Podcast Episode 5 - Dave Bytor

Here's episode five of the new Synchronicity Arkive podcast, Arkiving Synchronicity. This episode features another new guest, this time long-time community member Dave Bytor. Dave is also the webmaster of The Rush/Wonka Project. Again for your listening enjoyment...

Click here to download it (approx. 11Mb, 32 min.).

Click here to buy it on CD.

A Transcript follows after the break...

MJ: Welcome to Arkiving Synchronicity, the Synchronicity Arkive podcast. This is your host, Arkiver, webmaster of the Synchronicity Arkive. Joining me today is long-time member of the synching community, Dave Bytor, webmaster of The Rush/Wonka Project. Dave, thanks for being here.

D: Thank you for the invite, Mike! I’ve enjoyed the first few podcasts, so I’ve been looking forward to this. Where do you wanna’ start?

MJ: Well, let's start off with my favorite; how did you get into synchronicity and what were some of your first experiences with it and the community?

D: Okay, cool. The Dark Side Of the Rainbow first came on my radar screen around the middle of 1999 when I heard a local classic rock station talk about it. A short time later an internet buddy of mine decided to watch it as a primer of sorts to his making a parody of the then over-hyped-to-the-gills Blair Witch Project. Basing it on characters from The Wizard Of Oz, he called it The Wicked Witch Project.

So this spurred me onto checking out a copy of Dark Side from the library, getting The Wizard out of my kids' video drawer, and checking it out. Needless to say I was very impressed, especially being not all that fond of Floyd for most of my life (I've since seen the light). After checking it out a couple of times, I knew I wanted to do some experimenting of my own.

Being the Rush geek I am, I naturally thought of them first. The next thought was I should try one of the older epic albums, which of course lead to the "duh" conclusion of 2112. I then decided to raid the kids' video drawer again and saw Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory within a few seconds and reached another "duh" conclusion. And that's where it started.

To answer the part of the question about getting into the synching community, it was your original Synchboard through which I first "met" folks like Baker, Steggo Kitty, Michael Allen, and others. But as I think Baker mentioned in his podcast, the board went down not too long after some of us newcomers started showing up in late '99, and we migrated to the board he set up.

I remember it just being an exciting time, both personally and amongst the group. For me, it allowed my creative side to come out like it hadn't for a number of years, and it seemed like others felt a similar vibe and knew we were doing something different. To be sure, there was a difference of opinion on some things (the Intent vs Coincidence debate comes to mind), and maybe some people got along better than others, but looking back 8 years hence, my memories are largely positive.

MJ: On the Film/Album board, were there any standout discussions from those early days? Any standout personalities? What kept you coming back to that community?

D: Well, the answer to the third question can be found in the answers to the first two, because it was indeed the discussions and personalities that kept me interested. I know I mentioned the whole Intent vs Coincidence debate, and while my memory is fuzzy about the particulars, I do know it was lively. I'll betchya' Baker has it archived, though! Actually, that'd be cool, to be able to read some of those old threads, as it would probably help me better answer the discussion part of your question. But I do remember the cast of characters, both major and minor. Mike Casey, Carlos, TL, Rachel, Whytless Physh, Key, and more were all there. There were some more involved than others, but I do know it was quite active and for awhile there never lacked topics to discuss. As others have pointed out, the zenith of this camaraderie manifested itself during the production of Shared Fantasia.

MJ: Shared Fantasia does seem to be a high watermark in everyone's memories of the Film/Album board. For those who maybe don't know, how was this project different than other synch projects?

D: In a nutshell, several synchers got together in early 2002 and were each randomly assigned one of the segments from Disney’s Fantasia to sync something to. All humility and objectivity aside, I think the result was pretty damn good, if not downright great. The choice of music was especially eclectic amongst the participants…I mean, you had pop, rock, metal, prog, blues, classical…heck, even space age bachelor pad music! It was so cool. And on one level or another, everyone nailed their segments pretty tightly. As far as syncs go, you could say this one’s pretty consistent throughout.

MJ: How about your specific segment of SF? As I recall (and I checked Baker’s SF site just to be sure), you took the second segment, the one with the dancing fairies and mushrooms? What inspired your choice of music? What was it about that segment that resonated for you?

D: I remember even before finding out which segment I would get (just to clarify, Baker set up some sort of random process that chose the segments for us), I had it in my mind to use the music of The Tragically Hip, a band with whom I’d done some experimentation with a year or so earlier, and to see if I could use them in this context. But I distinctly recall falling asleep the night I found out I got The Nutcracker Suite and it just popped into my head; “Take A Pebble” by Emerson, Lake, & Palmer.

As I’m sure you and our fellow synchers can identify with, there’s a huge amount of serendipity that plays out when you’re in the process of creating something particularly inspiring. Usually, serendipity is something you can only see after the fact, but when you see it unfold before your eyes, while it’s happening, it’s euphoric! It’s like you are the one who sets the wheels in motion, but then something else takes over. As Baker said in his podcast, it’s a “strange kind of illusion for sure.” Such was the case here.

The only version of “Take A Pebble” I had ever heard up to this point was the live version from their mid-70’s “Welcome Back My Friends…” concert album. This rendition was essentially split in half, with two other songs and a 10-minute noodling-fest by Keith Emerson on the piano in the middle (this in addition to the regular noodling in the song itself!). In other words, it was over a half-hour long and couldn’t possibly work with the piece. So when I bought the CD with the studio version on it, I was surprised to hear the original mid section of acoustic and piano interludes, and even before experimenting with it, I knew it would work. But the bookends of the live version still sounded better to me, so after much prying and tweaking, I created a mix of the two that spans the entire piece. The segues between live & studio occur where they would have naturally, which was key in my mind, and when I saw how this mix just flowed with the film from one section to the next, it blew my mind! Again, with a nod to humility and objectivity, that segment is one of my best works.

MJ: So, why do you think that the high point represented by SF in the history of the community hasn’t been repeated, or matched even? Baker talked a little about that being a culmination of the art form, and that since that it seemed that the discussions have somewhat devolved into rehashing the same, or at least similar issues/ideas.

D: Let me address the last part first, about discussions being rehashed or devolving. I’ll have to plead a bit of ignorance on some of it, partly because of just not remembering, but even more due to the fact that by the fall/winter of 2002, I was getting well ensconced in my new job as a geotechnician (a position I’m still in) which was taking a lot of both my time and mental energies. I remember trying to keep up, both with the community and my own sync ideas, but eventually I just had to relegate it to the back burner. Not to mention just a lot of “life” stuff that took precedence. I apparently missed some sort of O thing which I’m still clueless about to this day (not that I really need to know, either).

Getting back to SF, I think maybe that group of people, along with a couple other regulars who didn’t get to participate (Whytless comes to mind), we all had been going along with our own ideas there for a couple years, interacting and checking out each others’ stuff out, and it all culminated with each person using the style and/or skills they had developed over that time in their SF contributions. To get a little blue, it was a fantastic climax, but once we shot our wad, we rolled over a fell asleep!

And that parallels my own creative arc at the time, as well, to a certain extent. What I mean is that in the 2 ½ years of what I guess was my “very active” period, I did all sorts of experiments with varying degrees of success (success being defined by me in this instance as personal artistic satisfaction). It was the three full-blown Rush projects I did, each one increasingly more labyrinthine, then participating in the SF collective, that by the end of that stretch I felt satisfied, to be sure, but it also seemed like I had taken that skill-set I had developed as far as I could for the time being.

MJ: Speaking of your active period, one result of that period seems to your own Rush/Wonka Project website. To borrow terminology from Baker again, one of the things he commented on, that differentiated the larger pool of the “second wave” synchers from the earlier discussions, was that many created their own sites and promoted synchs other than Dark Side of the Rainbow. What led you to create a site for your projects? Any standout experiences in having your own site?

D: Remember earlier when I talked about how I got into synching around the time of The Blair Witch Project? Not that the movie was all that great or anything, but I do believe that was the first film that sort of had a huge internet buzz before it came out, and one of the things they utilized was setting up web sites with all sorts of background info on the fake story they were telling. So that’s where TRWP got not only its title, but its own web presence.

Additionally, since I had this sudden buzz of artistic creativity, the website was just a natural extension of that. It gave me an outlet to further express and explore the project, albeit a bit over-the-top and “gushy.” As the other Rush syncs got progressively more complex, the websites associated with them did, too (probably The Rushian Matrix more than Being Geddy Lee). My only regret is that I’ve not kept them updated, or at least given them a fresh coat of paint. And while it might get me in trouble, I’d like to add some clips at some point.

Standout experiences as a result of the site(s)? Well, besides them being a conduit for interested people to contact me, I did have a couple of experiences that were pretty cool. MTV contacted me shortly after word about The Rush/Wonka Project started getting around (late ’99). They were going to do a sync segment on their news show, but it got scrapped. I also had a guy take a copy of The Rushian Matrix to Burning Man and played it in the middle of the desert.

The one experience that stands out the most as a result of my web presence revolved around the Jesus & The ‘Tramp project. I don’t know if that project is on your agenda for our conversation later, so I can go into that later if you want to stay in the Rush/Wonka realm.

MJ: Jesus and the Tramp, huh? I’m really not that familiar with that one. I think I went into a little bit of my “fade out” from the synching community, mentioned when Karl interviewed me, after the DSotR media attention, that put me pretty much out of contact (except very sparsely) from probably mid-1998 through fall 2002, when the Arkive kind of relaunched. What was the Jesus and the Tramp project? How did it come about?

D: Okay, I guess a quick synopsis of that is appropriate here, which will lead to the web issue.

First, you have to go back in time to 1983 when I got into the music of Supertramp. I was fresh out of high school, and trying to figure out life, the universe, and everything. This also coincided with a friend of a friend getting us 3rd row for the St. Louis stop on their last tour with Roger Hodgson, and even though I knew a fair amount of their stuff (mostly Breakfast In America), I felt I needed to get familiar with more. That’s when my discovering their Crime Of The Century and Even In The Quietest Moments albums converged with my existential angst, and to make a long story short, my conversion to Christianity was soundtracked by their music.

So fast-forward to 1999, and I’ve just discovered this new synching thing, and what should come in the mail? A copy of the Jesus movie that some ministry decided every household in the U.S.A. should have. Talk about an instantaneous “duh” conclusion! Looking back now, without going into a great deal of detail, my beliefs system/paradigm has undergone a good deal of evolution over the past few years here, so I might look at that project through a different lens now. I can say that at the time, I felt incredibly inspired by the mixing of my spirituality and artistic creativity, and I poured all of my heart into it.

Now we get to the web issue. As was becoming my M.O., I made a website for this sync. Actually, in this case it was just a single webpage explaining my perspective and inspiration, and an email address for contact. Well, first I heard from Roger Hodgson’s webmaster (who happens to be his brother), who was curious about it, so I sent him a copy. He responded by saying that while they didn’t necessarily get it, they had no problem with what I did (and I think they realized I wasn’t profiting from it, so why bother).

Next, I heard from the organization who distributed the movie, The Jesus Film Project. They were curious, I sent them a tape, and even though they expressed the same bemused reaction as the Hodgson’s, they encouraged me to send out Jesus & The ‘Tramp to as many people as I’d like as it would help “spread the Word.” While evangelism wasn’t on my agenda, I did oblige their request and sent it out to many, many people.

Then came a third email (by the way, this all occurred over a 12-18 month span). This time it was from the owners of the copyright to the film, Campus Crusade For Christ. They didn’t particularly care for my art, even though they’d never seen it of course, and they officially requested I cease and desist. And that letter is what you will see if you go to that page today (http://home.i1.net/~bytor/JesusandtheTramp.html). I wanted to redo the site at the time, and change around some things for it to be more “legal,” but this coincided with the “back burner relegation” I described earlier, and so it has stayed the same since. I guess you could say I look at it as a badge of honor of sorts (the C&D letter, that is).

MJ: Sounds like that project touched on a couple of the “philosophical” aspects of synching that I’ve always found interesting. But to pick on my latest favorite a little, having been on the receiving end of a C&D letter, how do you yourself perceive the copyright/legal structure? Did that experience change your perceptions?

D: I first have to confess that I’ve always had a rebellious streak in me, so the short answer to your second question would be “no.” How do I perceive the legal structure of it all? Probably through the same lens as I view the broader subject of the all-encompassing corporate power structure that has a stranglehold on the world; it sucks. But does the copyright/legal structure affect my everyday, personal life? Probably not a great deal at this time, but if I were to ever, let’s say, revamp that Jesus site, or any other sync site of mine, I would be awfully tempted to include some clips, just to see if I could get away with it. I might be 40-ish now, but my inner 16-year old is alive and well!

MJ: Always good to keep that “inner 16-year old alive,” certainly. So, setting aside the copyright thing (always a tough thing for me), the other thing that jumps out at me about your Jesus and the Tramp project, is the spirituality aspect, and the whole belief system/paradigm, etc. How has synching, as a hobby and also as a community, affected that aspect of your life? It sounds to me like the Jesus and the Tramp project at least touched on a lot of that, from how you describe it… I just wondered if some of your other projects also played into that….

D: Ah, an interesting line of questioning there, Mike, and I will attempt to answer it with a measure of, shall we say, “guarded transparency.”

When I got into synching, I considered myself to be a Christian, albeit one who had struck out on their own, apart from any sort of group or church…to steal a line from the late, great Mark Heard, “an orphan of God.” Or to borrow the famous bumper sticker line, “Jesus, please save me from your followers.” Either way, I was disillusioned with organized religion, but not with God. So getting into synching, and experiencing what really was a “buzz” or “high” of creativity, playing the role of “the man behind the curtain,” and seeing it through the lens of a believer, it only deepened the profundity for me. It wasn’t only with the Jesus project, but all of them (yes, even Amy’s A Strange Person).

After I faded away from synchdom in 02/03, my own evolution as a person kept going along, though. My worldview continued to expand (the lack of being able to do so within the confines of the church being a central reason why I stayed away), and further life experiences added to that expansion. I noticed as I pulled further away from my myopic view of Christianity, not only did I find fault with the adherents (especially the ones who hijacked our government), but also the One to whom they claimed to adhere. And this is where the “guarded” part of my transparency manifests itself, though. I’ve come to believe that my relationship to life, the universe, and everything is personal, and I’d like to keep it at that, if that’s cool?

MJ: Certainly, that’s cool with me. I kind of subscribe to the view that everyone’s relationship to life, the universe, and everything is ultimately personal, myself.

OK, so moving on… you mentioned a bit earlier that the Rush/Wonka Project almost made it onto MTV. In doing these podcast interviews, I’ve run across a couple examples of “media attention that almost was,” and there’ve been a couple minor mentions of either the generic hobby or even one or two specific synchs in some media lately. One in particular, that Karl and I covered, seemed to rely on the stereotypical “stoner waste of time” view of the hobby. As a long-time participant in that community, how do you feel about the way the hobby, and perhaps the community, is perceived by the general public? I guess I find myself kind of fascinated that the mainstream media tries to force synching into a convenient stereotype, and if it doesn’t quite fit, the media generally drops covering it.

D: You know, while I don’t really like stereotypes, I guess there’s sort of an elemental reason why they get started in the first place. The error comes into play when the observer fails to look deeper into it and see the differences, and that’s what happened with synchdom. I don’t know about you, but when I first heard of the DSotR, I do seem to recollect thinking about it in a “stoner” context. And even though I will admit to being a partaker of “the tree” at various times in my life, I was not at the time when I first watched it, and was still amazed by it. I then found out right away when I got involved in the community that a decent sized majority didn’t partake at all. I mean, if you think about it, for a sync to be really good and have more universal appeal, it has to be the creation or discovery of a non-altered mind. Or if it is discovered under the influence of something, then one should watch it again sober to see if you’re still “blown away.”

What I think is important to me, though, and I guess this is a little self-centered, is how people react to my stuff. Of course, my primary goal is to do something that I can get off on, but there is a secondary desire, sure, to want others to get off on it, too! I think objectively speaking, the audience who would be predisposed to enjoying something of an off-beat nature such as a sync is probably smaller, which is cool by me, but I still get irked when I hear that “too much time on his hands” comment by the majority who don’t get it, or won’t look past that stoner stereotype. On the other hand, for those who do get it and enjoy it on whatever level they want, that certainly adds to the satisfaction.

MJ: How have people, outside of the synching community, generally reacted to your own various synching projects? I guess I’m thinking here of any friends/acquaintances you may shown them to yourself, as well as any feedback you may have gotten from the “world at large” from having your site up. Mostly just outside of the synching discussion boards, what do people generally think of what you’ve created, or at least, what do they tell you they think?

D: For those who take the time to share their thoughts, it’s mostly positive. This is mainly from fellow Rushians who’ve gotten one of those syncs. Like I said though, even within that community, the ratio of folk who find stuff like this cool is in the minority, albeit much larger than the average group of people. That’s where a lot of those “too much time on his hands” comments come from, and I guess that’s why it stings a little more than it should because these are my peeps. It seems that they like the Wonka/2112 thing the best, probably because it’s easily repeatable. The Rushian Matrix, with the film itself appealing to most of that demographic, would be next. And then there’s Being Geddy Lee, which practically no one gets, Rush-head or not.

Quick funny story to illustrate that point… Several months ago, Jay Dingo from the board here made DVD copies of some of my stuff. So one night, I decide to take a few copies of BGL with me to a Rush tribute band show at a local bar to give to a few random people (with the exception of the band’s bass player, whom I’d been acquainted with for some years). As I spoke with each of these people, none of them had ever heard of the thing, but seemed genuinely intrigued by my description, so having left contact info inside the DVD jewel case, I looked forward to their reaction. Still waiting. :::arms folded, toe tapping:::

MJ: Knowing that you’re a big fan of Rush, and I think I picked up earlier that synching turned you onto Pink Floyd… any other music or films that synching as a hobby turned you onto?

D: Oh, sure. I’d say that even though I haven’t messed around with them a lot sync-wise, The Flaming Lips are a band that I first came to know about through people in the community. It wasn’t until I saw them in concert that they really sunk their teeth into me, and you can bet a lot of the film footage they use live appealed to me as a syncher. They’re now one of my absolute favourites. I’m still on the lookout for the perfect film to sync with The Soft Bulletin.

With film, I seem to have paid a lot closer attention to animated stuff, especially early on in my synching experience. That Mind’s Eye computer animated stuff comes to mind, as does some of the Larry Jordan videos Baker shared with me. Coinciding with discovering synching, I got into the head-trippy romps that made Charlie Kaufman famous (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind), and I can’t watch anything of his without thinking of what would synch with it.

MJ: Good films, the Charlie Kaufman ones. And good music too… the Flaming Lips seem to have a pretty vocal contingent in the community that uses their material. I picked up the Soft Bulletin not too long ago myself. But I do find that I have more and more trouble nowadays, balancing things like music and synching, with the demands of everyday. And like Karl’s family, my fiancé doesn’t exactly “get” synching as a hobby. Any similar misunderstandings face you? Any trouble finding that balance yourself?

D: You know, I didn’t face a whole lot of reluctance from anybody in my immediate family. If anything, they seemed interested to see where it’d go. I think the only complaints I ever got was spending too much time on the computer, because they wanted to get on. Other family members were already used to previous manifestations of my weirdness, so they didn’t really pay it any mind. So my only limitation back then was my imagination and time. Time, of course, is a lot harder to find now with my job. That’s why I was able to get a little active again this past winter when I was in layoff mode, and while I didn’t find anything particularly earth-shattering, it was the first time in years that I spent a number of weeks experimenting, both with my own ideas and others’ recipes.

MJ: Any standouts that you stumbled across from others’ recipes this past winter? From your overall experiences in the community, do you have any favorite synchs that other folks have done, outside of the Shared Fantasia stuff?

D: Well, having become obsessed with the aforementioned Flaming Lips, I found Leighton’s Yoshimi Battles The Terminator Too particularly entertaining, and to a lesser degree, Carlos’ older pairing of the Jupiter segment from 2001 with songs from The Soft Bulletin. I also tried a couple Mars Volta syncs I saw recipes for, and they were okay, but they’re a hard band to sync with.

Going back in time, though, sure, there were a number of syncs that I enjoyed. Off the top of my head, the two early Echoes syncs (2001 and Contact), those were cool, and I loved how Kenny Dreamx packaged them altogether in what was probably the first DVD sync ‘release,’ as it were. Michael Allen’s “Show Truman The Wall” is stellar, as is his “Rite Of 2112.” And while I don’t grasp everything he does, Baker’s “Rainbow Sphere” is certainly an intriguing enigma, especially the version where the two video images are transposed over each other. And last but not least, Whytless Physh’s “Jesus Who?” is just downright amazing. As far as individual sync efforts go, it is my personal favourite. I can only dream of doing something like that.

MJ: I’m always kind of curious to know the kinds of things that other people, especially in the synching community, would like to see as part of the Synchronicity Arkive. Are there any features or changes you’d like to see, as part of the community? Any improvements or updates you’d like to see happen? I’ve been especially happy with the way these podcasts are turning out myself, they feel to me like a shared project almost…

D: I agree that the podcasts are a cool new feature, and it definitely takes on a “shared” vibe, especially using this “email construct” method. But as far as improvements around the site, I guess the only thing I wish could be solved is the delay/approval for messages to post. That’s not your fault, though, by any means, really. There’s just some people who don’t know any better, I guess, and find it necessary to put their immaturity on public display. Other than that, the site looks good, is organized well, and now that I finally got a larger screen, I can see everything!

MJ: Glad to hear that you’re enjoying the podcasts. So far the feedback there has been fairly positive. So, on the topic of site improvements, any plans to update or enhance your own site? Obviously, as I’m well aware with my own update attempts, that requires time, which is sometimes in short supply. I guess I’m really asking, any ideas for the future of the Rush/Wonka Project site, or any of your other projects?

D: Well, as I touched on earlier, updating my sites is something I’ve wanted to do for awhile, and besides not having enough time, laziness and a lack of wanting to learn new programs to make better websites are also a contributing factor as to why it’s not been done yet. If I ever do get around to doing it, however, I would add video clips, not only for people’s pleasure, but more just to see if I could get away with it.

MJ: Well, Dave, I think I’m about out of questions. Any last thoughts or comments you’d like to share with the synching community?

D: You know, I wish I had some poetically profound proclamation to leave you with, but I don’t. I guess I’d just like to say thanks for giving me the chance to participate. It has allowed me to share some of the highlights from “back in the day,” as well as keeping the fire of interest lit, even when ‘real life’ issues do their best to douse it out (which has been the case near the tail-end of our discussion here). Perhaps when this podcast gets out there and people react to it, maybe it’ll spur on more conversation. Until then, take it easy!