The word “ordinary” is not something that comes to mind when attempting to describe Rick Alvin Schaier. Rick is the wizard behind the curtain of Alvin Band, the moniker he created for his musical quest. As a capable writer and musician, Rick took to 4-tracks and digital recorders early on and has been churning out a range of music ever since. With multi-instrumentalist capabilities, Rick has had the freedom to explore and fully realize the ideas that pop into his head and present them as tangible recordings. The sort of “mad scientist” creativity that pops out is a hard thing to categorize. To date Rick has written 60’s tinged surf pop records, a Broadway musical, and a host of for lack of a better term “indie” rock records. Rick started out recording on a hand-me-down, simplified, digital 8-track. These recordings quickly became complex, fully-realized albums as Rick was a capable musician and able to commit the parts he heard in his head to disk. As the tracks would fill the hard drive, Rick would bounce the songs down to mixes, burn a few cd’s for friends, and would then hit the delete button. And thus, most of these recordings were lost in the digital shuffle of our disk space based lives. At the age of 20, one of these cd’s was passed on by a friend to indie-label Intelligent Noise in a chance meeting. Rick was signed shortly after and the first order of business by Intelligent Noise was to purchase him a proper computer and work station-based recording rig. Rick was a quick study and was inspired by the new possibilities and freedoms of the expanded recording set-up. Oh yeah, and the concept of backing up hard drives was drilled into him. Mantis Preying was the first one of these albums to officially be thrust into the world on September 8th, 2009. Coupled with this release as a bonus was a collection of 6 early demos called Lady Portrait. Mantis Preying was a bold move for a debut record from a relatively obscure artist. Originally, Rick had been putting the finishing touches on a more “contemporary” album that had been slated for release. At a party, Rick heard *****’s album Medulla and was inspired to take a similar vocal-only approach to composing. At this time Rick was stationed in Phoenix, Arizona recording an album for his other project, “Miniature Tigers”. When downtime would appear throughout the recording of Miniature Tiger’s, Tell It To The Volcano, Rick would take his laptop and microphone to a friend’s empty apartment and start layering ideas. Nearing completion of Mantis Preying, Rick approached his label and asked if they would consider shelving the original, more Brian Wilson-esque pop record, for the aforementioned concept album. The wish was granted and Mantis Preying was released to a decent amount of critical acclaim. As described by The Needle Drop, “Yeah, Rick sings, but he also lays down chords, bass lines, and percussion using nothing but his mouth. It’s like an irresistible gospel choir praying to the God of indie pop.” Another description from Blogcritics, “Truly peculiar and entirely unique, Alvin Band’s Mantis Preying is a vocal experiment that runs like a stream of consciousness at times and a carefully-constructed composition at others. It is one of the strangest records I’ve heard this year so far, to be sure, but there’s a fine beauty to it that emerges out of 21-year-old Rick Alvin Schaier (Miniature Tigers) like a slight breeze of cool air.” Mantis Preying went on to be featured in the “Indie Spotlight” by iTunes and was also highlighted by Spike Jonze, to name a few accolades. Since then, Rick has continued to churn out material in a prolific fashion. This includes recording a follow-up album for his other project Miniature Tigers called Fortress, and a host of new songs for Alvin Band. Collectively with his record label, Rick has been sorting through this material over the last year and a half. What ended up being enough material for two or more records, was ultimately whittled down to one concise follow up album coined Rainbow Road. In homage to the video game entrenched generation Rick has grown up in, the album is riddled with the mythology of Super Mario Brothers. In fact, the title of the record is derived from the “Rainbow Road” racecourse that appears in the Super Mario Kart version of the series. Rainbow Road is meant to give the listener the multi-sensational experience of actually living vicariously within the game. The experience is meant to explore the fantasy consciousness in the game in the context of the real world. In this concept, fantasy meets reality in the audio-visually intense imagery within the songs of Rainbow Road. From a production standpoint, Rick makes use of a wide range of instruments on Rainbow Road, a significant departure from the vocal-only canvas used on his previous effort Mantis Preying. With blips and beeps, organic and synthesized instruments, loops and drums, Rainbow Road takes the midi mono synthetic soundtrack of the Super Mario game and casts a more vivid and musical picture that is entirely unique. It’s a soundtrack to a soundtrack. But it’s more than a soundtrack to Super Mario. It’s a soundtrack to a generation that has grown up entrenched in gaming and technology. A time period where record stores have become an endangered species and the world-wide-web is now 24/7. It might be corny and an exaggeration to say that Rainbow Road is a soundtrack to a generation. Certainly there is more to this than a reflection on the video game induced trance referenced. But it seems true reflection is a rare commodity in the 140-character-or-less based exchanges of the day. Perhaps interlaced within Alvin Band’s new album we have a true moment of genuine Generation “Y” pontification. Tune in to Rainbow Road and tune out of all that noise for an hour or so. It might do the imagination some good.