Inspired by European dance sounds, seasoned with American rock, David walks the grey space in between. Neither cutting edge nor retro, neither '80s nor now, neither New Wave nor Modern Rock, his unique brand of music continues to convert skeptics into fans and enjoys substantial critical acclaim.

To date, David has released five albums to the public. His 1992 debut album, Chivalry, sold over 100 hand-made cassette copies through local consignment and over the Internet. Other albums have included Affection and Lust (1994), One Swell Foop: Instrumentalysis v2.0 (1999), and Calliope (2002). Previous to Chivalry, David produced many cassette demo albums, the best moments of which were collected onto the 2005 retrospective The Best of David Vesel Volume One 1987-1994. David is presently working on his newest album, Your Mileage May Vary.

Biography

David was born on April 13, 1968, in Milton, Florida, USA, while his father served in the Navy during the Vietnam War. His family moved back to their hometown of Festus, Missouri, in 1970. David began playing the piano at age 5 and had the typical upbringing of a gifted but geeky kid. He joined with high school friend Ken Fluharty for his first band, Mindscape, which was quickly absorbed into another high school band, The Situation, where he traded in his piano for a Farfisa organ. The band experience was disappointing and uninspiring, so he struck out on his own, writing his own songs and seeking a way to record them.

He created his first tape in 1987, The Paradise of Anarchy, a fitting title for a collection of crudely overdubbed songs that one could barely tolerate listening to. While attending college at Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois, David managed to get in good with a fledgling organization called the Computer Musician's Cooperative (which still exists, it's now called the Creative Musician's Coalition and mostly caters to New Age artists), which had a MIDI lab in the back of Rox Bucklin's Keyboard Shoppe (Rox was the organist for the Peoria Civic Center.) Four months of exchanging lab time for showing the rig off to prospective customers yielded the music for David's first two proper albums, New York State of Mind and It's All in How We Perceive the World.

Going it alone proved a sobering experience, with no gear, no money, and no hope of getting anywhere in music. Throughout college, he continued to produce music of vastly varying quality, scrounging gear whenever he could manage. Demo albums during this time included Love, Truth, and Honesty; A Moment in Time . . . .; Integrity; Instrumentalysis, and Innocent But Corruptible. During this time, he made his first compilation appearance, with "Picture-Perfect Valentine" winning a spot on the cassette-only1990 Usenet Compilation, a sub-indie collection by artists who frequented the rec.music.synth newsgroup on the Internet. The Internet looked as if it could be something significant, and David began using it to promote his music.

His first breakthrough came in 1992, with the release of Chivalry, the first album David produced that had enough quality to inflict on the public, which he did in the form of homemade cassettes. Through local Peoria record stores and over the Internet, David managed to sell over 100 copies of Chivalry. Noted Internet synthpop reviewer Al Crawford wrote a mostly favorable review on the Usenet newsgroup rec.music.reviews, which no doubt helped sales.

Then the great drought began. Out of college, under pressure to get a "real" career going in computers, and increasingly suffering from clinical depression, David moved to Deland, Florida, and managed to produce the decidedly sub-par Affection and Lust in early 1994. While not truly awful, the album sold nearly no copies, and David himself was largely dissatisfied with the results outside of two or three songs. He hung it up, retiring from music and selling most of his gear in order to try to make a proper life. He married his college girlfriend, Ann, in 1995, and made another cross-country move to Portland, Oregon, in 1996.

Having gotten a handle on his depression, David decided to make another go at music in 1999. He bought a new synthesizer and as a test case, produced the instrumental collection One Swell Foop: Instrumentalysis v2.0. While he was gone from music, significant things happened on the Internet. The World Wide Web came along, and later the "on-line music distributor", web sites that provide an outlet for independent and unsigned musicians. David made an account and web page at mp3.com, and later Ampcast, in 2000. He posted tracks from One Swell Foop, including the lone single, "Sensation" (an adaptation of Bach and Gounod's "Ave Maria"), which climbed into the top 10 on mp3.com's Electronic Classical chart.

At the same time, David discovered that the synthpop scene didn't die completely, it just went underground. Discovering dozens of bands of similar ilk on mp3.com and on other web sites, David resolved to produce a new vocal album. David tested the waters by floating a new vocal single of his own, "The Caves" (a song about his battle with depression), which was well-received enough to resume producing pop music.

David's son, Eric, was born in 2000, and shortly afterward he and his family moved back to St. Louis, Missouri, where he began working on the new album, The Rape of Calliope, in earnest. The album was sonically compelling, and thanks to greatly advanced and inexpensive computer-based digital recording technology, it was easily David's most accomplished production to date -- but there was a problem with the title. Taken from a short story from the Sandman comic book series about a hack writer who kidnaps the Greek muse and rapes her in order to write brilliantly (intended as a self-effacing reference to David's own songwriting), too many people interpreted the title as a misogynistic statement, and so the title was shortened to Calliope.

Calliope was released in the autumn of 2002. Things were slow at first. Calliope failed to sell many copies, but critical response to the album was largely positive. Reviewers at Gods of Music, synthpop.net, and synthpop.ru gave positive comments to the album, with the synthpop.net review giving it 3.5 stars out of 5. Not bad for a home-produced album with minimal equipment. The third single from the album, "Stained Glass", stayed atop the synthpop chart on Ampcast for over a year. Although never a big seller, Calliope established David in the Internet electropop scene. In April of 2003, David was signed to 14:59 Records, his first recording contract. Unfortunately, 14:59 folded in November before David could release any music.

After rebuilding his home studio, David began working on his new album, Your Mileage May Vary, in December. Odd personal challenges continually set production back. In March, his daughter Maggie was born, which was joyous news, but then his son Eric was diagnosed with autism. David was also diagnosed with Diabetes, and in September he had to admit that he had an issue with alcohol abuse. And that was just 2004. 2005 has been a whole lot better, and production resumed on the album in September.

Once again rescheduled for release in April 2006, it promises to be his best effort yet. Stay tuned for more developments!