So I guess it all started as an angstful teenager who was fed up with the pop bullshit that infects the airwaves of mainstream entertainment. Having spent my childhood listening to nothing but Top 40, my sister's dance mixes and church music, I got sick of not having an emotional connection to the music. Slowly my brother began to introduce me to rock bands - Led Zepplin, Alice in Chains, Megadeth, Metallica...and I was hooked.Then one day, I purchased an album called "Nevermind" from a band called Nirvana. (maybe you've heard of them). Something spoke to me, more than the face-melting power solos of my previous influences. The more I learned about music, the more I wanted to know. I began listening to hip hop, soul, punk, reggae - anything that was well-written music with heart. Genres don't matter - only the passion that's in the music.At 14, I begged my father to get out his old guitar and teach me the basics of being a rock god. My first guitar (which I still proudly display) was my father's 1954 Danelectro. No amp - just an unplugged electric. I had little more than tuning knowledge and some basic chords, but I still rocked my heart out. I continued learning with tablature (support your tab sites! Learning is not copyright infringement!) then started writing my own songs.My first 'recording' (and you'll read why I use the term loosely) was a two-sided 90 minute cassette tape that I recorded on a stereo with one mic for the guitar and one mic for voice (putting the voice in the left ear and the guitar in the right.) In 1994 I filled the 90 minute tape with about 20 songs that I had written and gave the tape a psuedo-copyright under "MOM FEARS MY music", homage to my mother's repeated attempts to convince me that bands like Nine Inch Nails were going to make me commit suicide. (She's much better now). The album, Tortoise, was my first record - in more ways than one. It was a record of an event. Better than any photo album.In 2002 I got a chance to record with an engineer buddy on his home computer studio. We had a bit of a falling out, so a lot of the post production never got finished. I'm still looking forward to going back and making those songs sound the way they should - add some second guitar lines, harmony, dewbacks, percussion - you know, the stuff that should have been there in the first place but I didn't have the money or time to produce. The 5 tracks were put together with a live recording to create the Stop Hittin' Yourself EP.In 2004 I borrowed a 4-track recorder and put down 11 songs. I got a chance to experiment a little - adding distortion and percussion and recording a couple joke songs (some good hidden track material). The stereo master cassette tape (there's those damn analog tapes again) came to be known as Something Unbroken.Taking the 6 songs from Stop Hittin' Yourself and the 8 completed tracks from Something Unbroken, I put together a 13 song record entitled The Whore With a Feldspar Heart. Encompassing the time from my first songwriting days in 1994, all the way up to the life-changing experiences in the new millennium, Feldspar Heart signifies the end of a very important chapter in my life.My very first band in high school was Square Orange Circle, a post-punk rock band. A couple of years ago I played in the now defunct Cute 4 Theory, the alpha-male of the emo world. Check out my YOUTUBE videos for some live Cute 4 stuff! My most recent endeavors (Middies, a hometown stone-rock trio and Razormouth, a hardcore band) remain under construction.In April 2008 I completed the audio engineering program at the Recording Workshop in Chillicothe, OH. I am currently working with Reaper, Reason and Cakewalk.
I hope you enjoy the tunes. If you'd like a free copy of my homemade CD, just email me your name and a shipping address and I'll send you one right away. I Used Strikefile to Edit My Shit.
