TranceForm grew out of a studio project. I owned a studio (Mirror Image), and Ric and I also played music together and owned a record store named Hyde and Zeke (also the music group's name--some kind of evil corporate vertical marketing scheme). We met David because he was coming to Gainesville to do soundtracks for the Hippodrome Theater. George came into the picture after J.D. Foster (a great bass player who previously played with the Jim Conner Band) left for L.A. (where he later played with Dwight Yoakam and eventually the Silos, another band with Gainesville roots that had some independent success in the 80's). George played a mean bass, plus brought in a pretty stellar talent playing homemade bamboo flutes. Ralph had done quite a few sessions for Hippodrome soundtracks, and, when he wasn't throwing drum sticks at David out of frustration, proved his mettle.
We were all writing songs and some of them started making their way onto tape, and the project just developed. We were aided and abetted by Paul Pavelka, co-owner of Mirror Image and the best engineer around in those days (he's now working at Skywalker Sound for the George Lucas empire). We released our album in 1981--not many bands were producing albums in those days, not like now when anybody and everybody makes CDs. We played a few gigs in support of the album--tough to get us altogether, since David was living in NYC and not terribly committed to the "band." Also, the temptation of overproduction (to which we willingly succumbed) made it challenging to realize the sound we had on the record live. In those pre-Midi/pre-computer dark ages, we actually had to resort to hiring another human to help us manage all the parts (Barry Kollender was his name).
Despite our lack of support our album was received very well, and we eventually sold out the entire run of 1,000. We had sales in Europe, and a few years ago I sold the records I had remaining to a collector in Ohio. Apparently TranceForm had graduated to some dubious cult status.
The music on "Stranger" is pretty diverse, reflecting all the contributors. In retrospect I'm quite proud of the effort, though after 20 years of additional extensive experience at writing, recording, and producing I'd love to do it all again. The music holds up well, though it's rooted most in the prog-rock genre (Genesis, Yes, Gentle Giant era) and the lyrics veer in a faux cosmic direction more than I would like (then or now).
George and I still live in Gainesville. George is heavily musically involved with Lisa Lynn Franco, previous Windham Hill artist, now signed to another independent label and pretty successful on the New Age charts. Ric is a dot com entrepreneur in California. Last I knew Ralph was in Orlando selling radio ads. I'll remain tactfully silent about Dave Smadbeck. I sold the studio a few years ago but still record there on a project basis.