Born:
Real Name: Daniel Sofer
Artist Name: Perfect Tommy

Interview with Daniel Sofer February 2002

How and when did you started making music ?
I started playing drums when I was 9 years old. I played in lots of bands in school and in college.Of course I heard Switched-On Bach, so I was excited to be able to get my hands on a synthesizer in college. At that time (1972), synthesizers were big and expensive so my university (USC) had made an arrangement with Paul Beaver (a Hollywood studio musician and Moog's west coast distributor) to let us study using Paul's large Moog synthesizer when it was available. Most of the other synth students were keyboard players so they would make a simple sound and then riff on it. Not being very good on the keyboard, I would connect more and more modules until the Moog would just play itself.

What kind of music did influenced in your work?
Although I felt most comfortable in Rock music circles at the time, I was influenced by other music: 20th century classical, musique concrete: Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze and other euro electronic musicians; and later African beats and Middle Eastern, new age. These days I'm mostly into ambient...

What was your first record ?
My first records were those that I made in the electronic music studios --first at Paul Beaver's studio Parasound, then at the Mills College Tape Center in Northern California where I studied with Robert Ashley and Terry Riley, but mostly just experimented with electronic rock music. I had access to large modular Moogs and multi-track tape recorders so I would just record everything myself.One of these pieces ended up in a Laserium laser light show -- the same people that later toured with Tangerine Dream. I ended up working for Laserium and programming several light shows. I did a piece for Laserium called Silk Aurora, which you can hear on my web site. I also played with several electronic bands in Los Angeles at that time (1976-1981) including LEM and another band called Radience with now famous new age synth musicians Steve Roach and Richard Burmer. There's another piece on my web site called Third World of Dreams, which I did in 1981 whichfeatures Steve Roach. By this time (early 80s), I had an Oberheim synth and ended up working for Oberheim as well -- I wrote owners manuals (OB-8, DMX, Xpander), did demos, and made the drum samples for the DMX.

What sound equipment did you use for your early productions?
In the 80s I used the Oberheim system (OB-X/8, DMX, DSX, Xpander). Many of us that worked there were musicians, and we had a lot of influence on the way these instruments worked and what they sounded like. I also had a Synthi AKS and a MicroMoog that I used. These days I have my Mac G3 with DigitalPerformer, SampleCell and some Roland and Kawai modules. My Oberheim Matrix12 still appears once in awhile.

We know that you did a lot of stuff with your DMX (you even wrote the manual). What was the reason that you prefer this equipment and did you ever work with the Roland 808?
I not only wrote the manual, I recorded all the sounds for the DMX, so of course it sounded just the way I wanted it to :-) We went into some big recording studios (like Capitol Records in Hollywood) to record the drums, then I went back to Oberheim where I had a system to digitize the sound and burn sound chips. Eventually I got Unknown to come over to Oberheim and record some scratches, which were sold by Oberheim and can be heard on my Oberheim DMX demo (http://www.hermosawave.net/daniel/mtv/dmx.mp3) Lot's of people had 808s though, I think we even sampled one for the DMX at one point.

Many of the artists in the 80´s started as a DJ´s and later they play their own music instruments like Rolands 808. What do you think bout this developement?
I was working with synthesizers since the Moog modular synthesizers in the early 70's, so I was interested in things like the 808. But the 808 was like an analog sequencer -- it was good from a programming point of view, but you couldn't really "play" it, like with the DMX.

Can you describe the LA Electro Scene back in the 80´s?
I wasn't really into the Electro Scene specifically, I was more into the German electronic music of the time (Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, etc.) That was also the influence of my previous synthesizer band, LEM. I can't say I was a very social person then, either :-)

Can you describe how you get in touch with the Electro Scene back in the days?
Like I said, I worked at Oberheim and was in a creative position, doing demos, manuals, tech support, etc., so musicians of many styles came through the office. Many, like Christophe Franke of TD, were personal friends of Tom Oberheim and they would come and hang out when they came into town. Oberheim´s main tech service guy, Will Alexander, ended up becoming Keith Emerson's tech for a long time.

How did get your nickname „Perfect Tommy”?
Unknown DJ (Andre Manuel) gave me that nickname because of my "Perfect Timing" :-)

How did you get in touch with Lonzo from the World Class Wreckin´ Cru?
I met Lonzo through Unknown.

Can you describe your work for Surgery and Juice?
At first, the guys had the ideas but they didn't have the instruments which were quite expensive at the time. So they would tell me what they were looking for and I would put something together for them... They didn't give me too much direction so it was kinda up to me...

How much money did you get when you worked for a title like Surgery?
I don't remember , but it wasn't much :-)

Did you ever visit one of the famous discos like „Radio Club“ or “Eve after Dark” back in the days?
No...

Who was the owner of Saturn Records and how did you get in contact ?
Somewhere around this time I met Cletus Anderson from Saturn Records. I'm not sure how exactly, he must have heard one of my demos.

Can you describe your work with Unknown DJ ?
I did some sessions with my Oberheim gear for Triple Threat Three, and then Rhythm Rock Rap and 100 Speakers. These sessions were very raw: I did my drum beats with the DMX and some other bass with the OB-8 and that was pretty much it. But this was the first time I had ever seen anyone scratching records in person, so I ended up inviting Unknown to Oberheim´s studio to record some scratches for the DMX. Unknown and I ended up doing a bunch of tracks together -- I still see him these days. He has a record label Celeb Entertainment. I met Lonzo Williams through Cletus and we did a couple of tracks as well -- the World Class Wreckin Cru. I did the tracks with ThreeD and Arabian too. Arabian has a 3D animationstudio these days. I don't really see any of these people any more, just Unknown and Arabian.

It´s strange that Unknown and Dre worked only for the Single “100 Speakers” together. Was this before Dre worked on Surgery and Unknown  did his stuff on Techno Hop Records?
Yes, this was before. I think this was the first time I hooked up with them. Cletus Anderson of Saturn Records had me come to the studio -- I'm not sure how I hooked up with him, probably he heard my demo -- but I was there in the studio and Unknown and Dre were rapping and scratching.

Did you work for the Triple Threat Three Single on Saturn Records too?
Yes, I did the Triple Threat Three.

Can you describe your work for DEF Momentum?
At the beginning, the guys didn't have any equipment except their turntables and their rhymes, so I would play everything else, overdubbed.

On which Arabian songs did you participate?
I did a few, but I can't remember which ones.

Are there any unreleased stuff from those days you made? Have you unreleased  promotapes or livecuts from this period?
Everyone always has unreleased stuff lying around -- and most of the time they should stay that way! ;-)

Do you still  work in the music business today?
I was never a full time musician -- I worked at Laserium, Oberheim, and Kawai before starting my own digital media business. These days I build web sites -- but I still try to put in some interesting music; Flash is really a good vehicle for music on the web.

What was your greatest success as a musican and what was your greatest experience in the music scene back in the days?
I don't feel I was ever a great success as a musician, but I was able to experiment with a lot of new technologies and get some good results. I always was and still am interested in the combination of music and visual. I did video work in college, and the Laserium light shows, then a lot of visual music. Some of my things got played on VH-1 when they were just starting out. These days the web is a great place to combine the sound and visual in a new way.

Can you send us some pictures we can add to the interview?
I'm enclosing a picture of me playing a concert at the Yamaha shop in Shibuya, Tokyo.

What do you think bout the electro revival nowadays? Arabian is doin some new stuff, Egypt is really big here in Europe and we heard even Unknown is back in business.
I think it's great. Unknown was trying to get me to work with him, but I wasn't focused enough to really contribute. There are many revivals of old music these days... in the past six months my family have seen Cream, Paul McCartney, Rolling Stones, and David Gillmore in concert, so why not Electro?

Do you still live in Los Angeles?
Although I didn't grow up here, I've lived in various parts of Los Angeles for the past 30 years, except for two years in San Francisco... I'd end up meeting many of the musicians that were playing Oberheim gear. David Frank from The System is another guy I hung out with and was influenced by – he played the synth bass on "I Feel For You" and "SuSuSudio" In the last 15 years I've spent a lot of time in Japan and have many musician friends there as well. I don't think you'd know any of they'renames -- but I'm surprised you know about any of us!
Its a long explanation of how I ended up with Saturn Records, Cletus and Unknown, so bear with me ;-)