In the past 17 years since the last official 17 Pygmies or Del Rey release, Philip Drucker (aka Jackson Del Rey) has seen quite a few changes in his life. Fascinated (and horrified) by the sad tale of how he lost control of most of his early copyrights, he first began to read about Copyright law, then found himself informally helping other musicians with their quasi-legal problems, and eventually went to law school, passed the California bar (first try!) and now practices intellectual property law.
Additionally, Drucker, Esq. also teaches basic business and business law at a prestigious private institute to aspiring photographers and filmmakers.
As part of his desire to again record music, JDR wanted to not only make a musical statement, but a statement that included utilizing some of his knowledge attained during his years of studying and practicing copyright law. Mostly, JDR has a keen interest in the public domain, and the public's constitutional right to ?recycle? other person's copywritten works when in fact said protection expires. To this end, JDR chose to include many pieces now in the public domain as inspiration for last 17 Pygmies double CD titled 13 Blackbirds/13 Lotus. Compositions such as ?Bye Bye Blackbird (written in 1925) and Going Up Yonder (traditional gospel) as well as ?found sounds? from ?free (aka royalty free) sites? and even sound bites distributed under ?alternative? licensing agreements, such as creative commons and free sound project, were used as well.
The mix, well, is an eclectic brew of cross-cultural somewhat pop-oriented sound collages that are fortunately held together by what loosely passes as ?song structure.? (You know, chorus?verse? chorus?verse?solo?bridge ?chorus?verse?out?although some of the choruses' and bridges are missing?) All in all a project that uses both acoustic and electronic mediums fair indiscriminately in order to attain what JDR jokingly refers to as ?a moderately successful stalemate? between the artist and his chosen medium (in this instance, music.)
Not one to rest on his laurels, JDR also has released a new CD/DVD soundtrack to the classic film ?Battleship Potemkin? (another nod to the relevancy of the public domain) under the name Del Rey & The Sun Kings, which also happens to be the name of the first band (a frat party bad that played 50's covers) JDR ever played guitar in (that's where he got the stage name Del Rey by the way?)
For his next act, in late 2007, JDR released not only a single of "Last Train", a song he wrote as 17 Pygmies was breaking up in the '80s, but he also released "Ballade Of Tristram's Last Harping" a tribute to 60s Psychedelic and 70s Classic Rock artists with the newly named The 17th Pygmy.
As if this was not enough for him, he released yet another film score on DVD, this time to the 1922 Classic silent film, Nosferatu. JDR chose to blend classical instruments with of all things industrial sounds to help enhance the film obvious theme of duality (light and dark/man and woman/man and monster/woman and monster etc?). And so as there are indeed many ?pretty? passages of music, there is indeed a healthy amount of dark and edgy material.
Nosferatu also pays homage to several of Del Rey's favorite film composers, most notably Tangerine Dream, Popol Vue, Rachel Portman and Thomas Newman.
With all the recent creative activity from JDR, he is gaining attention worldwide with recent 6 page article including an interview with JDR, in Italy's BLOW UP magazine, and a new interview in the UK's WOUND magazine.
In 2008, Jackson led 17 Pygmies on an outer space adventure, the celebrated "Celestina", writing a short story and script that follows the experimental, space rock CD.
2009 has proven to be a busy year for JDR and his record label, Trakwerx. Not only did he write a new original score for the original silent film, "Tarzan", but Trakwerx released 2 CD projects: 17 Pygmies' "The Outlaw J.D. Ray", Smoldering Ashes "Songs In The Key of Mountain Birds Blue" and 2 DVD projects: by The Trakwerx Collectiv "Lightwerx: Georges Melies" and Cult With No Name's first film scoring effort "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari".
JDR's ability to write successfully in so many different styles puts him in a category of his own, from Savage Republic's tribal post punk sounds to dark, ethereal film scores, to well-crafted songs of 17 Pygmies (aka The 17th Pygmy). There is no doubt he is truly an original and demands the best of all his artists.
Jackson now lives quietly at home with his two dogs, Starsky & Hutch. He likes candlelight dinners and long walks on the beach. Serious inquiries only.