Apart from being behind the band SoundFields, I (Robert Fields) am the main character in a screenplay about someone who started thinking back in 2007 that he is the one John Lennon wrote his song, Doctor Robert, about.
You might wonder how someone comes up with such a thought. One reason is that I was already around when the song Doctor Robert has been written. The Beatles’ songs filled the room where I lived when I was just a little child; when something dramatic happened: I nearly died.
Listen to the album while reading the text.
Accidents
In 1966 – at the age of two – I barely survived being poisoned by enuresis medication that someone in the family was taking. My mother recently told me – just before she passed away at age 94 – that a child in the US died after medication poisoning back then, having swallowed the very same pills.
That child and I most likely revealed to the world for the first time, that this medication could be lethal. After that, lockable medicine cabinets and electronic alternatives – both produced by multinationals that originated in the region – quickly entered the market.
Soon after all that, the flower power movement started to bloom.
Doctor Robert
A few years ago, I also discovered that the sleeve design of the 1966 US album Yesterday and Today by the Beatles, might be inspired by these accidents. And that the song Doctor Robert is the only one by the Beatles that’s ambiguous about who the main character is.
I started using Doctor Robert as an artist name back in 2007 and tried to tell the story, but encountered problems by doing so. Six years later I decided to stop believing I am Doctor Robert, but that didn’t solve the riddle of the song either. I changed my artist name into Robert Fields and used Doctor Robert as a title for a motion picture I am now writing the screenplay for.
The investigation continues to find more facts about what exactly happened back in 1966, taking me into meaningful flash-backs and colorful daydreams. I might end up being the one John Lennon’s song is about, it might be somebody else, or it remains a mystery; what matters is the quality of the investigation and the real story resulting from it.
SoundFields
I picked up songwriting again after playing lead guitar in an instrumental surf band from 1999 until 2004. I recorded over a hundred tunes since 2005, with more than half being original compositions.
Influences on the music of SoundFields range from early mountain blues to psychedelic rock, but the minimal approach to recording – with just a guitar and my voice and a few overdubs – has been a steady one since 2016.
The songs on the five albums I produced since 2017 are written, composed, recorded and engineered all by myself, as from 2005. The physical releases of these records are planned for 2021 and later, but you can hear the albums’ progress by frequently listening to the pre-productions at http://soundfields.bandcamp.com.
Robert Fields
As a designer, I have an ongoing fascination for the fourth dimension, time, for about twenty years now. Music, cinema, internet, they are all unthinkable without time. I developed a particular way of handling time. For instance, being used to the possibilities of the internet, I tend to work without any hard deadlines.
My most recent album Collectors tells the story of Robert Fields as a musician. The instrumental pieces reach back to my life in the surf band. The songs mainly took shape after that period, with a significant peak in creativity in 2018.
To be continued…
Bandcamp
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