James “halon” Polanco

James is one of the original founders of Fake Science and has a long history with music and web development. Over the last 18 years, James has been playing instruments (guitar, cello, keyboards, drums, singing), writing original material, and actively DJing & promoting events in the Bay Area with False Profit, Space Cowboys, For the Music, Ambient Airlines and Dub Beautiful. When James and Chris decided to release their first EP under the moniker “Cell Culture”, James learned first hand how tough the current system is. This experience drove him to look for a better way and this pursuit lead to the idea of the Fake Science Music Store. To keep himself gainfully employed, James has worked as a professional web developer for the last 10 years. James first met Josh and Chris while working at Macromedia Inc. and while working together found that they all had common interest in the music industry and became determined to start Fake Science. James helped build Cedub Studio with Chris Walcott, where the Fake Scientists produce the Fake Science Lab Report Podcast. James is also one of the authors and the technical reviewer for O’Reilly’s “Podcasting Hacks” book.

Maer is the founder of Dub Beautiful Collective and Original Electronic Music Radio (OEM Radio), and has been dedicated to developing and presenting electronic music in all forms: live performance, radio broadcast, and studio production. He is a guitarist and recording studio engineer by training, but moved into live event production and internet radio broadcast and has been knocking about the San Francisco electronic music scene since 2000. He uses the unlikely trinity of Dub Beautiful Collective, Fake Science, and OEM Radio to incubate artists who make interesting electronic music.

Chris got an early taste for music and engineering from his dad when he was given a reel to reel tape recorder and a microphone at the tender age of 7 and a drum set at age 9. At Humboldt State University, he joined KHSU where he DJ’d a late night progressive rock show and worked on a radio theatre production. Chris moved to Oakland in 1982 to chase the rock and roll dream and played in lots of different bands, helped run an underground night club and started building his studio piece by piece. in 2000 Chris met James and they started writing music together and plotting various ways to start a business to get us out of the daily grind — which eventually resulted in joining forces with Josh and the creation of Fake Science. While writing and performing music is still a major passion, Chris has been putting a lot of energy into production and engineering. He is inspired by old school engineers like Geoff Emerick and Glyn Johns and believes that capturing a great performance is the key to a great record.

Christopher got his start in the San Francisco bay area music scene by starting the Am-bient Airlines event production crew. He and his partners in crime rekindled an interest in chill-style dj nightclub events by starting an event series called ‘Recliner’ back in 2000. Christopher gained music industry experience as a CD shop owner in San Fran-cisco. His one-of-a-kind boutique store in the Hayes Valley district was titled ‘Ambient Airlines’ inspired by the popularity of the Recliner events, and catered to the ambient, chill music enthusiast. The unique nature of the shop enabled him to make connections with music lovers, djs, and independent labels around the world. While running Ambient Airlines Christopher learned the ins and outs of music retail, the pain the independent artist endures getting their music into retail channels, and music buyer trends. Christo-pher joined Fake Science while contributing to the early Lab Report pod-casts with his ‘eTicket’ music spotlight segments. His passion for connecting independent musician with independent music enthusiast fit right in with the core values of Fake Science. Christopher has been a software engineer by day for 20 years and he contributes sub-stantially to the technical side of Fake Science.