IF YOU READ ALL OF THIS YOU'RE NUTS. BUT THAT'S OLD NEWS. HERE IS THE STORY OF MY 'O SO HUMBLE BEGINNINGS ...

I was born in the little village of Pasadena, California, at a very young age--too young to actually remember. Shortly thereafter I received instruction in drawing from my mother, Mary Ellen, an art teacher as well as a gifted artist. Eventually, to her dismay, I would wind up in a profession that held an even greater potential for loss of sanity as well as assured poverty.

The interests of my two older brothers, David and Stephen, never ceased to monopolize my short attention span. The early sixties, as any armchair historian can tell you, were times of great social change in many aspects of popular culture, including music. My brothers always seemed to have a sense of what the next big thing would be. One day it was Chubby Checker, the next
the Beach Boys. And then one day the whole world was rocked by the arrival of the Beatles. Within no time, we three vowed we were going to be musicians. Although we had no instruments, we were still able to feign playing music, jamming to our records on brooms, tennis rackets, yard sticks and ping-pong paddles (mandolins?) to perfect our stance and style. My first 'guitar' was a ukulele. Somehow it just didn't seem ballsy enough for me. I received my very first real guitar on my seventh birthday. Formal lessons proved mostly unsuccessful due to my insistence on improvising and playing Beatles songs, both of which drew the ire of my teachers (which in turn drew my ire for them). The only really unfortunate thing about this is that it would be another 10 to 15 years before I could really comprehend music theory--but that wasn't going to stop me! (Rock 'n Roll ain't about no damn theory!) Yeah. I was a punk before I was a PUNK...

Finding others (besides my brothers) to play music with was difficult. Unlike today, kids that played guitar (particularly electric guitar) were few and far between. When I got to high school I signed up for band class. My enthusiasm knew no bounds and was a little unnerving for the band teacher. Fortunately I was given my very own practice room. (I was given this room in order to keep me from disrupting the other students in the band room--something I would certainly have won awards for had there been awards for such things!) My usual M.O. was to lead the class into some kind of chaos whenever the teacher left the room. I would lead, playing Frank Zappa, and suggesting that the class play "A Holiday in Berlin Full Blown" instead of the ever-cheesy "Theme from Hawaii Five-0." This, along with my insistence on improvising on every piece (clandestinely, due to poor reading skills), pretty much sealed my fate in Band.

When I was COOL

During this stage in my life my musical heroes (aside from the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and The Rolling Stones) were The Grateful Dead and Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention. My Bass icon was Jack Cassidy of Jefferson Airplane/Hot Tuna fame. As one of only three 'Dead Freaks' ('Deadheads') at my school, it became my mission to convert all the non-believers. That was just about everybody. If I remember it right, the popular music ranged from the 'hard' - Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, to 'soft', Chicago, Herb Albert & the TJ Brass. I think some even thought The Archies were real. The Dead weren't even on the local radar. Theirs was pretty much considered wimpy, has-been, hippie music. You can see how things have changed since then.

It was at this precise time that I switched my #1 instrument from guitar to bass. Also around this time, I became deeply interested in Jazz and Fusion-Jazz. I discovered artists such as Mahavishnu Orchestra, Chick Corea and Miles Davis. Shortly thereafter, I found Weather Report, Herbie Hancock, Flora & Airto, and many others. My new-found obsession seemed natural, as I grew up listening to jazz, ala Duke Ellington, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Dave Brubeck, Stan Getz,Frank Sinatra--all the stuff my mother played around the house. Aaron Copeland and Igor Stravinsky also made great impressions on me as a kid.

Anyway, I knew these two fellows from school, both with electric guitars, that I could jam with. Unfortunately, neither of them could tune their instruments. They even got into an argument, one telling the other to tune to his guitar, only to be rebuffed by the other yelling, "This is MY tuning!"

Obviously, I had to find some players who were a little more advanced.

Everything seemed to come to a head in the middle of my senior year. Effected by both the 'girl of my dreams' running off with some older man, and the general lameness of growing up in a little redneck town, I dropped out of school and moved to Kings Beach, Lake Tahoe. There, while living in a tool shed and painting houses (in the dead of winter) to pay for living in the tool shed, I joined my first real Rock band. The leader of this group was planning on changing the history of music by combining the styles of the Beach Boys and
Black Sabbath. I didn't last too long on this gig because it soon became evident the man was out of his mind. What I didn't realize at the time was that he was just the first of an endless line of disturbed persons I would end up working for. I had finally gained entry into the fantastic world of professional entertainment.

I've been in crazy-land ever since!

Please take an hour to look through my 'PERFORMER PAGE' to see where it goes from here. Essentually I learn most of my craft by attaching myself to the brains (and payrolls) of talented lunatics who specialize in music-style-preservation. It's not easy, but it sure beats going to school!