Bob D'Eith

File:Bob D'Eith.jpeg

Bob D'Eith

Bob D'Eith (born Robert "Bob" Jan D'Eith, September 24, 1964) is a Canadian pianist.

Life and Work

Bob D'Eith was born September 24, 1964 in Hong Kong, China. He immigrated with his father John D'Eathe and mother Vanessa Tancock (born "Stelle-Perkins") to Canada in 1968 and was naturalized as a Canadian citizen in 1972. He has three siblings Guy, Paul and Sara. Bob grew up in West Vancouver, British Columbia and attended West Bay Elementary, Cypress Park Elementary, Pauline Johnson Elementary, Irwin Park Elementary, Hillside Secondary and Carson Graham Secondary (Grad 1982). After high school, Bob attended the University of Victoria earning degrees in History (B.A. hon 1986) and in Law (JD 1989). After articling at Swinton & Company and being called to the bar in 1990, Bob initially went in-house with his father at Freehold Developments. He was project manager, building a strip mall in Calgary as part of Douglasdale Estates. After the real estate project, Bob started his own private practice primarily in real estate and entertainment law. At the same time, Bob was pursuing a career in music as set out below. In the late 1990s, Bob worked briefly for Sanguinetti, Braidwood Law in Squamish BC and then in-house at Bardel Animation. In 2001, Bob became the executive director of Music BC Industry Association Music BC and restricted his practice to part-time and solely practices as a music lawyer. He also began a label and consulting company Adagio Music. As executive director, Bob has grown Music BC to a dominant force for the music industry in BC. Bob was the chair of the 2009 Vancouver JUNO Awards host committee and developed the very successful $5.2 million Peak Performance Project with the Pattison Broadcast Group.

On May 1, 2013, Bob published his first eBook entitled, "A Career in Music: the other 12 step program". The book is focused on developing indie artists and new professionals in music. On Feb 14, 2014, Bob published his first fiction novel The Displaced.

In his personal life, Bob was married to Nicolette Maxwell (born "Langezaal") for 11 years and had three boys Sheldon (Feb 4, 1996), Braden (Oct 7, 1997) and Cameron (June 13, 2000). Bob married Kim D'Eith (born "Kosaba") on July 31, 2010 (at the Kosaba Lake House, Stump Lake BC) and has two step-daughters, Amy and Aryn Golsteyn.

Music career

Bob trained as a classical and jazz pianist while growing up. He played in a number of semi-professional bands until finishing law school. Once he returned to Vancouver, Bob joined a band called "The Watchmen" with lead singer Jimmy Gilmore (subsequently a member of the Silencers in Scotland) and Rob Lulic (guitar). After Jimmy left for Scotland, Bob, Alex Dias and Rob Lulic continued to build on the band and this core eventually became Rymes with Orange Rymes with Orange(singer Lyndon Johnson and Nelson Sinclair) joined the band. The band recorded its first album "Peel" (1992 mixed by Bill Buckingham) and had a number of successful radio and MuchMusic videos. After touring Canada a number of times, Bob was forced to choose between a career on the road or a life on the business side of music. Bob moved back to co-managing the band with Peter Karroll and became a non-touring member of the band. The band added Steve Hennessy and Niko Quintal and recorded the second album "Trapped in a Machine" (1994 produced by John Webster and recorded at Turtle Recording in Richmond, BC). This record resulted in a number of Top 30 radio hits including "Toy Train" which was undoubtedly the band's biggest hit. The song was featured in the Labatt's commercial "Genuine Kelly". During this period, Bob was honoured with a Best keyboardist nomination at Canadian Music Week and the band was nominated for a JUNO Award for Best New Artist.

After a split from Rymes with Orange, Bob decided to re-focus his music creation in a positive way. After years of urging from his father, he teamed up with his brother Paul's best friend from school Paul Schmidt. Paul Schmidt is a classically trained acoustic guitar player. The idea was to create music which was not meant for commercial radio. It was originally an attempt to write music which would be suitable for film and television and showcase Bob and Paul's composition ability. The project took a life of its own and the group Mythos was born. The first release was an EP called "Introspection" (1995). The music can be described as ambient instrumental music featuring beats, piano, guitar, vocalese and various other organic and synthetic elements. It is a mixture of world, electronic, dance, classical and jazz. Generally Mythos does not use lyrics. The remix of the piece "November" did the impossible: it became commercially successful at radio. This led to an explosion of CD sales and eventually awards with a WCMA (best dance) and a JUNO Award nomination (best instrumental). Canadian success and a trip to MIDEM in France led to a deal with Bay Area indie label XDOT25 which released the EP in the USA. Mehdi Amadi from XDOT 25 was working on a deal with Higher Octave, a Malibu California New Age label who agreed to pick up Mythos. Higher Octave then released a combination of "Introspection" and a follow up unreleased EP "Iridescence" (1996) with the world release of "Mythos" (1998) through Virgin/EMI. Mythos became a big seller for Higher Octave who went on to release the follow-up albums "Reality of a Dreamer" (2000) and "Eternity" (2002). Sales would surpass 100,000 and Mythos stayed on the Billboard New Age charts for many months. The incredible artwork was licensed from Gil Bruvel. As with all things though, the run stopped when Higher Octave was merged with competitor Narada. Mythos subsequently released the album "Purity" (2006) with Pacific Music/Warner in Canada and Allegro/Alula records in the USA. Since that time, Bob and Paul have continued to write, but with Paul living in Korea, recording has been a challenge.

After a six-year hiatus, Mythos released a new Album entitled Journey in April 2013.

Boards

Bob has served on numerous boards including the Factor National Advisory Board (past chair), Music BC Board (past vice-president), CIMA Board (presently on the executive as Secretary), CARAS rep for BC (JUNO Awards), Creative City Task Force (City of Vancouver), Cultural Facilities Implementation committee (City of Vancouver), Western Canadian Music Alliance (President), Chairman of Host Committee for the 2009 Vancouver JUNO Awards, Bid committee for the 2014 Victoria JUNO Awards (member) and Canadian Council of Music Industry Associations (executive).