Buckethead and Dickerson met in San Francisco, and Buckethead being disappointed of major record labels found a new home for his many releases in TDRS. Dickerson produced and played keyboards on several Buckethead recordings and in 2001 they formed Thanatopsis, a band combining progressive and rock styles. Released as a Buckethead album, Population Override likewise featured a large contribution from Dickerson in both composition and performance in 2004. In 2006 Chicken Noodles, a series of jams, followed. Additionally Dickerson remastered the early Cornbugs albums, a project Buckethead was involved with actor Bill Moseley and played on the last two recordings of the band before they split up.

In 2008 Dickerson, Buckethead and Brain formed the band The Dragons of Eden and released an album of the same name.

In 2009 Travis released his highly anticipated solo album which has been said to have been in the works for years. On one of Buckethead.tk's annual Binge Support Days, Travis sent supporters a special thank you CD with two unreleased tracks, one them of Legerdemain was later included on Iconography. Some participating artists include Buckethead, Bryan "Brain" Mantia, Lindy Dickerson, Paul Ill, Scarlett Rivera, Ramy Antoun, DJ Bonebrake Doane Perry and Cameron Stone.

In 2012 Travis released his second solo CD, The Owl Dives Through The Crescent Moon. The CD includes Travis on keyboards and vocals, his brother Lindy Dickerson on guitar and Paul Ill on bass and X's drummer and long time collaboratorr DJ Bonebrake on drums.

In 2013 he installed HD video recording equipment and began a series of videos of live in studio performances that can be found on the TDRSmusic YouTube channel.

Discography (partial)

Solo

Collaborations

Sources

External links

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