Where Did It All Start and Why: The ReVoltage Recordings Story ~ A Slowly Unravelling Tale
Sarine Voltage headshot circa 2014
About RVR:
ReVoltage Recordings was founded by me, one Miss Sarine Re Voltage. Many moons ago, armed with a MacBook Pro (finally! I'd been using a 386 PC up until that point, if you can believe it), I now had the tools to get my music up and running online. As if programming the 16-track onboard sequencer of my KORG Triton wasn't enough (along with mixing, engineering, and producing all my music--yep, I'm all DIY, babies), I undertook the task of creating a website to showcase my music--my solo stuff and the multiple bands I formed or was in over some years--and so I decided to make a record company of sorts in order to have one site that would house all of them. Eureka, RVR was borne! I had no idea how to code or anything, but I was down to figure it all out--I'm a work in progress and I like a challenge. Turns out it's a pretty large and tedious task (coding is HARD!) and I'm still working on it. Like this site's been bitching at various times and then some thing or other changes and all of a sudden my site looks stupid and I have something new to figure out--arghh!--but it's gonna be looking all shiny again soon, little by little. I'm going as fast as I can. (She bats her eyes and smiles) That being said, here you go with a bit about me . . .
 
Sarine Voltage at 3 years old in lonesome little butterfly costume complete with with wings and golden ballet slippersTHIS, ON THE ONE SIDE

Formal ballet, jazz, and tap dance training is where I started at age 3 on the East Coast. Self-taught piano came next at 5. I was reputedly super-smart and pretty much straight A'd my way through grade school and junior high and senior high saw me hanging around bands as a ‘girlfriend’ as I continued playing piano at home.SARINE VOLTAGE at age 13 in tap shoes and tap dance costume for annual recitalGraduating from high school and dance was followed with a bit of college. My parents ambushed me into going when I wanted to wait, so I applied at the last minute to a State School, knowing I'd have an easy in. I was proud of "The Dim Lights, Thick Smoke & Loud Music Award" I received (displayed hereDim Lights, Thick Smoke, Loud Music AWARD presented to Sarine Voltage first year of college) and being placed on the Dean's List, but I neither dug on nor fitted in to that college scene and longed to pursue MY interests. I decided to transfer to either Pepperdine University in Malibu or Berklee College of Music in Boston. I'd always dreamed of living in Malibu, but I found out Pepperdine was a Catholic school (something my parents might like--yikes!), and I opted for Berklee. I heard Berklee was really hard to get into (but I did), and I knew there were a bunch of jazz-heads there (and me being so small on jazz and totally turned off by the sound of a Fender Rhodes), but I enjoyed the short time I spent there and learned a lot, even though I again felt like an outcast among the outcasts.

STEEL TOWN UNDERGROUND promo shot taken at the Bethlehem Steel Company, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania (left to right is RON SABOL, WAYNE MARTRICH, SARINE VOLTAGE, JOEL BERRETTINI, AND FRANK REESEMy twenties brought Steel Town Underground, my first real band, into play as I learned to synthesize and program with the ‘new’ MIDI technology. Harmonizing and lead vocals came next as I used what I'd learned at Berklee and worked it in to a style of my own. I made my way into fronting with my background in dance driving me all the way. I found singing and dancing and fronting to be a tremendous spiritual-like high.

I also came from the school of "DIY (Don't know how? LEARN IT NOW!)" which came in very handy having not been a trust fund baby and HAVING been equipped with a razor-sharp mind that actually dug on learning. Inputting new knowledge was  another form of a high for me.

Songwriting was next to become my passion as I graduated from playing “cover” tunes and learned how to write, followed by hand drums, rhythm toys and guitar--my box of musical delights seemed to be a non-stop ever-growing thing.

In 1989 I finally made the move to California and soon started up my own bands:
• Tourette Syndrome
• universal black
• rosen voltage
• The New Post-modern Tribal Order
and in between joined one other:
• P. Vampire
before landing in:
• The Power of 3
Booking, publicizing, internet and managerial skills all came with the territory as I learned to set up a PA system and engineer and produce recordings while touring and recording internationally. Then I went solo.

A couple of indie record companies and a few individuals wanted to record some of the music along the way and I appeased:
• Resin Records in Santa Rosa, California (headed by Stacey Searles)
• Venture Beyond Records in Santa Rosa, California (headed by Dianna Jacobsen and Mark Smith)
• No Label in San Anselmo, California (headed by Peter Marrino)
• The Document Room in Malibu, California (headed by J. T. Meskiel; the ever-awesome Andrew Boston discovered and recorded us with along with the also ever-awesome Kevin Meeker.
CERTIFICATE OF HONOUR from THE CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO presented to SARINE VOLTAGE in 2007 by MAYOR GAVIN NEWSOM for quote terrific live music and excellent entertainment unquote pro bono performances


XOXO

Sarine Voltage in front of a sign(?) saying YOU WANT IT?





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sidewalk in San Francisco with 3 stars embossed in and the words WE ARE MAGICK in between each space                      sidewalk in San Francisco with 3 stars embossed in and the words WE ARE MAGICK in between each space (again)                  sidewalk in San Francisco with 3 stars embossed in and the words WE ARE MAGICK in between each space (again)