Geza X is a record producer and recording engineer from Los Angeles. He produced the single Bitch by Meredith Brooks in 1997, which sold over a million copies. He is still an obscure individual in LA music circles but he was instrumental in leading the cutting edge of the 1970s punk movement in Los Angeles.
Geza X. Gedeon was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana on Sept. 28, 1952. Geza is his real first name. He added the "X" after reading the autobiography of Malcolm X. From an early age he had a keen interest in electronic things and music. He took apart almost every toy he owned and built hundreds of gadgets. He got into recording and would cut discs on a device that his parents had called a Recordio. He later discovered that it made a unique distortion effect on an electric guitar and he used this on many recordings.
He dropped out of school at the age of 17 and went into seclusion with a group of like-minded musical innovators. He became interested in experimenting with different types of music and called this dissonant style of music "X-music". In 1975 he wanted to get into working in a recording studio. He met up with the owner of Artists Recording Studios and offered to put together a 4-track recording room for a place to sleep. One day the recording engineer was sick so Geza X did a recording session. Later he moved to the Masque, a punk rock club, where he worked as the soundman. He started telling people he was a record producer and soon someone took him up on it.
The Germs frontman Darby Crash asked him to produce Lexicon Devil. It became their first single. He worked with other punk bands including the Avengers and Weirdos. He also produced music for Black Flag and the Dead Kennedys. He played guitar with The Bags and the Deadbeats. He wrote and produced a song called "Isotope Soap" which appeared on a compilation LP titled Let Them Eat Jellybeans.
Other releases by Geza X:<
- "Kill The Hippies"
- "Rx Rock and Roll/Poney Ride"
- "We Need More Power"
- "You Goddam Kids"
- "Hungarian"
- "Mean Mr. Mommyman"
Geza's recording career was doing very well up until the early 1980s when punk died down. He left the music scene for a while and returned a couple years later and began doing reviews of digital interface equipment for Spin magazine. He worked as a sound engineer at Paramount Studios and began producing the newest style of music, rap music. He was working with Ice-T, Kurtis Blow, and Rhyme Syndicate. In the late 1980s the grunge movement was taking off and punk picked back up. Geza X was more interested in the newer "cutting edge" music. He put together City Lab Sound Design and produced a number of bands in the early 1990s. With the help of Josie Cotton they produced music for Sonic Youth, Magnapop, Deadbeats, 1000 Mona Lisas, and more. Although he has made many contributions to music he is still relatively unknown.
He's put together an impressive studio called Satellite Park in the hills above Malibu. For the most part he is self taught. He learned from experimenting, breaking stuff and pushing things to the limit.
Sources:
Paul Tingen. Geza X. (http://www.audiomedia.com)
the inner sleeve liner of "Let Them Eat Jellybeans" 1982 Faulty Products Inc.