Biography
Nationally recognized as an award-winning composer, theStark (Damon Law) composes for Nicu’s Spoon Theater in New York City and Written In Ashes in Portland, Oregon. An accomplished Graphic Designer and Production Artist, Damon also has a diverse portfolio which includes composition, audio engineering and production, multi-media presentation, print-production and web-based media for clientele such as adidas, Nike, Microsoft, Valvoline and Xerox.Currently Damon is working with electro-rockers Written In Ashes recording material for their next full-length ablum. With “WIA,” he performs live, composes music, engineers and mixes audio, designs print media and produces video for their live performances. He is also writing material in the theme of “Music for Film” as is evidenced by his most Recent Compositions.
Born July 15th, 1969 to Nancy and Christopher Orcutt in Montclair New Jersey, Damon was raised by his mother with few boundaries. At the impressionable age of 9 (1978) he decided that he would like to learn the piano. Through an arrangement with the Catholic school he was attanding at the time, he soon realized that a coporeal methodology wasn’t the proper way to undertake anything. It wasn’t until much later, circa 1984, that he once again decided that he wanted to make music.
He began experimenting with synthesis and keyboards in earnest. His first taste of limelight/performance came in 1986 or so when he was able to perform with his 3-piece “Mensch Tumult” at the Theater Gallery Record Store in Dallas Texas with the gracious permission of the owner Steven Stokes whith whom he still regularly spends time with. the performance was… interestinly raw.
In 1989, Damon relocated to Portland Oregon to be near his mother whom was rapidly declining in health as a result of her HIV positive status. She had lined up a job for him and he was indoctrinated in the Live Theatre experience as a Scenic Artist with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival Association where he discovered an entirely new fascination. He continued writing music as a hobby whilst he explored theatre with OSFA and StoreFront Theatre. It was with StoreFront, a small Portland theatre company that he was able to first utilize his abilities as a composer and Sound Designer in addition to continuing education as a Scenic Artist, Carpenter, and Stagehand.
It was in 1990 when Damon joined forces with David Hamm, a local Portland guitarist and they formed the band ”VVV,” wherein Damon firmly decided to become more serious about writing music and expressing emotion previously unexplored.
in 1992, Damon’s mother died and he moved back to Dallas where he began composing in earnest. With a string of failed relationships and the recent death of his mother, the full impact of emotional duress found it’s expression in his music. Reacting one of his mother’s observations, Damon decided to explore classical composition and he wrote his first album “Athenaeum” which he dedicated to her and silently to another woman he had fallen very much in love with— Shawn C.
Over the next few years, he penned a few works with Darren Vader under the pseudonym “Digital Overload” but remained devoid of other inspiration. In 1994, he moved to Seattle, Washington where he joined the band “sexwithsarah” with his friends Doug Seven, and Elgin Fuller. They released tracks on a few CD compilations, and performed to mild success in the Seattle area.
Between 1998-2000 and as a result of an unconsciously realized emotional strain, Damon began writing material that would become the foundation of his next musical plateau. It was at this time that he adopted the moniker “theStark” which would come to have many meanings to many different people. The basic idea was to become that “all would be laid bare.”
In 2001, Damon relocated to Portland (again and for the foreseeable future), and joined Portland’s dark rockers “Written In Ashes” where he helped produce and engineer his their self-titled CD. He also began a fruitful compositional relationship with New York’s Nicu’s Spoon Theater Company.
In 2005 Damon was awarded a composiontional grant from the Sparkplug Foundation for writing the music for Nicu’s Spoon Theater Company’s production of “The Little Prince.”
He is actively working with both “WIA” and “Nicu” as well as producing his own brand of music under the moiker of “theStark.”
As of this writing, Damon has composed, produced and remixed nearly 7 1/2 hours of music, 123+ individual tracks and hours more with other artists as a producer and remixer. He is keenly focused on writing music for live performance, dance, film, and theater.
Damon is married to Sarah and together they raise their daughter, a dog, 3 cats, and a rat in an old victorian house in Portland Oregon.
