Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Gary Storm. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Gary, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

I created a radio show of Songs Against Fascism. I offered a thumbnail definition of fascism: Fascism is a system of government that serves the wealthy, big business, and the political elite, while exploiting, manipulating, and repressing the remainder of the population. Also, I presented an extensive discussion of Dr. Lawrence Britt’s fourteen characteristics, or points, of fascism.
I explained that Donald Trump is a fascist, indistinguishable in his expressed beliefs from Hitler, Mussolini, Vadimir Putin, or Kim Jong Un, and that the entire Republican Party is a fascist organization.
And I played great music, including: Heaven 17 – (We Don’t Need This) Fascist Groove Thang; Woody Guthrie – Tear the Fascists Down; Dead Kennedys – Nazi Punks Fuck Off; Public Enemy – Fight the Power; Nina Simone – Mississippi Goddam; and Peter Tosh – Downpressor Man.
This show will be rebroadcast a month prior to the election.
Several people approached me about this show, saying it offered words that helped them explain their opposition to Trump and the Republicans.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I was born in the birthplace of the atomic bomb, Los Alamos, New Mexico. My father was a physicist at the Los Alamos Laboratories who designed the badges that detect the extent to which a person has been exposed to dangerous radiation. He was also a writer of fiction and was the most well-read person I ever met. In his pursuit of a literary career, he changed his name to Ellery Storm from Benjamin Matelsky. My mother worked at home and also did clerical work for the Laboratory.
After high school I attended the University of New Mexico, where I enrolled in the Bachelor of University Studies program, which allowed me to take any classes I wanted, and only required the accumulation of a sufficient number of credits. Around 1974, I was staying up all night, reading Beowulf in Old English, and listening to the college radio station KUNM. As I listened to the radio DJ’s music, I thought, I can do better than that. One day I walked into the station and said, I want to be an all-night DJ. That was the beginning of my radio career. I immediately realized that, despite my arrogance, I knew nothing about music. I spent many hours every day, over the course of months, listening through the radio station’s record library.
I graduated magna cum laude and was awarded a fellowship to the State University of New York at Buffalo English Department. At SUNY Buffalo, I went to the campus radio station, WBFO, and said, I want to be an all-night DJ. I named my show Oil of Dog and was on the air four nights every week.
In my studies I focused on James Joyce, epic literature, and romantic literature. My professors included the great poets John Logan and Robert Creeley, and the great scholars Leslie Fiedler, Diane Christian, and Bruce Jackson.
One of my classmates was Bruno Clarke, who was a founding member of the and Sha Na Na, and who is the only person I have ever met who actually played on stage at Woodstock. Bruno is a great bass player, guitarist, and songwriter, and soon we were talking about forming a band. Around 1976, we gathered a number of musicians and formed a band called Extra Cheese. Bruno and I wrote many songs together, and we gigged all around the Buffalo, New York, area. Extra Cheese evolved into a new band called Seventh Generation. Around 1978, we released a cassette tape album, and shortly thereafter, broke up.
I took way too long to complete my dissertation because I was having fun playing music, attending concerts, and interviewing rock stars like Blondie, The Ramones, and AC-DC. My dissertation was about all-night progressive radio and was, I suspect, one of the first dissertations to opine about rock’n’roll. I earned my Ph.D. in English in 1982.
After more than 6 years at public radio WBFO, I moved to commercial radio, first to WZIR and then to WUWU. I was music director at both stations and continued to enjoy absolute freedom as an all-night disc jockey. I interviewed many rock stars and had my picture taken with them. These images are included in my dissertation.
During this time, I met Linda, a brilliant artist, at a radio station beach party. We talked and talked and have never stopped communicating. We married live on WUWU-FM radio in 1983. Linda continues to create amazing paintings to this day.
Commercial radio was a bizarre and corrupt world, and I was not shy about expressing my opinions about unethical conduct. I was fired once by WZIR and three times from WUWU. These events compelled me to pursue other lines of work. I joined Linda, who was a fashion designer at the time, and entered the world of manufacturing clothing. It was exciting to make big sales to companies like JC Penny, but when the stock market crashed in 1987, so did the entire clothing industry. Even though I had a Ph.D., jobs were hard to come by in Buffalo, NY. I spent a couple of years as a public school teacher, an encyclopedia salesperson, a taxi driver, and a telemarketer, until one of my friends suggested I attend law school.
I enrolled in the SUNY at Buffalo Law School and I earned my law degree, cum laude, in 1993. Upon graduating, I found a position as a judicial clerk for the Supreme Court of New Mexico. We packed up the family, the furniture, and thousands of vinyl records, and journeyed to New Mexico. I loved my work at the Supreme Court and wrote opinions for the judges for more than six years.
During that time I returned to radio, doing a show called Psychedelic Psunday on KTAO in Santa Fe. One day, as I was doing my show, a car roared up in the radio station parking lot, and the burly program director burst in demanding I give him the record I was playing. It was the song “Mind Flowers” by Ultimate Spinach. I asked if there was something wrong with the record and he said, Yeah it’s not top-twenty. So I experienced the honor of being fired for playing Ultimate Spinach.
Around 1995 I started jamming, mostly on my viola, with a group of musicians including the Academy Award winning actor Wes Studi, the incredible singer Maura Dhu Studi, the late Oneida painter and songwriter Bruce King, and Benito Concha, the legendary hoop dancer and drummer from Taos Pueblo. We formed a band named Firecat of Discord and recorded an album which was released in 1998. We toured numerous venues around the USA including the Ryman Theater in Nashville, the Fillmore West in San Francisco, the Biltmore in Phoenix, and casinos in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and New Mexico. Though Firecat no longer exists, I continue to jam with Wes and Maura Studi. Included in our jams is Bruno Clarke (from Extra Cheese), who recently moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico.
After the Supreme Court of New Mexico, I spent one dreadful year in private law practice, and, in 2001, was accepted as an attorney for the New Mexico Office of the State Engineer. I have, since that time, been doing water law for the State of New Mexico.
In 2012 I released an album named Songs for Children. Many of the 14 songs on this album were composed in collaboration with my children. They came up with many great lyrics including “sunshine in the middle of the night, all the monsters have come to fight,” and “Once there was a Teddy Bear who lived inside a barn, he said unto the people there, behold I mean no harm.” This CD of songs is available from numerous sources online. I have played these kids songs in schools and parties, and a children’s chorus in San Francisco asked for permission to perform my Solstice Song during their assembly.
Also in 2012, I went to the public radio station, KSFR in Santa Fe, and said I want to be a late night disc jockey. The program director was very impressed by all the pictures of me with rock stars, and Oil of Dog returned to the airwaves. On my show, I jockey vinyl discs, compact discs, reel-to-reel tapes, cassette tapes, and digital files. I play all kinds of music: rock, rap, folk, soul, R&B, jazz, classical, country, mix producers, world music, cajun, cumbia, reggae, IDM, Indian classical music, glitch, disco, electronic – everything.
In 2014, Oil of Dog was picked up by LKCB, a streaming online station from Canada. Just this year, 2024, my show was picked up by Electromagnetic Radio, a streaming online station from New York. I am in the process of submitting Oil of Dog to SiriusXM.
My day job continues to be water law. Because I work with beautiful maps as a water law attorney, I became interested in the idea of maps as art. I have written two scholarly articles about how maps function as works of art.
As elders, deserving respect for our lifelong experience, Linda and I purchased two old adobe buildings in Santa Fe, New Mexico. We are working to transform them into an art space, which will include art residencies, Linda’s art gallery and studio, a retail space and record store, and my radio production studio. This new life adventure is called The StormHold.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

I am a member of the New Mexico Music Commission Foundation Board. One project I have been working on since 2017 is to provide the music industry a tax credit, similar to the tax benefits enjoyed by the film industry in New Mexico. The New Mexico State Music Production Tax Credit would reward investment in the music industry through a refundable tax credit. I have written a proposal for a New Mexico Music Industry Tax Credit, and I have drafted proposed legislation. I recently spoke to members of the New Mexico legislature who have expressed a willingness to help me realize this benefit for the Music Industry.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

The Little Golden Book, Scuffy the Tugboat, published in 1946 by Gertrude Crampton, and illustrated by Tibor Gergely, is the tale of an epic journey, comparable to the journeys of Odysseus or Dante or Gilgamesh. Scuffy is a toy tugboat who is frustrated by his life in the bathtub. He believes he was “meant for bigger things.” His owners, the man with the Polkadot Tie and his son, take Scuffy to a nearby brook in a pasture and set him afloat. Just as Odysseus embarks on a journey home; and Dante is lead by Virgil and Beatrice to divine understanding; and Gilgamesh, upon the death of Enkidu, embarks on a futile search for the secret of eternal life, Scuffy finds the world to be far larger and more threatening than he imagined. He escapes the man and the boy, exclaiming, “This is the life for me!” His heroic quest carries him away from the brook, to a stream flowing through the country side, and then a river that runs through a town, and to a larger river that flows through a city. Along the way he must avoid being crushed by logs floating down the river, and swamped by human-driven boats, and inundated by fierce weather. Finally he heads toward the open sea. He realizes he really wants to be home in his bathtub. Just as he drifts into the oblivion of the wide ocean, he is plucked from the water by the Man with the Polkadot Tie. This is a true epic-style deus ex machina. Upon his return to the bathtub, he says, “Now this is the life for me.”
So it is that all creatives engage in an epic quest, and encountering obstacles and failures, but always returning to the creative endeavors that bring fulfillment.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://oilofdog.com/
• Instagram: oilofdog
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/oilofdog/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gary-storm-04444352/
• Soundcloud: https://m.soundcloud.com/garystorm-music
• Other: The text of my scholarly paper, Paradoxes: The Theme and Variations in the Visual Arts — False-color Cartography and the Grainstacks of Claude Monet:
  https://www.jstor.org/stable/29764467

Image Credits

Zowie Photo
Linda Storm
Jane Rosemont
Richard Chon