Chuck Hammer is a composer and an American guitarist born in New York City.
Chuck Hammer introduced ‘Guitarchitecture’ in 1977 to extend the guitars sonic vocabulary. His Guitarchitecture involves expanding the guitars vocabulary by altering its temporal context and characteristics. This sustainer completely changed the temporal properties of guitar like: discrete vibrato techniques, breaking down the chords to it basic elements and recording each element separately, textual event layering and reshaping timbres.
Chuck Hammer is known for seminal guitar-synth with David Bowie, Guitarchitecture and Lou Reed. He toured with Lou Reed’s band from 1979 to 1980. During this tour he played in the albums ‘The Bells’ in 1979 and ‘Growing Up in Public’ in 1980 using guitar-synth technology. At the same time he developed an approach to composing and recording known as ‘Guitarchitechure’ and made a shady appearance as a record producer in the movie ‘One Trick Pony’ with the musician Paul Simon.
Chuck Hammer recorded guitar-synth tracks using guitar synthesizer ‘Roland GR-500’ for the album ‘Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)’ in September 1980 for David Bowie, which included the songs ‘Ashes to Ashes’, ‘Up the Hill Backwards’ and ‘Teenage Wildlife’.
Chuck Hammer began composing film soundtracks in 1983 with an early digital synthesizer ‘Synclavier’. Chuck recorded ‘Glacial Guitars’ with the series of Guitarchitechure pieces which included string controlled sampling and cello timbres in 1985 and with a series of solo audio pieces he recorded ‘Cathedral Guitars’ in 1986.
Chuck Hammer composed ‘The Seasons’ with the choreographer David Gordon for the Next Wave Festival in November 1986. ‘The Seasons’ was premiered at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Chuck planned AVA Studios in New York City with a multi media production facility which focused on making television and film music in 1989.
Chuck Hammer composed soundtracks for non fiction documentaries between 1994 and 2004 by collaborating with ‘National Geographic’, ‘New York Times’, ‘A&E Network’ and ‘Discovery Communications’. He composed soundtrack for the movie ‘Crazy Eights’ in 2006 and ‘The Wreck’ in 2007.
Some of his albums include:
- ‘Growing Up in Public’ in 1980
- ’Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)’ in 1980
- ‘Escape Artist’ and ‘Rock in 1980
- Roll Diary: 1967-1980’ in 1980
- ‘Showstopper’ in 1982
- ‘City Lights’ in 1985
- ‘Someday’ in 1986
- ‘Between Thought and Expression: The Lou reed Anthology’ in 1992
- ‘No Gravity’ in 1994
- ‘Perfect Day’ in 1999
- ‘The Collection’ in 2005
Some of his Guitarchitecture recordings include:\
- Glacial Guitars
- Cathedral Guitars (solo Acoustica 1)
- Avignon Crosses (solo Acoustica 2)
- Moonless Night
- Shelter Curve
- Arctic Circles