Les Fradkin Video Collection

Guitarist Les Fradkin is one of the original members of the hit Broadway show "Beatlemania", a Guitar Synthesizer pioneer of the 1980's, a neo classical guitar trendsetter in the 1990's and is a 21st Century electronic music innovator on the Starr Labs Ztar. A classically trained musician as well as being a rock guitarist, he has found success as a recording artist, composer and producer with MGM Sunflower, ESP-Disk, Bell, Arista, RCA, and Laurie Records. Les has written the well known French hit "La Chansons Des Souvenirs" ("Song Of A Thousand Voices") for the famous French songstress Mireille Mathieu and the Latin Pop icon Roberto Jordan ("Donde"). He has played Mellotron, 12 and 6-string Guitar, Bass and Piano on dozens of Top 40 hit records throughout the early 1970's , scoring many US and UK chart placings throughout his career.

He was also an original member / singer / guitarist for the pop group California on Laurie Records in the US and RCA Records in the UK for it's entire existence from 1973 through 1985. California had several chart records including the 1981 release "Summer Fun Medley"-a medley of Beach Boys hits, "Jeans On", "He's Almost You" (charting in the United Kingdom) and an appearance on the Dick Clark American Bandstand television show.

In 1976, Les was selected over thousands of other auditioning guitarists to appear in the original cast of the smash hit Broadway musical "Beatlemania" playing lead guitar and the part of "George Harrison" in New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago. Running for two and a half years from May 1977 thru October 1979, every show (including over 1200 in New York alone) was sold out and the musicians quickly became celebrities with magazine cover stories ("Newsweek","Time", "People", "Rolling Stone") and many major television show appearances. With his guitar-playing in the international spotlight from the show, Fradkin developed a cult following that has avidly followed his career and made him a celebrity among guitar fans.

IIn 1996, he founded the rock group "Get Wet" and started a new surf guitar trend with Neo Classic Surf featuring a blend of stylistic references including The Ventures, Dick Dale, Jeff Beck as well as Classical Composers such as Bach, Paganinni, Vivaldi and others. This music found immediate success on the mp3.com charts with Get Wet enjoying 230,000 downloads and 16 #1 hit singles from 1999 thru 2001. Les and the band were also featured in the first edition of "MP3 For Dummies as an example of early indie musician success stories.

New Gandy Dancer Rock Magazine named Les' CD "A Day At The Beach" it's 2004 Album Of The Year. In addition, Les has performed with The Ventures as 2nd Lead Guitarist. Nokie Edwards of The Ventures has performed with Les on several occasions and is a featured guest on his "While My Guitar Only Plays" CD. In fact, Les has been acknowledged as a guitar virtuoso for over 30 years and he has been featured in issues of 20th Century Guitar Magazine, Pipeline and New Gandy Dancer Magazines.

Les has scored the theme and three additional songs for the documentary "An Accidental Icon-The True Story Of Gidget".

To date, Les has released 20 solo CD's on his RRO Entertainment Indie label and has had over 360,000 downloads bringing him several substantial hits on Apple iTunes and other download sites across the Internet.

Nowadays, Les has been developing new techniques for a revolutionary new instrument called the Starr Labs Ztar. He combines two handed tapping, finger picking and Ableton Live Clip triggering into a seamless new technique, never before seen on MIDI Guitar.

His current music is a mixture of various influences and signposts including Rock, Progressive, Electronica, Ambient, Guitar Instrumental and Classical.

Robert Fripp once remarked in Guitar Player Magazine: "There is a new music to go with this new instrument. Therein lies my interest in the guitar synthesizer. That something entirely new will appear." This COULD be it! Come have a look and listen to the MIDI Guitar sound of the future.

Equipment Notes:

My current MIDI kit consists of a Starr Labs Ztar with optional breath controller, ribbon controller, joystick, neckstrip and Air Power MIDI wireless. My synth set up includes Ableton Live Suite 8, Novation Remote Zero SL Controller, Propellerhead Reason 4, Propellerhead Record, Apple Logic Pro 9, MOTU Digital Performer 7, MOTU Symphonic Instrument, MOTU Ethno Instrument 2, Native Instruments Reaktor 5, The Finger, Absynth 5, FM8, Massive, KONTAKT 4, KORE 2, Vienna Symphonic Library, GForce M-Tron Pro, Arturia Moog Modular, Mini Moog and Arp 2600V.

My current guitar kit:
Wilson Bros. Ventures Model Guitars,
Fender Stratocasters, Fender Strat XII,
Rickenbacker 360/12v64, Alesis X-Guitar, Epipehone "John Lennon" Casino,
Epiphone G-1275 Doubleneck,
Roland VG-8EX V-Guitar System

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