Biography

Born in San Diego in 1961, Todd Richmond grew up in an era of great music and great television. Listening to the early days of FM radio and watching shows such as M*A*S*H led to the pursuit of making music and media. He performed in a number of bands through his teens and spent many hours in audio edit bays with razor and grease pencil in hand, while learning the intricacies of programming slide show dissolve hardware. After a stint as weekend DJ on 96 KKOS Carlsbad, he finally entered college as a music major but somehow ended up with a degree in chemistry. That led him to pursue a Ph.D. in chemistry and Caltech, but music and media continued to be part of his life, playing bass in small groups and the Caltech Big Band (including the 1994 release Exothermic Jazz), performing comedy skits, and playing in the pit for local musical theater.

His career in science would lead him north to San Francisco, and more jazz gigs, then back to the greater Los Angeles area. He began doing web development in 1995, and combined emerging media with his teaching and research. Eventually he did a career change and moved to USC, leading a new media research center, then as part of the senior leadership team for the Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT). At ICT he had writing credits on a number of video pieces used for Army training, did voiceover narration, and created other media pieces. He also performed over 100 songs on Youtube videos under the moniker of perilous relish.

Richmond's experience and expertise in emerging technology and new media has resulted in a number of cutting-edge projects. He has spoken at numerous academic conferences as well as broader interest events such as TedX and SxSW. He has also been interviewed as a subject matter expert by a wide variety of news agencies including CBS Sunday Morning, NPR, Voice of America, Gizmodo, Forbes, and others

In 2010 he jumped back into music, performing in a variety of ensembles, and releasing the album Times Up in 2014 with his band, nostatic. He also has performed with a Steely Dan tribute band, Steely Jam, done live band karaoke at Hard Rock Hollywood and other venues, has performed in Tokyo with Kaz Takeda (as well as playing on three albums with Kaz), and has studied with Grammy-winning bassist Victor Wooten. His band nostatic has always been eclectic and embraced unconventional lineups with an emphasis on live improvisation. That led him to involvement with the Orbital Redux project in 2018, performing in a small group that created the live improvised soundtrack for the live-streamed show.
- IMDb mini biography by: Todd Richmond