From
Pioneering Punk Rock Guitarist to Silicon Valley Executive and Back
with the Stooges, Williamson Personifies ‘Creative Convergence’ of Music
and Technology
Breakthrough event celebrates digital innovation explosion as tech fans and music lovers converge on Downtown San Jose Sept. 26-29, 2013
SAN JOSE, CA (Aug. 16, 2013) – Iggy and The Stooges guitarist JAMES WILLIAMSON — whose intertwining careers personify the “Creative Convergence” of music and technology — will deliver the keynote music address at the C2SV TECHNOLOGY CONFERENCE + MUSIC FESTIVAL in Silicon Valley on Saturday, Sept. 28 at noon. Later that evening, he performs with festival headliner Iggy and The Stooges at St. James Park in San Jose.
THE C2SV TECHNOLOGY CONFERENCE + MUSIC FESTIVAL
allows Silicon Valley innovators to converge on their home turf with
leading innovators in music when it takes over Downtown San Jose to
celebrate the digital culture revolution Thursday, Sept. 26 through Sunday, Sept. 29, 2013.
Early-bird tickets for C2SV (Creative Convergence Silicon Valley), including multi-venue music wristbands and technology conference passes, are on sale NOW at c2sv.com/tickets.
Williamson’s
keynote will be open to badge holders of the C2SV Technology Conference
as well as VIP ticket holders for the Iggy and The Stooges concert
later that day in St. James Park. The concert ticket is being sold in
combination with a wristband that enables concertgoers to experience
four days of music by more than 70 acts at 12 venues in Downtown San
Jose.
The music keynote will take place in the newly-opened wing of the San Jose McEnery
Convention Center on the last day of the C2SV tech conference.
Williamson plans to talk about his journey from juvenile delinquent and
rock pioneer to corporate executive, how one of rock’s great guitarists
became embedded in a consumer electronics company.
Williamson has one of the more remarkable stories in rock history. As a member of Iggy and The Stooges in the 1970s, he created punk rock’s signature guitar sound, then
settled into a quiet career as a Silicon Valley engineering manager.
After 30 years, he took an early retirement buyout offer as Sony’s Vice
President of Technology Standards and rejoined the band.
Completing a world tour that’s taken The Stooges from Australia to Europe, the legendary protopunk
band arrives at C2SV to play the final show of its triumphant sweep on
Williamson’s home turf in Silicon Valley. Williamson is an ideal icon
for a conference and festival celebrating “Creative Convergence” — the
fusion of information technology and the creative arts. In February, he
will be inducted into the Engineering Hall of Fame at California
Polytechnic University. He may be the only Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
recipient to hold the same honor in the engineering world.
Born
in Texas and raised in Oklahoma and Detroit, Williamson first played
music with Iggy Pop while in high school and joined The Stooges in 1970,
but the band was a short-lived train wreck of drug-fueled excess and
commercial failure.
In
1972, when David Bowie invited Pop to record in London, Williamson was
on hand and co-wrote all of the songs with Iggy, and played all the
guitar parts for The Stooges’ classic 1973 album, Raw Power. Kurt Cobain called it his favorite album of all time, and Cee Lo Green ranks it among his favorites as well.
Williamson’s
jagged, loud, raunchy Detroit guitar sound inspired the punk rock
movement that transformed rock and continues to influence guitarists to
this day. “He has the technical ability of Jimmy Page without being as
studious, and the swagger of Keith Richards without being sloppy,” says
Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr.
“The first time I heard him play,” Iggy Pop told Britain’s The Guardian
in an interview, “which was in a basement in Ann Arbor, he did
something that later became known as punk or speed metal — a great
number of chords, almost all at once — but which at that time came from
no known musical vocabulary.”
As
the band disintegrated in the mid and late 1970s, Williamson left the
music world to become an electronics engineer and earned an electrical
engineering degree from California State Polytechnic University, Pomona.
He
worked for silicon chip maker Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) from 1982 to
1997, then spent more than a decade as Sony’s Vice President of
Technical Standards. He raised a family in Saratoga and didn’t talk to
his colleagues and neighbors about his eye liner and platform shoe days.
When
Williamson got his early retirement letter in 2009, he accepted Sony’s
buyout and rejoined the Stooges after a three-decade break. Four years
later, they continue to tour the world together. The San Jose appearance
is the final stop on the world tour.
Williamson produced Iggy and The Stooges’ Ready To Die album, released this year, which reunites The Stooges’ original line-up (minus the late Ron Asheton, and with Mike Watt on bass).
The
Creative Convergence Silicon Valley (C2SV) technology conference will
feature three days of speakers, including many notable Silicon Valley
CEOs, entrepreneurs, technologists, authors and academics.
Other speakers include Internet personality Robert Scoble (Rackspace, Scobleizer); author and entrepreneur Jeff Stibel (the bestseller “Breakpoint”); and Yahoo! chairman Maynard Webb.
Complete information about the conference can be found at www.c2sv.com.
