Seva

What is a Seva, one may ask? Well, for starters, he's been a classic rock DJ (under the guise of his former alter-ego “Commander Dave”), electronic composer, sound artist, software developer, producer, mastering engineer, classical musician, archivist, instructor and all-around tinkerer. His resume as a mastering engineer includes three Grammy-nominated projects and an impressive list of clients that includes the likes of Dolly Parton, Corrosion of Conformity, Acoustic Syndicate and Jim Lauderdale. But more importantly to him, he's content these days being first and foremost a husband and doting father of two — that is, when he's not engaged with the endless array of tape machines, speakers, equalizers, mixers and computers that haphazardly comprise his South Knoxville home studio. Knoxville Voice recently sat down with Seva for a little music, discussion and general audio geekery.

David Bowie
“Always Crashing in the Same Car”
From Low (1977)

Seva: Definitely David Bowie. Brian Eno didn't produce this, did he?

KV: No, but he played on it and co-wrote some of the songs.

Seva: I don't know where in Eno's career this was, but I remember it was one of the first times that I had correlated Brian Eno outside of [guitarist Robert] Fripp and Eno material. It was like a disconnect for me to hear Brian Eno and think of him as a producer. When I saw Eno producing, I thought ‘Gee, I could produce something' instead of being selfish and doing my own stuff all the time, so I decided to do that and try to work with some bands.

Dolly Parton
“Jolene”
From Jolene (1974)

Seva: When I did the work for Dolly, she was every thing that you would expect her to be. She was just as real and as gregarious and diffusive with positive emotion as you would expect. And she may be one of the last, one of the few of that era who can write it and sing it and perform it and tell stories. Awesome person, and runs her own business. She leases the masters to the record company. So like the Rolling Stones and Bruce Springsteen, you go and look at the record and it says ‘copyright Dolly Parton.'

Lynyrd Skynyrd
“I Ain't The One”
From Lynyrd Skynyrd (pronounced ‘léh-‘nérd ‘skin-‘nérd) (1973)

Seva: I grew up in Jefferson County and would drive a T-top Trans Am five-speed — eight-track, I should mention — with a lot of Southern rock, but really more early '70s. Listening to WTET in Johnson City, we'd also listen to Hawkwind and UFO and certainly Black Sabbath, so eventually that hooked it — it all related to the Southern rock at some point.

Morton Feldman
“A Very Short Trumpet Piece”
Performed by Stephen Altoft
Fanfares: New Trumpet Pieces For Young Players (1989)

Seva: It's not a piece that I recognize, but… I have a strong interest in contemporary music, and usually it means it's obscure, usually it means it's academic, and it's related to the classical tradition, and most people when they hear music like this, they think of movies, because it's the only place that the average person still runs into a very wide variety of musical styles [that are] used to set context. So they'll put up with symphonic music, they'll put up with like crazily dissonant, difficult music, or like this, which is a very minimalistic aspect. Who is this?

KV: Morton Feldman.

Seva: Feldman was one of my teachers for a short period of time at State University of New York in Buffalo. That was pretty melodic for Feldman (laughs). Feldman was part of that New York School — [composers] John Cage and Christian Wolff and Earle Brown, so those four guys pretty much defined the New York School. And when other people say “the New York School” they think of painters — they think of [painter Jackson] Pollock and [painter Robert] Rauschenberg, but there were musicians who were drinking in the same bars and hanging out with the painters, and Feldman was one of them. He's a really nice host and a terribly tough teacher — really hard on everybody.