Virtuoso stick player Tom Griesgraber has a slew of new projects ahead, including the soundtrack to a new documentary, a new solo album and an upcoming tour with acclaimed combo, The California Guitar Trio.
Just out is Griesgrabers score for the soundtrack to a new documentary about scientist / farmer Wes Jackson, Prairie Prophecy, directed by Michael R. MJ. Johnson. “Currently the film is being featured in screenings and film festivals but it will be on streaming sometime this year,” he said. “The album, titled The Split, features all 19 tracks from the full-length film as well as two bonus tracks that were created as alternates.” The tracks are presented in the order they appear in the film, with recurring motifs and themes that develop throughout. “The music features myself on Chapman Stick throughout as well as some analog synths and samples,” Griesgraber continues. “My California Guitar Trio bandmate Bert Lams makes a guest appearance on one track as well.”
Was recording the soundtrack a different process than working on his own solo material? “It might seem odd, but I found the writing to be easier,” he said. “I think it’s because I was always writing under and around things happening on screen and people talking. The goal was to make the music interesting and emotional, but rarely for it to be grabbing all the viewers’ attention. It felt more like being a performer in a large band versus being a solo performer alone on stage. It was also interesting because I was never limited to instrumentation. I could never run out of fingers, hah!”
Griesgraber was given a video to work with, which in many places had temp music in place. “So, I had a sense of the feel they wanted, but from the beginning we wanted to feature the Chapman Stick. The director is a fan of my solo music and realized as far as we know nobody’s ever done a soundtrack featuring The Stick. In the end the music wound up featuring that plus orchestral strings and other samples, and a good amount of analog synths like Sequential’s Prophet six, Moog Taurus pedals, etc. The movie focuses a lot on how industrialized agriculture is actually out of sync with nature. “The Split” so to speak is how humans have become a species out of context. In the music I wound up trying to use the synths more when people were discussing the problems of industrialization and when they were talking more about nature or the progress scientists are making, I used the Stick and strings more. It was also quite fun getting to develop musical themes. There are motifs that occur early in the film in a more simple fashion then come back more developed or re-arranged later. Not something I’ve ever done on an album!”
In addition to the new Prairie Phrophecy documentary, Griesgraber has also just released a solo album, Whisper In The Thunder. “A few of the songs started as (one of my earlier group’s) Agent 22 songs, but (our drummer) RyMo was always busy back then with the B-Side Players and (our guitarist) Jimmy Patton was busy with his packed calendar of local gigs. So, it morphed into a solo record. Then it got picked up by an ambient label who encouraged me to take the solo Stick tracks and make them more “orchestrated.” The album is an all-star affair. “I brought drummers Pat Mastelotto (King Crimson, Mr Mister), Darren DeBree (Hectic Watermelon) and Jerry Marotta (Peter Gabriel), plus my friend Don Schiff on NS/Stick for one song (Stick/bass hybrid.. he played bass with Elvis, hah!) and the original lineup of California Guitar Trio, with Hideyo Moriya, as well as Bert and Paul Richards. is on the album as well.”
Speaking of the California Guitar Trio, they’ll be heading out on tour this Spring, opening up on March 06 in Keene, NH, with dates so far through September 26 in Conway, NH. “I’ve been friends with Bert and Paul now for almost 25 years,” Griesgraber commented. “Bert’s actually at my house right now, and we’re back to working on a new CGT album, after my break for the movie,” he continued. Griesgraber notes that his solo work is different from his band work in many ways besides the obvious. “With CGT I actually enjoy the interplay not just in the instruments, but in how even something like repertoire comes together,” he explained. “There are covers we do for example that I would never think to do on my own and the range of styles in the group has always been wild. The new album goes from an Adagio for strings attributed to 18th century Venetian composer Tomaso Albinoni to the Alman Brothers song “Jessica,” with other pieces like one from Robert Fripp’s League of Crafty Guitarists (written by Bert) and the Beach Boys.”
Griesgraber also enjoys that “CGT has a fantastic fanbase too. There are people we get to see almost every year who are long-time fans and really now friends. Also, for me on Stick, it means I’m not always trying to play a million notes at once, so I’ve been able to develop several new playing techniques for the instrument, borrowing more from my guitar and bass background.”
For many folks, their first exposure to Griesgrabers music was via a performance at the San Diego County Fair, where he has been a beloved mainstay for the past 25 years, playing numerous sets a day. While the fair’s lineup for 2026 has yet to be confirmed, it’s hoped by many of his fans that Griesgraber will continue to play there for many years to come. “I’ve been performing there definitely since 2001, or maybe even 2000,” he said. “I know the first year we just had maybe 6 or so shows (with my band) Agent 22. Then once they saw what we did live, the next year they asked for two shows a day, one Agent, one solo. Peak year for busy-ness there was probably 2005 where I think I did 60 some shows in 22 days? I know it was 6-10 hours a day on stage.” He points out that this only occurred because the fair had booked an acrobat group from China that couldn’t work out their transportation and had to cancel at the last minute.
“Post-covid, I’ve had to miss one week of the fair each year due to CGT tours. So it’s a juggling act. But I still love it. I love the people, both staff and fair go-ers. It’s amazing but there are just people that come every year and looking for me is one of their list of things to do.” Case in point: “The director of Prairie Prophecy comes every year on Father’s Day. It’s his request to his family for the day. And coming to see me is one of his must do items. So much so that when the fair was closed during the pandemic, his family hired me and threw a surprise mini-fair party for him in their front yard. I was playing on the lawn, they set up a corn dog stand, popcorn, etc. It totally surprised him.”
Griesgraber considers that “musically the fair pushes me too. It’s a bit of a polar opposite to what I said about working on the movie. If the goal of the movie was to make interesting music that didn’t pull the attention away from what’s on screen, the goal of playing at the fair is to try to grab and hold people’s attention while there is so much fun stuff happening all around them,” he said.
Catch Prairie Prophecy at an upcoming film festival. Starting in April it will be available to all Public Television stations Details here: https://www.prairieprophecy.com
For more info on Tom Griesgraber and The Split: https://tomgriesgraber.com/thesplit
