LIGHTERS OON

A LITTLE DULL BY DAY, THEY SHINE AT NIGHT

STORY BY RACHEL STONE | PHOTOS BY DANNY FULGENCIO

BRYAN CAMPBELL, AKA GEORGE QUARTZ

Administrator/musician/actor

GROWING UP in the countryside outside Gainesville, young Bryan Campbell had to make his own fun.

“You imagine what the city kids are doing, so you try to emulate that, but you end up being crazier than they are,” he says. “When you’re little it’s great because you can just go outside and play, but as

So he arrived at the University of Houston in the early ’90s and realized quickly how country he really was. He tried to fit in, and when he did, he looked for ways to not fit in.

Since U of H didn’t have much of an art program or film classes at the time, he transferred to the University of North Texas.

“The space art scene, the Good/Bad Art Collective, which I ended up joining. It was a pretty good time to be there,” he says.

Denton is where his artistic energies found their outlet, and he eventually became the musician and artist known as George Quartz.

Quartz recently completed a residency at Centraltrak, where among other projects, he produced an overtly awkward Dick Cavett-style talk show called “After Hours with George Quartz.”

More recently, George Quartz has been making music with his band, which improvises all of its songs. Choreographer Danielle Georgiou adds dance to the performance.

Quartz also has several DJ residencies, including “Musk” at Ten Bells Tavern on Tuesday nights. He plays yacht rock, ’80s power ballads, action-movie theme songs and “that sort of over-produced music that’s in between pop and hard rock.”

He started working at the Texas Theatre a few years back as a bartender and quickly learned he is not cut out for service.

“He hated it,” says pal Susie Angeles, who is a fantastic bartender. “He’s sort of like a vaudevillian to me, but a dark and twisted one. He’s very engaging and can really draw in a crowd, but that’s a character.”

He hung in there until the Texas Theatre hired him for a day job. Now he books bands, builds print ads, makes graphics, updates the website and does some social media. He also sometimes DJs at the theater and suggests films.

He also has worked in an advertising agency, at American Apparel and at Starbucks.

Now he is focused on producing an album based on recordings from his live shows. He recently moved to a house on Hampton Road and set up his sculpture table, so we may be seeing some visual art from George Quartz, too.