Tapestry Blu was a 1980s electronic pop duo, highlighted by the fabulous falsetto of William Gregory (who went by the French pronunciation, Guillaume Gregory) and Nick De Herrera, AKA Niko, a velvet virtuoso on Yamaha DX7 keys who, like Gregory, graduated from the School of Creative and Performing Arts in Chula Vista. Both also attended Southwestern College.

Niko's virtuosity on the keyboard was astonishing, evoking the best of Bronski Beat, Pet Shop Boys, Visage, Depeche Mode, New Order, Soft Cell, and Yaz. "He [Niko] had a very impressive ability for writing originals and absorbing timely new wave hues and reworking them into unique covers," emails one Reader reader. "I've mentioned elsewhere how he was both prolific and generous, where he'd make you a one-off cassette if you asked, music recorded especially for you, in his home set-up. If it was the holidays, expect a set of revved up new-wave takes on old holiday standards. The guy was smart and his style complimented Guillaume's in a more subdued fashion: 40s elegance meets 80s edge."

William Gregory was both an engaging singer and a local fashion icon. A Reader reader who spotted a Tapestry Blu performance video online wrote to say "He was the enigma back then as he remains today. He was way ahead of his time in his sense of style for the late 1980s: 40s luxe, smoking jackets, tuxedos, 70s platforms and denim leisure suits. His musical ability and vocal range was inspiring with his grasp of torch songs, jazz classics, sacred gospel and of course, pop music."

Tapestry Blu were very popular in the late 80s coffee house/gallery scene in San Diego. According to one email received by the Reader, "I remember following them around back in the late 80s coffeehouse/gallery scene in San Diego. I had nothing but awe and respect for both of Niko and Guillaume. They were friendly and generous with their time and art. I was 17 and an aspiring musician. They were kind enough to let me tag along to gigs and some rehearsals and answer my questions about what and how they did what they did. It was kind of a music education in and of itself at the time."

The duo composed a rock opera called Electric Butterfly that was performed at least twice at UCSD, and they appeared on the local stage at the 91X-Fest. Little else is known about Tapestry Blu and the only references to be found online to their music appear to be on Youtube and the Reader site. Herrera apparently moved to L.A. and then Arizona, where he furthered a career in college administration, while Gregory relocated to Chicago and pursued musical theater.

They were once seen performing their original techno-pop song "My Heart's in Rapture" in November 1987 on a San Diego TV talent show called Rocket to Stardom, aka Stanley Tonight, a clip that remained unseen since its original broadcast until being uploaded to the YouTube BetaGems channel in summer 2019. The video soon earned nearly 5000 views, 151 likes (only one dislike), and dozens of comments from viewers, such as:

I'm disgusted someone didn't like that!

What do you get when an Angel gives birth to a Yamaha DX7? Tapestry Blue. Take me to heaven!

I want to see a movie about this group starring Jack Black.

This is great. I need to get a band tee, huge fan!

Bronski Beat only wishes that they were as good as Tapestry Blu.

Not every commentator was impressed:

New Order called. They want their melody for "Blue Monday" back.

Pass me a clove cigarette so I can decide at Denny’s whether these posers can hang.

Well I'm traumatized.

It's been several years since the Rocket To Stardom clip first surfaced on Youtube, and the Reader recently heard from singer William Gregory. "Last night, my nephew called to tell me that something had gone viral with me singing," he emailed from Chicago after viewing "My Heart's In Rapture" online. "It was like a ghost. I don't know if I've ever seen this video before. I gave up singing a few years ago...I'm just overwhelmed with the attention that my little band is getting. We were very young and passionate and we had no help and did everything with no money at all."

Born and raised in San Diego, Gregory says "I was that little kid who wanted to be like The Little Rascals. I put on shows and circuses in my back yard, dragging the neighbors to watch us, whether they wanted to or not. East San Diego, it's a highway now."

Gregory attended the School of Creative and Performing Arts in Chula Vista. "Only I initially went to be in the band, where I played the flute. I was always a little gay boy. Even if I didn’t even know it yet. There was where my world blew up. I met a casting call of freaks, punks and God knows what. I fell in love with performing and I learned that I could sing. I began doing musicals and singing in The Main Attraction, New Renaissance, and various other groups."

Meeting Nick De Herrera, AKA Niko, a musical spark was instantly ignited. "We started performing in talent shows and decided to start a band. There was this coffeehouse in the Gaslamp District that agreed to let us perform there, and everything went on from there. We did that big 91X festival, the Piranha Room, different nightclubs, and even Tijuana Tilly's. The Piranha Room was maybe the biggest hype we got. It was exciting and the two gay guys that did the bookings were so sweet, and they did everything they could to help us."

"We played some scary places; motorcycle bars, old folks homes. Places where people were like 'What the fuck?”' Especially when I broke out in my falsettos...the festival we did was Street Scene, I don't remember which year it was. The gig we did in TJ was a Halloween show, and I'm pretty sure we opened for Fishbone."

Few recordings of Tapestry Blu seem to exist, though Gregory hopes to visit San Diego soon and look through storage for band materials, including a VHS video recording of their Electric Butterfly rock opera. "We professionally recorded one song, I actually have a good tape version of that somewhere. We had entered this competition where the winner got to get a professional recording of one song. We won. That song was called 'She’s Gone,' a pretty song that could have been recorded by Kenny Rogers or Lionel Richie. It's a very nice recording with an acoustic guitar. We just recorded ourselves. I regret not having recorded us professionally."

It turns out that Electric Butterfly was not the pair's first ambitious attempt to do a grown-up Little Rascals by putting on a whole show. "Nick and I love, loved, loved, musical theater, especially Andrew Lloyd Weber and Les Miz sorta stuff."

"Our first show was produced at Southwestern College, where Nick and I attended. It was called Welcome to the Shangri-La. We had a great cast. It was a 1920s style musical. [Southwestern College Professor Emeritus] Bill Virchis loved us, he wanted us to write an adaptation of Royal Hunt of the Sun. I wish we had. But Nick and I had personal issues. Like most musical teams do. Then we decided to write Electric Butterfly, a post apocalyptic punk homage to Madame Butterfly, long before Miss Saigon came along. That pissed me off. It had lots of problems but it could have been something big I think, with some work. It was at UCSD. I think the L.A. Times did a small writeup. We did it over a few nights and it was sold out. People loved it. It was edgy, punky, and passionate."

Gregory estimates that Tapestry Blu was extant from 1986 through around 1990. "As far as songwriting goes, Nick did most of the music writing. I would help with melodies and I did the lyrics. We were always most influenced by beautiful melodies. We would do remixes and include bits of commercial songs. But we mostly did originals, and occasional covers like 'Always on my Mind' and 'My Prayer.' But mostly our covers were of jazz standards. Love the standards. Our most popular songs were 'Tears of a Lonely Boy' and 'Seseida.'"

Despite their local popularity, Herrera and Gregory eventually parted ways. "I fell out of touch with Niko and I'm sorry about that. There was bad blood and I don't even remember why. Last I heard, he was at some college in Arizona in administration."

More change was in the wind. "Life got in our way. I did my best 'straight' man impersonation, so that didn’t help. I met a woman, had a child, and she was from Chicago. I moved to Chicago because I fell in love. Then, when I came to terms with who I was I came out of the closet. I met a guy who was in the art world. He became the archivist at the Andy Warhol museum, where we opened the museum. I got back into my music, reinventing myself into a cabaret/jazz singer, a specialist in Boleros, French music, and obscurities from the jazz age."

He found Chicago's music scene favored different genres than San Diego. "Truth is, I had got out of pop music at that point. I became more of a jazz, musical theater, and classical singer. I did have classical training, and I did a lot of that in churches and such. Of course the music scene in Chicago was much bigger, but I found that music like Tapestry Blu, new wave, Euro-disco was not in vogue, especially in a place like Chicago, where rock ruled. I did a lot of freelance music writing by that point."

After doing some musical theater, Gregory decided it was time for another reinvention. "Again, life got in the way and I gave up music...I think I became disenchanted with music after learning how superficial it was. People didn’t care, listen, or appreciate what's going on onstage. It sorta broke my heart. I had serious self-esteem problems with people constantly commenting on my weight and the way I looked. I know that the business had always been like that, but it's worse than ever. I was starting to hate music. I didn’t want to hate the thing I've loved the most."

All the online attention over the Stanley Tonight footage has been eye-opening. "Now, it's interesting how everything has come to a head and the Universe keeps pushing me back to my art. I went back to school and got a Master's in writing, whatever that means. But I've written a few short stories that have been published, and I became a music critic for a few papers. Always had the music."

"I've been working on a book that never seems to materialize, but I keep trying."

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