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Bio: Parker Reilly (creator)

It’s as if all my varied experiences have come together and brought me to this place, ready to make SOLFEGE happen. A select list of music-related events from my life:

  • 1961—Born (on the Ides of March).
  • 1966-1970—My first musical romance: loving the Beatles in real time. My parents have two of their records, Hard Days Night and Beatles ’65, and I learn how to use their turntable so that I can play them myself. Later I watch Beatles music videos on Ed Sullivan. Along with the rest of the world, the group makes me want to learn to play and form a band myself.
  • 1969—Get a kiddie drumset from Sears (which I make the mistake of bringing to a school talent show in 1971, to unanimous ridicule).
  • 1971—Abandon the drums; start piano lessons with my Aunt Shirley.
  • 1972—Watch a band of my peers play a school dance. Say to myself, I need to get a piece of this action. Play in a band with the bandleader many years later.
  • 1974—Form first band with best friends: band name: Lyric One.
  • 1975—Get a Farfisa combo organ and Leslie amp.
  • 1975—First gig.
  • 1975-1981—Bands, bands, bands, among them: White Lightning, Flashback, Drew Volt and Livewire.
  • 1989—Form band with my brother: OK OK.
  • 1989-1994—OK OK soon changes name to The Sons, stays together for five years, trying to get a record deal. The band plays regularly at NYC venues CBGB; China Club; Limelight; Lone Star Roadhouse; and Wetlands.
  • 1990—The Sons make music video.
  • 1991—The Sons record regularly. Future moviemakers the Farrelly Brothers hear one of our cassettes at a Florida party; they contact the band and promise to put a Sons song into their first movie, which they’re trying to finance.
  • 1992—Play in Watt Tyla, led by Steve Lewins (The Count Bishops; Wilko Johnson).
  • 1992-1994—Work at PolyGram Records creating BARK, a groundbreaking buzz marketing project whose purpose is to get new music in front of American teenagers. BARK is a nationwide network of influential teens who are given unreleased music and play it for their friends at listening parties they host in their homes. Ensuing buzz spreads across the nascent Internet.
  • 1994—Create and oversee a BARK pavilion at the Woodstock 94 festival (in the digital exhibits area known as the Surreal Field). Provide a place where teens at the festival can use computers with Internet access to communicate with the outside world.
  • 1994—Play with Carly Simon at benefit for Hillary Clinton at the New York Public Library.
  • 1994—The Farrelly brothers keep their promise and The Sons song “Too Much of a Good Thing” appears in their first movie, Dumb and Dumber, and on the soundtrack CD.
  • 1994—The Sons break up.
  • 1995—Awarded gold record when sales of Dumb and Dumber CD surpass 500,000.
  • 1995-1997—Work at Nickelodeon Online. Help launch Nick’s first online presence (on AOL); co-create Natalie’s Backseat Traveling Web Show, which Jupiter Communications calls “the first TV/Internet web show.” Name the show; find the series writer (a teenager I knew from the BARK days); produce 85 online episodes, 7 of which were filmed and run on-air; act in one of the on-air episodes; write and perform the show’s theme song (along with a longer song that plays on the series’ web site).
  • 1998—The Farrelly brothers put The Sons song “All These Days” into their movie There's Something About Mary.
  • 2000-2002—Work for Fred Seibert (MTV legend and its first creative director).
  • 2005—Create social marketing company House Party (houseparty.com), and launch it with co-founder Gene DeRose. House Party features nationwide product-sampling gatherings hosted by consumers; the concept is an update of the BARK model.
  • 2007—Form Bentback Tulips with Chris Merola (bandleader from influential 1972 dance gig). Band breaks up in 2008.
  • 2008—Form The tbd Stories. Still together.
  • 2010-2013—Oversee media at House Party, developing ways to maximize consumer-generated video and pictures. Produce 200 campaign videos for House Party clients.
  • 2013—Leave House Party to work on SOLFEGE full-time.
  • 2013—Begin playing as duo in Divining Rod with Miyuki Furtado (The Rogers Sisters).
  • 2014—Cast VJ’s for SOLFEGE and begin shooting test network footage.
  • 2014—The Farrelly brothers again put The Sons song “Too Much of a Good Thing” into one of their movies, this time Dumb and Dumber To.