Biography
Funk's first release was the EP Greg Hates Car Culture released on History of the Future, followed by Salt on Zhark International and Fuck Canada/Fuck America with Stunt Rock for CLFST. When Mike Paradinas heard Greg Hates Car Culture he immediately signed Funk for Planet Mu. The first Venetian Snares LP on Planet Mu, Making Orange Things (a co-production with Speedranch), was released in early 2001, followed in short order by five more releases, all before the end of 2002. Funk continued producing for a variety of labels, including Hymen Records, Peace Off Records, Addict Records, and Sublight Records. He has also produced albums under the names Last Step and Vsnares, produced singles under the names Last Step, Snares Man! and Snares, appeared on compilations under the names Ventriloquist Snakes, Last Step, Puff, and Senetian Vnares, and did a split with Fanny under the name BeeSnares.
His style has been critically acclaimed, notably by the late British radio disc jockey John Peel. Venetian Snares is said to have reinvented breakcore and set the stage for many other artists such as UndaCova, Xanopticon, Enduser and Datach'i.
Venetian Snares composes much of his music with trackers. Before he began to release his music commercially, he worked primarily with OctaMED on an Amiga 500. At some point prior to 2000 he began using a PC and the Windows port of OctaMED, MED Soundstudio. During 2003 and 2005 he also used Cubase in addition to MED. Venetian Snares currently uses Renoise and has uploaded a video of his track "Vache" (from Cavalcade of Glee and Dadaist Happy Hardcore Pom Poms) playing in Renoise on YouTube.
In a February 2003 interview, Funk was asked a question regarding the diverse mix of genres he draws upon in his music, a property which the interviewer labelled "eclecticism". Funk replied: "I prefer to call it Surrealism."
In other interviews he discusses how his early experiments in sound influenced his aethetics and use of samples: "When I was a kid I'd use a bunch of ghetto blasters playing all at once to play different sounds I'd recorded with some other shitty ghetto blasters. A turning point was when I somehow came across this looping delay pedal that held a 2 second sample. This pedal coupled with the ghetto blaster experiments really changed my life." In another interview regarding his early musical upbringing he claimed "I did start with traditional instruments, piano when I was very young. Grew up at my grandparent’s home and they had an upright piano I plunked away on since before I can remember. Of course a sampler is a musical instrument as well as a production tool. It allows you control over any sound. You can make music out of a toilet and a Zamfir record with a sampler!"
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