introduction
neXt rAdio is the name of a band founded in the summer of 1991 by Tory Starbuck, Todd Mosby, yours truly (doctor mabuse), and Henry Claude.
Unfortunately the name ‘Next Radio’ was later trademarked by a media company; an act that did a thorough job of confusing and obscuring the band’s history on the internet . So I decided to post my account of neXt rAdio’s story in an effort to publish an eyewitness account of it’s founding and career for clarity and posterity. The band progressed through 3 substantive lineups from 1991 to 1997. Tory and I were the 2 members who were in all 3 lineups. I consulted with Tory in compiling the recollections that underpin this story. Naturally, other members and associates will have their own perspectives and I don’t promulgate mine as definitive. For clarity, with the exception of a 3-year hiatus from 1997 through 2000. I have collaborated with Tory Starbuck in various ensembles since 1991. neXt rAdio was only the first ensemble in my history with Tory. This is what happened in St. Louis for those 6 years in the 90’s as I saw it.
chapter 1 Tory, doc, Todd, & Henry,
Cummel’s Cafe’ , Pitch White Upstairs In The Basement, and The Movies
In 1991 I had a very different view of music than I do now. A major part of the neXt rAdio story for me is an artistic transformation. In June of 1991, before I met Tory, through the mentorship of Rich O’Donnell, I’d had about 5 years of deep exposure to avant garde music and advanced synthesizer technology. But that was still a side-dish at my music table. The main dish was still composed songs, played with as much advanced pyrotechnics as I could muster. I regarded ‘success’ as being able to play bass as fast as possible.
In the late 1980’s I played in some pick-up jam sessions at parties and met guitarist and keyboardist Todd Mosby. Todd had excellent jazz chops and I always looked forward to improvising with him on fake-book standards and whatever fusion material was trending. I was also playing infrequently in a trio called ‘Morph’ with my longtime colleague, guitarist Dave Glauber, and Henry Claude. Henry is a classically-trained musician and teacher with world-class chops. He led the Nuclear Percussion Ensemble and performed frequently with the St. Louis Symphony. In the late spring of 1991, at one of the party/jam sessions Todd told me about a coffee house in the Washington St. loft district of downtown St. Louis called Cummell’s Cafe’ ; that it was managed by ‘a kinda weird, but open-minded guy’ named Tory, who wore makeup and liked synthesizer music. Todd suggested that Cummell’s was open to eclectic performances and suggested that we try to book a night for Morph and one of his ensembles. He gave me Tory’s phone number. I’d just procured a Korg Wavestation and was keen to play it live for an audience so I dialed the number and someone answered the phone with the word ‘Meow’.
That phone call dropped the checkered-flag on my 3 decades (as of 2026) of collaboration with Tory Starbuck. Tory was loquacious and enthusiastic about booking us for a Saturday night gig. Tory liked what he heard, and readily booked us. Morph and Todd played a a few times at Cummell’s in the summer of 1991. Tory was involved in some of his own bands at the time but they were disintegrating due to the usual erosion of life’s circumstances. In that first ‘Meow’ phone conversation Tory told me, straight-out, that he was a ham. That is completely true in every sense. Tory needs an audience, and so when Tory’s performance opportunities were dissolving he started looking for new collaborators, and based on what he’d heard at Cummell’s, he invited me and Todd to an afternoon jam session with him. Todd seemed immediately amenable. I, on the other hand, had a lot of reservations. But Todd’s interest was persuasive enough to get me to show up and give it a try. After the jam session, Tory asked if we would be interested in forming a band with him. I was very unsure. Tory played completely by ear. He had no knowledge of music theory. On guitar, he did not even identify barre-chords as major or minor. On the other hand. He was colorful , articulate, and entertaining. He had an exceptionally acute ear and a confident, accurate singing voice. Thus he was arguably well-equipped to be a front-man in a band. He had the exact skill-set that I lack. So despite my misgivings about his musical expertise, I agreed to work up a few songs with Tory and Todd to perform at Cummell’s. I figured that the whole affair would play once or twice for a dozen curious onlookers and then fizzle-out completely and forever. Tory liked to use stage names and (as I explain in my Curriculum Vitae) I adopted ‘doctor mabuse’ after about 30 seconds of thought, because I figured the whole thing would be defunct and forgotten in a month or two. Moreover, the idea of some anonymity and deniability about my involvement with this risky venture appealed to me a lot at the time. If I’d realized that 30 years hence most of the people I know would know me by that stage-name I might have given more thought to what I called myself.
Tory, Todd, & I had not named the group when we played our first couple of gigs at Cummell’s . Todd and I hoped to try to get percussionist extraordinaire Henry Claude involved. Henry’s skills were formidable. He could drive a groove with a single tambourine more effectively and creatively than most drummers could with a full kit. Henry had worked with both Todd and I in other projects but we were doubtful about Henry’s willingness to work with a complete musical autodidact like Tory. But Henry was game! I was frankly pretty surprised that a musician of Henry’s caliber decided to throw-in with our motley trio. But when he did our music kicked hard into high gear. At this incipient stage, Tory also kind of unilaterally invited a young bespectacled guy named Will Hanson into the mix. Will owned a few vintage analog synthesizers; the kind of gear in which both Tory and I shared a deep interest. Will was a capable synthesist, and he played a handful of the early gigs with us but he had a troubled relationship with his family and this messed with his reliability for rehearsals and performances After a couple of months he dropped out. There is footage of one of neXt rAdio’s very first large-format shows in a repurposed movie theater here . This footage includes Will (set-up on the raised stage) By September of 1991 we were a quartet: Tory, myself, Todd, and Henry. And it was then that we invented and adopted the name ‘neXt rAdio’.
We composed and arranged collaboratively. And all 4 of us were enthusiastic improvisers. Tory was ambitious and secured live-performance bookings at several venues in St. Louis. A local artist acquainted with Tory and his family named Bruce Wulff started showing up at our gigs and setting up fanciful props including projectors and cast-off TV’s. The early-era neXt rAdio show’s were labor-intensive elaborately staged affairs.; clearly , labors of love. (or if not love, then at least youthful ambition) . Fortunately some video footage survives of the first lineup.
neXt rAdio was visually striking and we were approached by a locally-resident movie producer named Gregg Smith to appear in a low-budget movie he was producing called ‘Cover Story” . We appear in the final cut as a band in a goth(ish) nightclub scene (scene contains partial nudity) .
Todd had a Fostex recording rig in his basement and with Todd producing and engineering, we recorded a collection of our originals there. The recording was self-released on cassette and titled “It’s Pitch White Upstairs in the Basement”.
At this point I”m going to interrupt the chronological organization of this article and insert a ‘sidebar’ on the subject of the recorded history of neXt rAdio. There is no comprehensive discography of neXt rAdio, it would be impossible to compile definitively. I focus on the 2 recordings that were produced in an overdubbed studio environment. But there are over a hundred recordings of the band in circulation, mostly recorded on cassette media by Tory or Tom Sutter who was in the 2nd & 3rd lineup. Tom is a prolific and well-known fixture in the global DIY cassette trading underground. “Pitch White” was merely the first of many many recordings of the band. Most the cassettes released featured the 3rd and final lineup. Tory also produced a cable television show at Double Helix television (dhTV) that featured improvisational music by neXt rAdio that aired for about seven years. Often video of the four members of the 2nd lineup of neXt rAdio appeared on the program improvising music in Perry Emge’s Icon studio. The footage would be quantized and processed through a video processing board. The show was named for a term that Perry coined: “Synthetic Divinity”. There is a lot of video of neXt rAdio at large. To this day, the former band members are finding media that neXt rAdio produced on the internet that we hadn”t realized was out there.
This original lineup of neXt rAdio was the densest concentration of technical musicianship in the bands 3-part history. Henry and Todd both command formidable chops. I am a trained musician myself, but Tory’s considerable abilities are all self-taught. My misgivings about joining with him in a band were based on this disparity. There was a clear division between the ‘legit musicians’ and Tory, and these led to the inevitable clashes. My opinion is that Henry and Todd harbored an expectation that hitching their virtuoso chops to Tory’s compelling and versatile vocals, and his flamboyant charisma on stage would propel the ensemble to tangible success. I did not share that expectation. My experience with music on the fringe was that the music industry was very effective at enforcing the bland orthodoxy of popularity.
We did not leap to popularity, and my perspective is that this deficit of attention motivated Henry and Todd to seek greener pastures. I could easily have followed them off the weirdo bus at that time. But in retrospect, I now realize that working with Tory changed me. Tory could not match my chops but he commits to the music that he makes fully and purely. He might write a song with only one(!) chord in it. But he will deliver that song to an audience with searing commitment. There is not a shred of cynicism or analytical-remove from his belief in his material, no matter how unsophisticated the structure might be. That inspired me, and I think I saw something that Todd and Henry ignored. Tory was learning from us. It was gradual, and the things Tory picked up were definitely applied to the priorities on HIS agenda and not from any prescribed method. But In short, I saw some form of a progression with Tory and so I decided to stick around and see what might be next. So Tory & I trudged into the future as a duo.
chapter 2 Tory, doc, Tom, & Perry,
from The Meshuggah to Scordatura
Tory liked working at Cummell’s Cafe’. But the fly in the ointment was the fact that the owner had a bad habit of deferring pay days and issuing I.O.U’s. So Tory took his talents to a tiny coffee shop called the “Meshuggah Shack” on a side street off St. Louis’s iconic Delmar Loop. Tory used his position to cajole the owner into allowing him to bring me in and improvise on Friday evenings. We didn’t drive ALL the customers away (The Meshuggah was not really a nighttime venue anyway). And unlike Cummell’s Cafe’, the Meshuggah Shack did hand Tory an occasional paycheck but it wasn’t a very big paycheck. So Tory arranged a side-hustle doing odd jobs for a local recording-studio owner and producer named Perry Emge. Neither Tory nor I found ourselves in a hurry to re-form neXt rAdio as a quartet. We were having fun as a duo doing weird tiny gigs.
One bitterly-cold winter Friday night at the Meshuggah, we were playing , and a young man commandeered a table right in front of us. We were used to being regarded by the customers with perplexed amusement (at best…) (and alarmed avoidance, at worst) But this guy was INTO us! After a couple of hours of performance Tory asked him if he was a musician. He affirmed that he was, and Tory asked if he’d like to sit-in. He nearly split his face in a smile. grabbed his coat, and ran out the door at full speed. Tory and I looked at one another quizzically, shrugged, and played another improv. The mysterious fellow reappeared about 20 minutes later, out of breath, carrying a tenor saxophone without a case. Tory motioned him to join and he honked, squeaked and blorched in bold, rambunctious Captain Beefhart fashion. Somehow, Tory and I just sensed that he belonged, and he played the rest of the night with us.
We did introductions after we’d quit for the night. His name was Tom Sutter. I asked him how long he’d been playing tenor and he grinned sheepishly and said. “Well, I just bought this at Baton Music around the corner about an hour ago.”
“Ah”, I said, “I get it. That’s a new axe. But I mean when did you start playing sax.”
“Well, ummm, That’s what I’m saying, Doc”, Tom said, “About an hour ago.”
Then it hit me. He ran around the corner after our invitation and bought the first instrument he could afford that he thought he could make a noise on!
neXt rAdio was definitely changing course!
Tory’s side-hustle doing odd jobs for Perry Emge at his Icon Studio brought him into contact with several musicians on the local scene . But none of them impressed him much after having worked with Henry Claude and Todd Mosby. But Perry, his employer, was impressed with Tory’s memory for melodies and his encyclopedic knowledge of 80’s music. Perry suggested that he himself might be useful in neXt rAdio. Once again I was the skeptic. I’d known of Perry for several years. As the owner (and literal BUILDER) of one of the city’s premier recording studios, Perry was on the periphery of many bands and musical projects that I was familiar with. But I was not sure that Perry actually played an instrument himself. Tom was a dazzlingly enthusiastic artist but with two autodidacts already on-board. I was keen to make sure that any additional members could at least make sense of a chord chart. So, when Tory announced in reverent tones that no less a personage than studio-designer/owner/producer/engineer Perry Emge was coming aboard, I said, “not so fast”.
I insisted that Perry audition…..something that embarrasses me to this day. Perry had attended the Berklee College of music. And he had facility on guitar, bass, keyboards and drums. Needless to say I withdrew my reservations. In addition to his instrumental skills, Perry is (still) a world class recording engineer and producer. We began to rehearse in the basement of Icon Studios and Perry started laying the foundations for a second album.
photo by Judy Liese
This second lineup period was a busy one in neXt rAdio’s history. Tory was hosting a radio program on KDHX 88.1 FM. He invited the band to bring instruments to the KDHX studio (at Magnolia & Arkansas) during his on-air time and we played bumpers between recordings and did a few live on-air improvisations. A bit further south, in the South-Grand neighborhood, was an eclectic boutique and ‘smart-bar’ named “Cheap Trx” and the owners invited neXt rAdio to perform on regular bi-monthly Saturday nights. We weren’t making a nickel, but we were playing a lot and having considerable fun. We lacked a drummer but Perry’s technical chops were exceptional and he programmed drum-tracks on an ADAT recorder that we could mix and use live on stage. Perry’s connections also got our foot in the door of a few of more-conventional venues like Bernard’s Pub. Moreover , Tory was always adept at getting attention, but in this period, he focused diligently on getting the the ‘right’ attention.
In this period Tory was invited as a guest for a TV spot on the local NBC affiliate. The topic was ‘Gen-X’ aspirations and the talk-show clip includes the short music video that we made for MTV’s ‘Buzz-Clips’ program.
Here’s a clip from that TV spot.
It’s unclear if MTV aired the video or not, but it definitely aired on KSDK multiple times. The video also presages neXt rAdio’s future a bit . In the first few seconds. Sasha Feline (introducing) and Robleigh Majors (fire breathing) are seen. They would both eventually become members of the band.
In the 2nd lineup, most of the focus of our efforts was the recording of a ‘real’ album.The story of the making of “Scordatura” would match this whole article in length. So I’ll cut to the chase and summarize:
It took about two years.
Thanks to Perry’s skills as a producer and engineer, it sounds HUGE.
It was not a commercial success.
The studio work was great fun and we had a splendid and rewarding time recording it….
…but Perry’s marriage disintegrated during the recording and that had some consequences for the band.
I think we were all a bit disappointed that ‘Scordatura’ was vigorously ignored by the venues and radio stations in St. Louis but I think Perry was especially disillusioned. He worked HARD on that album. Scordatura’s cold reception, piled on the dissolution of his marriage, prompted Perry to resign his commission in neXt rAdio’s surreal campaigns.
So then we were a trio…. and decided to re-invent again.
chapter 3 Tory, doc, Tom, Sasha & Robleigh
The Way Out Club
During the previous lineup, I had some reservations about Perry’s using recorded tracks on stage and so the departure of Perry’s ADAT tracks offered an opportunity. I was very keen to find a creative like-minded drummer. But no suitable candidates in town were interested. Tom was becoming particularly adept at manipulating drum machines in live performance. Tom’s approach was always creative and idiosyncratic. From my perspective that was a fine compromise. But less-fine in my view was Tory’s suggestion for filling Perry’s role. He wanted to bring in his ex-girlfriend to play bass. His rationale was that this would free me up to play the more complex parts on guitar or keyboards.
One of the events that precipitated Tory’s founding of neXt rAdio was that he broke up with former bandmate Sasha Feline and she moved to California. Well… now (1995) she was back in St. Louis with her new California boyfriend in tow.
I’d been the naysayer about every change in personnel in neXt rAdio to date, and when Perry quit I told myself I was not going to rain on any more parades. And then Tory pulls this wild-card out of the deck. Sasha was a stranger to me and she had no education on bass. She could not read a chord chart. This would make me the only member of the band who knew what a C minor 7th chord was, and what notes comprise it. But I stuck to my resolution, restrained my skepticism, and told Tory to arrange a rehearsal with Sasha. Her chops were extremely basic. But her time was good . She could hold a groove and remember chord changes. So, fortunately, I could work with her modest musicianship. But as a bonus, she was gregarious and ambitious. She was a born promoter, and those skills are always valuable in a band. After a few post-rehearsal discussions Sasha learned about my desire for a live drummer and she suggested an affable bohemian acquaintance named Robleigh Majors. Robleigh played conga and hand-percussion. He was no Henry Claude. Henry’s realm was the symphony. Robleigh’s realm was Saturday afternoon Delmar-Loop drum-circles. But Robleigh could hold a groove and the combination of his organic feel, with Tom’s Drum machine skills, and Sasha’s basic-but-solid bass playing, combined into an effective rhythm section over which Tory and I were free to embellish. It bears mentioning that, by this point, 5 years of working with skilled musicians and producers like Perry, Todd, and Henry had rubbed off on Tory considerably. His vocals and charismatic stage presence were still unique and exceptional. But his skills on violin, guitar, and synthesizers had progressed impressively from the very basic proficiency he had in 1991. We’d accumulated a repertoire of about 40 songs, and time had honed our improvisation skills considerably. In a very eccentric way, and despite the fact that this quintet was arguably the least formally trained. I think that on-stage, live, it was the most musically adroit version of the band to date.
There was a venue called ‘The Way Out Club” (in it’s original location on Cherokee Street & Compton) whose owners felt like neXt rAdio’s atypical charm fit well on a stage in a place called “The Way Out Club” and they gave us a steady gig on the second and fourth Saturday night of each month. We found other places to play, but the Way Out was indisputably the home of neXt rAdio’s third and final lineup. This lineup never produced a recording. Live performance was our medium.
At this point in pop culture (late 90’s) Y2K cyber-futurism was trending and I harbored hopes that neXt rAdio might finally attract some popular attention. The band was playing better than ever. Sasha’s efforts were getting a foot in the door of mainstream venues.
But instead, the band’s cohesion just kind of dissolved.
I will recount my sole perspective on the breakup of neXt rAdio because, arguably, it was my decision to quit that ended the band. The collaborative duo of Tory and myself was the core of the band. So if either of us left that would crack the cornerstone.
I decided to quit because I could not escape a sense of futility in continuing the enterprise. I lost faith in how the band might progress.
It’s rare in life that mood changes like this can be ascribed to specific events. But this is an exception. My loss of faith was precipitated by a very astute observation from a woman who published an entertainment ‘zine about St. Louis and was extremely knowledgeable about the St. Louis scene and the music business in general. We had been booked to open for a national touring act at a flash-in-the-pan venue called Hot Locust in downtown St. Louis. Fortunately the sound tech was sympathetic to our idiosyncratic needs (this is perennially rare) and we were firing on all cylinders that night. The band sounded great. We had a packed house and so Tory’s gifts were exhibited in the best light possible. The crowd was responsive and enthusiastic. After our set, the lady editor of the ‘zine approached me in the venue’s bar and warmly congratulated me on the performance. She is a very eloquent and intelligent person and so the conversation persisted for more than an hour. In that conversation she made the remark that put the pebble in my shoe about the future of neXt rAdio.
She said, “Y’know Doc, I’ve been watching you guys for years and seriously, you’ve become one of the most original and best bands in the city. But nobody is ever gonna notice how good you guys are. Because with a brilliant, but blinding light like Tory Starbuck in front, nobody is ever gonna notice the band.”
She was careful to add that her observations indicated that this imbalance was not the stereotypical band situation in which an egocentric star was backed up by an anonymous crew of ‘hired guns’. She said that she saw plenty of evidence that Tory functioned as a part of an ensemble of equals, and I confirmed that her impression was 100% accurate. Tory has always been a natural and effective collaborator. But her point was not about the reality of the situation. It was about the PERCEPTION of the band by an audience. When Tory takes the stage, all eyes are on Tory. She stressed that this was not because of Tory’s nature or intentions, but rather that it was due the nature of audiences.
The discussion of that phenomenon took place in the middle of an hour of conversation that ranged far and wide through other very engaging topics. And it wasn’t until days later that I realized that it was the only part of the conversation I remembered. And no matter how my mind squirmed in the ensuing months. I could not escape the fact that she was right.
That all happened 30 years ago. (it’s 2026 now) and there is no question that obscurity and me are lifelong companions. But in 1996 I decided that I was not ready to accept the kind of obscurity that neXt rAdio would provide.
In 1997 I made my mind up and announced my resignation. That was the end of neXt rAdio.
The dissolution was not acrimonious. There was a lot of quiet disappointment (certainly I was disappointed) but nobody lost their composure.
chapter 4 epilogue The aftermath and the futuremath
In the months after the 1997 breakup. Sasha approached me about collaborating on some songwriting and when I played the resulting songs for Perry he expressed interest in the project. After a few months, Sasha, Perry, & I formed a project called SCSI. This is not SCSI’s story. But succinctly, the band enjoyed a couple of years of locally-popular and financial success. But it’s musical potential was exhausted too quickly for my tastes, and I resigned at the end of 2000.
Tory rebuilt a group, starting with his fiance’ Venus Slick and expanding with keyboardist Claire Bettale, and eventually, accomplished percussionist Dr. Bruce McLaughlin. I attended a performance by the quartet, now called (logically) “The Tory Starbuck Project” and I was very impressed at what Tory had built after basically starting over from scratch.
As with SCSI. This article is not The Tory Starbuck Project’s story either. But suffice to say that I negotiated terms with Tory in 2001 and to this day (2026) I am a member of the T.S.P.