Niko Bolas is an American music producer, sound engineer, and consultant. He is also a business developer in the fields of virtual reality and Internet radio. In 1989, Bolas founded Fakespace Music with
Mark Bolas, Ian McDowall, and Christian Greuel. In 1995, Fakespace developed the Soundsculpt Toolkit, a software interface which lets music communicate with graphical elements of virtual reality.
In 1999, Bolas became the CEO of Sonicbox, Inc.,
an Internet radio company he founded with Mark Bolas and McDowall. Sonicbox changed its name to iM Networks Inc.;
it developed and marketed the first internet radio device which was sold in consumer stores through a licensing agreement with the
Philips Consumer Electronics Company. iM Networks Inc. received three patents for streaming technologies and put the "iM Band(TM)" alongside
AM and
FM on the radio dial, allowing consumers to access Internet radio content from around the world.
His current music enterprises are DayDream VR and The Surf Shack Studio in
Ventura, California
Ventura, officially named San Buenaventura (Spanish for "Saint Bonaventure"), is a city in and the county seat of Ventura County, California, United States. It is a coastal city located northwest of Los Angeles. The population was 110,763 at the ...
.
Among his most notable production works are
Neil Young
Neil Percival Young (born November 12, 1945) is a Canadian and American singer-songwriter. After embarking on a music career in Winnipeg in the 1960s, Young moved to Los Angeles, forming the folk rock group Buffalo Springfield. Since the begi ...
's ''
This Note's for You
''This Note's for You'' is the 18th studio album by Canadian-American musician Neil Young, released April 11, 1988, on Reprise. The album marked Young's return to the recently reactivated Reprise Records after a rocky tenure with Geffen Records. ...
'', ''
Freedom
Freedom is the power or right to speak, act, and change as one wants without hindrance or restraint. Freedom is often associated with liberty and autonomy in the sense of "giving oneself one's own laws".
In one definition, something is "free" i ...
'', ''
Living with War'', and ''
Barn'',
Warren Zevon
Warren William Zevon (January 24, 1947 – September 7, 2003) was an American rock singer and songwriter. His most famous compositions include "Werewolves of London", "Lawyers, Guns and Money" and "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner". All t ...
's ''
Sentimental Hygiene'',
Steve Perry's first solo album ''
Street Talk
''Street Talk'' is Steve Perry's first solo studio album, released on April 5, 1984.
''Street Talk'' contains Perry's biggest hit as a solo artist, " Oh Sherrie", written for his then-girlfriend Sherrie Swafford.Steve Perry talks about the re ...
'', and
Melissa Etheridge's debut
self-titled album.
Bolas is known for his clear and loud recordings of vocals.
In the early 1980s, Bolas collaborated with American hard rock band
Kiss
A kiss is the touching or pressing of one's lips against another person, animal or object. Cultural connotations of kissing vary widely; depending on the culture and context, a kiss can express sentiments of love, passion, romance, sex ...
. He worked on their album ''
Creatures of the Night
''Creatures of the Night'' is the tenth studio album by American rock band Kiss, released in 1982. It was the band's last for Casablanca Records, the only label for which Kiss had recorded up to that point. The album was dedicated to the memor ...
'', recording
Eric Carr
Paul Charles Caravello (July 12, 1950 – November 24, 1991), better known as Eric Carr, was an American musician. He was the drummer for the rock band Kiss from 1980 until his death in 1991. Caravello was selected as the new Kiss drummer afte ...
's drums. Bolas appears in the cover of the
Toto album, ''
Fahrenheit
The Fahrenheit scale () is a scale of temperature, temperature scale based on one proposed in 1724 by the German-Polish physicist Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit (1686–1736). It uses the degree Fahrenheit (symbol: °F) as the unit. Several accou ...
'' (1986); he is the man walking in the photograph and watching a woman. Bolas was a friend of
Jeff Porcaro
Jeffrey Thomas Porcaro (April 1, 1954 – August 5, 1992) was an American drummer. He is best known for being the co-founder and drummer of the rock band Toto, but is also one of the most recorded session musicians in history, working on hundr ...
; Porcaro wanted Bolas on the cover.
References
External links
*
neeks.com - Niko Bolas' personal site* http://www.blackbirdstudio.com/
* http://web.me.com/essphillips/BlackbirdPro/Home.html
Niko Bolas Interviewat
NAMM Oral History Collection (2015)
Year of birth missing (living people)
Living people
American record producers
American audio engineers
{{US-record-producer-stub