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I began my professional career as a DJ. You would probably be surprised how many artists and underground icons got their start this way. Back in 1996 when I started soundboy records, the best part of running the company was publishing the accompanying magazine. I combined all the things I loved and wanted to do as a career - write, interview, take photos, review and edit. It was glorious. But alas, the glory days would fade into the hip but ordinarily mundane tasks of indie record label biz. Then I was bitten by the film vampire - and I became one. Perhaps I should start from the beginning. I was born H. Allen Pulley II on July 22, 1972 at a Catholic Hospital in Downtown Boston Massachusetts. I was the youngest of three children. Both of my parents were affiliated with Boston University. My Mother was Assistant Dean of minority student affairs and my Father was a graduate student of Theology. We lived in the city on Commonwealth Avenue. Later that year we moved to West Newton, a few miles away. The following spring we moved to Greenville, New Hampshire near the Canadian border. Although I spent a lot of time there throughout my childhood and early adult life, I never really considered New England my home. In 1975 my family moved to western Pennsylvania. Although we didn't know it at the time, It was the beginning of the end. The following year my parents were seperated. They were both originally from North Carolina, having met on campus at Livingstone College. Although I vacillated between them, I eventually came back to North Carolina with my mother and two sisters. We lived near Gaston College between the small towns of Dallas and High Shoals. I spent the majority of my childhood between there and Pennsylvania with my Father and half Brother. Beginning with the early eighties, I developed a fascination with music. I had a good voice but otherwise not musically inclined. I learned to play a few instruments, but I was not dedicated enough to become great. I collected 45's and played them on a vintage turntable in my room. I played any type of music I could get my hands on. By age 10, I was a vocalist. I sang in competitions until I was twelve. But I grew tired of constant rehearsal and performance. I stopped singing at 13, which is a critical time in voice training. It was the biggest mistake I ever made. In 1984, I would hear an album that would change everything. It was the debut album from RUN-DMC. My friends and I realized that we could make records from records. I still followed other styles; ska, punk rock, reggae, electronic, etc. I was in tune to anything that was underground, away from the mainstream. In 1985 nothing was more underground than Rap. In 1986 our hip hop group released two singles and two B-sides on an independent label. After three years of performing in high school gymnasiums, festivals and amusement parks, I wanted to return to my musical and artistic heritage. I fell into an "artistic phase". I formed my own band, nailed quilts to the walls of my bedroom, and cut a five song demo. Although I had been writing stories since I was a small child, I suddenly became proficient. Poetry and song became part of my arsenal. I was a high school senior in 1990. I won the national honor society essay award, I was selected for the future entrepreneurs of America, I had my first article published and won a freelance writing contest for a music magazine; all in the same year. It seemed as if I was about to begin a remarkable career. Then everything began to change. Ambition completely escaped me. I was anti-establishment, but I was also anti-everything else. Every attempt at College, Jr. College or Tech school ended in disarray. I made decent grades, but I was bored, agitated and restless. I had no direction or drive. Every other year I was a drop out. I switched majors five times. I turned to music, as I often would, and started to DJ; the way I used to in high school and Jr. High. I was a local success. I was periodically on the radio and briefly had my own show. Rapidly becoming an underground sensation only fueled my real passion; writing and producing film. When an opportunity came in 1996 to direct a music video for a local band, I jumped on it. Entertainment had its hooks in me. I did not want to do anything else. In the Summer of 1996 I started a small production company, called Soundboy Records. My main focus was music, (although I loved publishing the magazine) but I desperately wanted to learn filmmaking. I finally finished my international business degree in 1998. The next spring I threw all caution to the wind and enrolled in film school. I was 26 years old. At first it seemed as if I could make it work. I was no stranger to hardship and sacrifice. But when my resources finally ran out I had nowhere to turn. It was an extremely bitter disappointment. For the next year I thought about what my next move should be. Feeling as if my career was over before it even began, I turned to the only thing I had left, "Soundboy"; the company I had started just three years prior. Our home base was a record store In Eastland Mall in Charlotte, NC. The label itself and accompanying magazine generated enough revenue for me to purchase some camera equipment. Together with my film school textbooks, four years worth of screenplays and friends as foolish and reckless as myself, I began to make independent film. The first was free radicals, 1999 a documentary of life in filmmaking, pro skateboarding and raising hell in general, followed by the ides of march, 2000. The next, was one of my proudest. I collected 10 hours of footage from WWII in order to produce World Warrior, 2001, a film in my natural style of music video that I felt most comfortable with at the time. Just before its release in the spring of that year, the circumstances associated with being independent began to overwhelm me. It appeared that even without having a successful film under my belt, I was still regarded as an obvious "threat" to the establishment. But I come from a family of fighters, rebels and revolutionaries. Being methodical has made me relentless. I pulled it together that summer. I wrote a book from a group of essays called the Glint of Bayonets 2001 and began to try to get a grip on my life. Then in September, on the eleventh, I was watching morning TV, something very rare for me; but there was an interview with a guy who wrote a book on Howard Hughes. Suddenly, they broke in with a report that a plane had hit on of the WTC towers. Even though it had just happened, even though no eyewitness at that point said they saw a plane, even though nothing like that had ever happened anywhere, they already had a news helicopter broadcasting images of a hole in the tower (which was disproportionate to one a 767 would make) yet no plane crash debris was on the ground or outside of the tower. It was surreal. Something about it was wrong, very wrong. A little while later I saw something even more ridiculous. There was a lady eyewitness on the phone live with the morning TV anchors. As the television audience is seeing what they believe is a jet crashing into the other tower, the lady screams and shouts that there was another explosion. She never mentioned a plane. The NBC anchors tell her it was a plane. She said she just saw an explosion. They hung up on her. A little while later, even though no steel and concrete building in the history of the world had ever collapsed from fire, including the one in Iran that was struck by a crashing 737, the towers began to fall. I realized (especially as a video professional) I was witnessing one of the biggest travesties in the history of mankind. I had always been a revolutionary, but now the ideal was cemented. Never again would I believe in the consensus of mass media or the public at large. The following month, I committed to making films, making It my top priority. I changed the name of the company to Soundboy America. I spent the next year writing, unable to shake the questions in my head about the supposed attack. As the country fell deep into depression, I followed. None of my writing or directing projects seemed to break through. In the fall of 2002 I met people who would become critical to my career. They didn't fully understand me, but they supported me and gave me confidence, and that was enough. Gradually things improved. In 2003 I turned to spoken word, and published the glint of bayonets, the book of essays and prose from two years before. In 2004, I decided to record some of the tracks and released it on my own label. It was called Infusion: charlie and Me, 2004. I began to tour with poetry groups and perform live in the art circuit. I was in the best physical and mental shape of my life. I shot some screen tests for my first independent short, lady luck, 2004. Despite attention and critical acclaim, I could not complete a breakout project. It seemed that I was destined to live my entire life as "the next big thing". In early 2005, I finally had a viable idea. I was planning to make a movie about a civil war regiment from North Carolina. Gradually it became a movie about symbolism. Then, it became a movie about the history of my family. I spent all that year filming it. Freedom vs. Liberty, 2005 in its long awaited premiere was watershed for me. I became disciplined, organized and professional. The next year brought a feeling of exhaustion. I decided to take a short break from film to do some corporate work to make more money. During this period of disillusionment, I was bombarded by fans of my now infamous 9/11 blog to make a film. That summer I capitulated. It was warm work at first, then I began to wonder if it was a mistake. the Big Takeover, 2006 has proven to be my most successful film to date. I do not measure my success by the commercial success of my films, but on how they are received by those I respect, and how I feel about myself when they are complete. I understand now what I did not back when I began: that I am a threat to the establishment, because my integrity is not for sale, at any price. I am not driven by ideology, I am driven by a search for the truth. If I die tomorrow, or as the old folks say, "if tomorrow is my great getting up morning", then I will die knowing then no man ever owned or controlled me. The things I sacrificed and went without were as a matter of course. In 2007 I finished my film degree and in 2008 I enrolled in tech school. This course of action has lead to a dozen art films, two novels and countless articles and webcasts. I have few regrets and very much to be thankful for. I have always been into tech, but now I realize that I need the association qualifications to make all my years of training complete. I also realize that I cannot just write material for myself, only about the subjects that I like - as it would squander my gift, which I belive is of a higher purpose. Since I started making films I have become an existentialist and a pacifist, which is the definition of a true Christian. I have also become a feng shui master. If you must judge me, do it not on who you think I am, but what I made out of my life. I know at the very least, whatever happens from now on, I am and always will be the Singular Soundboy. Skip Pulley, Soundboy America |
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