Below are songs from Dave Strand’s earliest solo project titled DFMA between 1992-1995.  These songs were created on an Amiga 1200 computer using OctaMed 8 bit sequencing software, triggering a DR660 drum machine via Midi.  Vocals were then overlaid with a SM58 mic into a Mackie 1202 mixer, with vocals distortion added by a Zoom 9000 FX box, and recorded live to Audio Cassette Tape.  During this time, certain songs started being labeled with the filename The Strand, so it is unclear what the first official The Strand song is.  We decided to categorize the songs before the use of keyboards and conventional recording, as DFMA.

DFMA 

From there, Dave began collaborations with Arman Bastani on a paranormal-topic based project called Ascension Descension. (official spelling unknown, use T’s or S’s) Songs were recorded in Arman’s mom and dad’s  basement.  Technical details forthcoming.  Best guess would also place these recordings from 1992-1995.   Many songs are missing, such as the one about spontaneous combustion, and the one about the Loch Ness Monster, but is what we could locate recorded to cassette tape.

ALSO: Here are some songs written by Arman Bastani around that time.

Ascension Descension 

There were 6 months in the 90s when Dave and Arman moved to Madison, Wisconsin.  We are not certain which, if any, songs were written in Madison.   Dave eventually moved back to Vernon Hills, IL after the Madison excursion and spent some time getting an Associate’s Degree in Arts at College of Lake County.  Again, we are not certain which songs were written during this time.

After moving from Illinois to an apartment in Arizona with brother, Scott, songwriting continued solely under the project name The Strand.   The Strand’s home studio was expanded to include a Nord Lead keyboard and a Korg X5D keyboard, using a PC computer running Cakewalk, Fruity Loops, and Acid. While these early Strand songs were in production Dave collaborated with several female vocalists.  One electro-funk project was dubbed GFactor5 and featured vocalist Kim Jones (not to be confused with Kimberly Brown the eventual singer for The Strand)

GFactor5 

 

Sarah Hudson and Heidi (last name?) worked on unreleased material with Dave Strand, shortly followed by Kimberly Brown who went on to be The Strand’s first female singer. A handful of songs were also written while attending classes at Scottsdale Community College (the “Film songs” mainly).  Below you will find early recordings featuring Sarah, Heidi, Kim, and Dave.

Ancient Strand 

Browse the entire archive of ancient Dave Strand recordings including snippets, scraps, jam sessions, and rough takes.

Continue listening with Dave Strand’s 2000-Present recordings…