Dead Eye Darter and his new venture Dead Eye Digitalis: a label, a memorial, and an outlet for underground music.
Dead Eye Darter started making music in 2016 as a way to entertain his father, who had been diagnosed with small cell lung cancer. At his fathers request, Darter quit working away from home to stay close him. Prior to music, Darter made wooden sculptures and painted with acrylics, which his father enjoyed seeing. As his fathers health worsened, he could no longer see the artworks clearly. While already self-teaching himself guitar as a hobby, Darter worked harder to play better and played more often, to his father’s enjoyment. “On the last day of July in 2016, he passed away right in front of my very eyes, and I began singing as I played,” explains Darter. The grief of losing his father pushed him farther into his music. It became an outlet for his emotions and a way to dispel the pain of loss. By October of 2016, he was using his phone to record the songs he had created and began releasing them on YouTube as Dead Eye Darter.
With a mix of a habit while playing, and a haunting dream shortly after the passing of his father, the Dead Eye name has been aptly given to this set of projects. While playing, Darter has a tendency to roll his eyes back, just enough for the whites of his eyes to be seen. Not anything over the top, but enough to be noticed by those in attendance and those viewing his videos, giving him the appearance of having dead eyes. The dream came just days after his fathers passing. It has been taken as one last visit before passing onto the other side, a stall for time to see loved ones. Within the dream, as the visit was coming to its end, his father looked up at him and “he had the eyes of the dead. I’ll never forget those pale grey/white glassy eyes.” And thus, Dead Eye Darter became the name of his musical project.
Back in 2001, while in college Darter began playing around with soundscapes and experimental tunes. Using a college issued Macbook he composed most of what would later become the album Eynak Tzew from his other project, Anhinga-agnihnA. After being dropped from the course, the recordings would be shelved until he finished and released the album in October 2019. The experimental sounds of Eynak Tzew mix synth with sounds of travel and the music heard within day to day life. There are string instruments and drums, with some elements of industrial thrown in.
Dead Eye Digitalis is a newly formed digital download record label. It was created in order to release the compilation album the Death Roots Syndicate — THE END(a compilation by D.E.D.) in tribute to the late Dustin Jeffries, owner of the record label Death Roots Syndicate. “Without Dustin Jefferies, I don’t think I’d be much of a musician at all,” says Darter. Because of being a fan and joining the Death Roots Syndicate Facebook group, Darter was eventually put in contact with Jeffries, who offered to put together an album comprised of the singles Darter had been releasing. With that one online conversation, to now 20 albums under his belt, Dead Eye Darter admittedly owes a lot to the label, and his late friend, Dustin Jeffries. Now with his own label, Dead Eye Digitalis, Darter released a fitting tribute to his friend and label owner. “He compiled my first album, and in turn of the full circle, I compiled his last album!” Not only is the first Dead Eye Digitalis release a tribute, the naming of the label is as well. Digitalis is the name of the drug obtained from the dried leaves of the common foxglove, and is used to treat heart conditions. That, along with one of the meanings to the phrase “Behind dead eyes”, meaning in thought or remembrance, Dead Eye Digitalis has become a “call to remember the greatest-hearted man I ever knew,” Darter explains.
Dead Eye Darter, Anhinga-agnihnA, and now Dead Eye Digitalis, show the true definition of Do-It-Yourself music and production. He started as a broken-hearted man, dispelling his grief with song. Using a basic guitar and a karaoke machine with a phone to record, he started posting to social media, as many do. With a little luck on his side, and the right people watching, he made an album. Now, he is taking that same mentality and turning it towards others in the same shoes. While there are no concrete plans, as he is taking things as they come and keeping things as unplanned as they were at the start, there are going to be many good things to come from Dead Eye Digitalis and its now primary artist Dead Eye Darter. The label is currently and will remain until like in all aspects of life, things change, a not-for-profit digital resource for music. “Never did I think it’d go on this long, nor would I have even said I was a musician,” laughs Darter. “Now I’m a label owner. I like to think my Dad would be proud of what I’ve accomplished.”
Find all D.E.D. Projects on Bandcamp and at the links below!