Bill Baird

Literary Arts : Author/Writer ; Media Arts : New Media/Technology ; Performing Arts : Composer , Musician

Bill Baird is a musician, writer, and multi-media artist living in San Antonio. He received an MFA in Electronic Music and Digital Media from Mills College (Oakland CA) and a Bachelor’s from University of Texas at Austin in their Plan II program.

His work is often multi-disciplinary, fusing music composition, video art, and interactive tech. Installations bring together these varied elements, with recent works premiering at Luminaria 2025 and a solo show at Flight Gallery. He has created interactive installation and multi-media performances at the California Academy of Sciences,

He is a radio DJ at KRTU (Mild Bill’s Radio Hour), a journalist at the San Antonio Current, and is currently writing a San Antonio music history book for Texas A&M Press. His writings have also appeared in D Magazine, Aquarium Drunkard, and Impose Magazine. He has been awarded two researcher grants from Texas State University.

From 2002 until 2012, he ran DIY studios in Austin, where his band (Sound Team) signed to Capitol Records. This experience was documented in the 2011 documentary “Echotone,” a New York Times critics pick.

He has released records on Parlophone, Capitol, SonyRED, Moon Glyph, Curly, Dangerbird, Secretly Canadian/St. Ives, among others. His installations/curations have been featured at the California Academy of Sciences, Fort Mason Center of the Arts, Museum of Human Achievement, Luminaria, Ballroom Marfa, and Hopscotch SA. While working at the Center for Conte ... view more »

Bill Baird is a musician, writer, and multi-media artist living in San Antonio. He received an MFA in Electronic Music and Digital Media from Mills College (Oakland CA) and a Bachelor’s from University of Texas at Austin in their Plan II program.

His work is often multi-disciplinary, fusing music composition, video art, and interactive tech. Installations bring together these varied elements, with recent works premiering at Luminaria 2025 and a solo show at Flight Gallery. He has created interactive installation and multi-media performances at the California Academy of Sciences,

He is a radio DJ at KRTU (Mild Bill’s Radio Hour), a journalist at the San Antonio Current, and is currently writing a San Antonio music history book for Texas A&M Press. His writings have also appeared in D Magazine, Aquarium Drunkard, and Impose Magazine. He has been awarded two researcher grants from Texas State University.

From 2002 until 2012, he ran DIY studios in Austin, where his band (Sound Team) signed to Capitol Records. This experience was documented in the 2011 documentary “Echotone,” a New York Times critics pick.

He has released records on Parlophone, Capitol, SonyRED, Moon Glyph, Curly, Dangerbird, Secretly Canadian/St. Ives, among others. His installations/curations have been featured at the California Academy of Sciences, Fort Mason Center of the Arts, Museum of Human Achievement, Luminaria, Ballroom Marfa, and Hopscotch SA. While working at the Center for Contemporary Music (Mills College), he was awarded the Frog Peak Collective Experimental Music Prize, named Dresher Ensemble Artist-in-Residence, and presented at the Deep Listening Conference.

In his studio, he’s produced albums for Joe ‘King’ Carrosco, Garrett T. Capps, Generationals, Jesse Woods, Nathan Felix, Precious Gems, Joey Reyes, and many more.

Quotes:

“Bill Baird is an amazing, accomplished interdisciplinary artist/musician whose work has to be experienced. It will make you laugh and melt your brain at the same time. He’s scary-smart. Think if John Cage, Brian Eno, Phillip Glass, and Captain Beefheart all (somehow) had a love child.” — Gary Sweeney

“one of the top two or three psychedelic songwriters in the world” — Le Village Pop (Paris)

“psych-pop master craftsman” — Spin Magazine

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Artist Statement of Work

Tell us about your work (style, approach, philosophy, subject and/or theme):

Aspects to my work.

1) Resonance -- finding the sympathetic vibration of a given situation, honoring that, and working with it. I will walk into a room and try register the feeling there, and craft my work to be sympathetic to what is already present. This might mean accurately capturing a band doing their thing, activating a room with sonics, or creating a site-specific installation.

2) A focus on outsider voices and underground subcultures. I have explored this extensively with my articles in the paper, and this is the main focus of the book I am writing. I ran two DIY spaces and hosted numerous concerts. I have worked in independent music for decades. Outsider voices are required to keep the cultural conversation alive and vibrant.

3) Forever in search of what I call the 'smiling surprise.' Leapfrogging conventionality, cliche, and predictable tradition. It is that moment of epiphany that is the essence of the creative process, both as a creator and someone experiencing the artwork. In practice, this can manifest as humor. Even if the work has a playful tone, I take the process completely seriously.

4) New and unique technologies. This might mean a keyboard that triggers a video wall of personal injury lawyers, an elaborate graphic score for a group of musicians, designing my own instruments, or simply approaching familiar things in a new way.

5) Leaving behind breadcrumbs for others like me. I create the world I would like to see.