MySpace a place for friends

Message to the newly friend-requested: It's possible that I friend-requested you because I found you in the friends of a venue I'm playing at or band I'm playing with in the near future. Lots of bands do this. There's no pressure. Have a listen to the songs on the player, and if it's not your thing, then by all means don't worry about me feeling bad if you don't accept the request. I won't take it personally.

"That’s what wrong with my job, too, you know. Too much talk about the nobility of it, and how the public ought to get down on its knees before the artist simply because he has the infernal gall to say that he is an artist, and not enough honest admission that he does what he does because that is the way he is made." -- Humphrey Cobbler, fictional character, The Salterton Trilogy.

by way of bio:

Careening dangerously from gloomy or tortured to joyous or downright silly, with plenty of "what the hell is he singing about" moments, Chuck Hoffman seems determined to make each of his songs its own unique animal, and keep audiences guessing.

After several years in a string of indie rock and noise bands and lo-fi recording projects mostly unheard outside his home turf of Waterloo/Cedar Falls, Iowa, Chuck Hoffman completed a degree in Computer Science and pursued a career in software development, working for a web development firm until it was torn apart by a pack of hungry wolves cleverly disguised as investors in early 2008. Tough times pushed Chuck to take solace in music, but this time he chose to orient his writing energies to a solo project and his band-playing energies toward backing up friends whose songwriting he enjoys. By year's end he had self-released a homebrew solo album, on CD-R and download, that showcased his multi-instrumental capabilities and unhinged guitar-strangling in the service of some distinctly off-center songs; began playing one-man live shows aided by a drum machine and looper pedal; and toured playing bass and trumpet for Iowa City songwriter Samuel Locke-Ward. A second album was recorded the same year and released in similar fashion in the fall of 2009 after Chuck relocated to Des Moines, IA and joined the long-respected band Why Make Clocks on bass and backup vocals.

As of Fall 2009, Chuck Hoffman is writing and recording new material both as a soloist and with Why Make Clocks, and is on the lookout for interesting projects and collaborations.

("Busted Old Walkman" excerpt, live Aug. 21 2008)