User:Douglasvegas

=douglasvegas= douglasvegas is a Canadian-born musician, painter, graphic artist/desktop publisher, and dj living in Kadıköy, on the asian side of Istanbul. Born May 20th, 1970 in the province of Ontario, he moved to the creatively fertile Vancouver Island, on the west coast of Canada. After years of education, poverty and hard labour, he settled into working in the social work field while developing skills as a musician and graphic artist. Since the late 90's he has lived in Turkey.

Music
douglasvegas has been playing and recording his own music since the age of 16. His musical style varies, but usually evolves around or mixes three main themes, eastern folk music, irish & scottish folk music, and rock. Important influences include: Daevid Allen, The Incredible String Band, Syd Barrett, The Third Ear Band, Spiritualized, The Flaming Lips, early Black Sabbath, The Stooges, Jane's Addiction, Television and 60's garage rock. As a collector of folk instruments from around the world, he has also become known as a multi-instrumentalist with a highly experimentive nature. In the 12 song self-released demo cd The Kara Bayram Series, the songs contain unusual mixtures of turkish folk instruments such as oud, electric saz, cümbüş, benidir, santoor (persian) offset with some tape effects and floating electric guitar lines.

Bands played with, and instruments played
Fez electric, lead guitar, bass(Vancouver and Victoria, Canada), Fata Morgana electric and bowed guitar, chinese moon guitar, celtic lap harp, dulcimer (Victoria, Canada), Not Since the Illness electric, lead guitar (Istanbul, Turkey) Dinar bandosubass guitar (Istanbul. Turkey) Chicken Monkeyguitar, theremin, keyboards, samples, vocals Uncle Limbobass, guitar, keyboards, samples, theremin Dinar Bandosuguitar

Painting
As a painter, douglasvegas uses an eclectic assortment of bright warm colours creating scenes of imaginary landscapes, strange haunting characters, abstract symbolism and asymetric design. His paintings have been seen locally on bookcovers and in cafe/bars.

Graphic Arts & Desktop Publishing
Having previously worked doing layout for various magazines in Victoria, Canada, douglasvegas has recently made a return to "computer arts". While mostly designing promotional materials for bands (including web design, concert flyers and posters, album cover artwork and layout, etc.) he still spends time designing computer generated artwork.

Dj-ing
douglasvegas has had a very active interest in music since a very early age. Upon getting his first record player as a child, and first record (a 45 rpm single of "Return to Sender" by Elvis) he spent hours listening to both sides changing the speed and volume, always trying to hear it differently each time. Since then, he has become an avid music collector with very eccentric taste.