Did You Know

Did You Know: Bands & Musicians With Roots to San Jose/Silicon Valley

Just a sample of band and musicians with deep roots to San Jose/Silicon Valley:

Count V
Creedence Clearwater Revival
Dredg
Fleetwood Mac: Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks
Grace Slick
Greg Kihn
Harpers Bizarre
IBOPA
Insolence
Jefferson Airplane & Jefferson Starship
Jimmy DeGrasso

Joan Baez
Kingston Trio
Larry Norman
Moby Grape
No Use for a Name
People
Quicksilver Messenger Service
Robben Ford
Robert Berry
Skip Spence

Smash Mouth
Syndicate of Sound
The Chocolate Watchband
The Doobie Brothers
The E-Types
The Grateful Dead
The New Arrivals
Trapt
William Penn & His Pals
XIU XIU

A Quick At-a-Glance of How Silicon Valley Put the Role ‘n Rock.

Here's a sample of music industry innovation with roots to Santa Clara Valley.

Silicon Valley Technology Milestones in Music

1903 – Valdemar Poulsen demonstrates the first arc radio transmitter for high-quality voice transmission in his Palo Alto laboratory. He later invents the first practical device for magnetic sound recording and reproduction.

1909 – April Charles (a.k.a. Doc) Herrold, an electronics instructor, constructed the world’s first radio broadcasting station in downtown San Jose. The station “San Jose Calling” (there were no call letters) continues to this day as KCBS in San Francisco. Herrold, coined the terms “narrowcasting” and “broadcasting”, was the first play music, with commercials, across the airwaves on a regular basis and, in 1919, his wife Sybil Herrold became the world’s first disc jockey.

1912 ¬– Lee de Forest invents the vacuum tube amplifier in Palo Alto. His “audion” became the foundation for radio, radar, television, computers, and the electronics age. Stanford University faculty and officials helped finance the work, the first of many cooperative partnerships between higher education and Silicon Valley.

1937 – William Hewlett and David Packard start a company to produce their audio-oscillator. Walt Disney becomes their first customer, purchasing the product for use on the film Fantasia.

1940’s – The Ampex Model 200, revolutionized the radio, TV and recording industries. Bing Crosby was given the very first unit produced, and he gave the second machine to musician Les Paul.

1950’s – Ray Dolby, Founder of Dolby Laboratories, pioneers in noise reduction technology worked on various audio and instrumentation projects at Ampex Corporation. In 1957 he received a BS degree from Stanford University.

1955 – Les Paul and Ampex develop world’s first 8-track recording technology.

INSERT Synthesizer MILESTONES

1976 – Homebrew founder Steve Wozniak teams with Steve Jobs to form Apple Computer and build the first microcomputer in Jobs’ garage in Cupertino.

1993 – In June 1993 Silicon Valley rock band Severe Tire Damage became the first band to broadcast live video and audio worldwide on the Internet