Bill Brovold

Guitarist, composer, painter, and producer Bill Brovold was involved in early-'80s N.Y.C. no wave bands, including Rhys Chatham ensembles, and later headed Larval, a Michigan-based Knitting Factory recording artist. Born in 1957 in Tacoma, WA, Brovold first began playing the guitar in the early '70s, initially focusing on country music. He moved to New York to attend the School of Visual Arts, graduated in 1982, and the following year became the guitarist for the Rhys Chatham Ensemble, a gig that would last the next five years. Throughout his involvement in this band, however, Brovold also collaborated with many other downtown bands, including the East Village Orchestra, Fast Forward, and the Zen Vikings with Ernie Brooks and James Lo. Through the 1980s, Brovold also wrote music for performance artists and filmmakers. Brovold left N.Y.C., eventually landing in the Detroit area, where he began the group Larval in the mid-'90s. With this project, Brovold has released recordings on John Zorn's Japanese label Avant and N.Y.C.'s Knitting Factory. By the late '90s, Brovold had opened his own Koko Studios in Royal Oak, MI, where he produced and recorded not only Larval's music, but also recordings of ex-Modern Lovers guitarist John Felice, John Lamb, and Poignant Plecostomus. He also paints, and his works have been shown at Detroit's C-Pop Gallery, among others. In 2000, Tzadik released an album by Bill Brovold as part of the label's modern composers series. In 2007 the two-disc Surviving Death/Alive Why? appeared from Cunneiform Records.