Activist in the 1980s American cassette underground through his cassette label Sound Of Pig Music, co-founder of experimental music label Pogus Productions. Active under the name If, Bwana since 1984, making music that has swung between fairly spontaneous studio constructions and more process-oriented composition.

Currently Margolis is label manager for Deep Listening, XI Records, and Mutable Music; plays bass guitar in the legendary punk/post-punk band Styrenes; and continues his work as If, Bwana. He has recorded and/or performed with Pauline Oliveros, Ione, Joan Osborne, Monique Buzzarté, Katherine Liberovskaya, Adam Bohman, Ellen Christi, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Jane Scarpantoni, Ulrich Krieger, David First, and Dave Prescott, among others.