Chris

Here's my musical bio as I believe it's going to appear in some promo material for one of my bands:"As a musician with nearly four decades of experience, Chris started out playing trumpet in school band from age 10 through high school, first picking up guitar, which was quickly to become his primary instrument, at age 12. As time went on he explored other instruments and a wide variety of musical styles. He has professionally played electric, acoustic, and slide guitars, bass guitar, mandolin, bouzouki, bowed psaltery, and frequently also performs Middle-Eastern style hand drumming for dancers. He continues to explore and learn additional instruments to add to his repertoire. Aside from trumpet, he is entirely self-taught on all the instruments he plays. The styles of music he has played professionally include Rock, Folk, Blues and R&B, Country, Celtic (Irish predominently), Middle-Eastern, Reggae, and Easy Listening, and as a prolific composer and lyricist, has drawn from these and other stylistic influences in the writing of countless songs. In addition to many years of on-stage experience since childhood, he is also a first-call studio musician, having to date appeared on over a dozen albums by a variety of artists."*~()~*Silverhand, a sort of Irish-Fusion band I founded in 1996, became the most active Celtic-oriented band in the area. Our CD has been played on over 70 radio stations across the U.S., as well as in other countries. Although the band folded in 2002 (the website is not up-to-date), the CD is still available at:http://www.laughingraven.com/Silverhand.htm*~()~*Aside from music, I also teach (privately) a rather obscure type of Indonesian martial art called Pencak Silat. I've trained in a lot of different martial arts over the last few decades, but Silat is my favorite, along with Philipino weapon arts which are related to it.*~()~*My current band is The Lizard Mafia -- check out the band's MySpace page!