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From the beginning: I was born in San Diego. I moved with my family to AZ when I was 10 (I consider myself a native now) and learned that Arizona has a huge beach, just no ocean. Got heavily into skateboards. Damn near broke my jaw skating an empty pool when I was 12. Decided to find a less painful hobby. Around the same time I had two watershed musical experiences: 1) I was over at a friend's house and his older brother had a copy of Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers' 1st album on cassette. I played "Breakdown" about 10 times in a row -- driving my buddy crazy -- and thought it was just about the coolest friggin' thing I'd ever heard, and 2) Saturday night was pizza night in the Orf house and my parents and sisters and I would eat pizza and watch "Hee Haw" at 6 p.m. on Channel 5. Every week I'd sit through the cornball jokes and dumb skits just waiting for Buck Owens to play a song and I decided that I wanted to play guitar and sing just like him (Buck and Tom Petty, along with The Stones, Gram Parsons, George Jones, Bruce Springsteen and The Clash are still my main musical heroes). Met Terry Garvin in 7th grade and I found out he had a drum set. I got a guitar for Christmas and my mom drove me over to Terry's house. We sucked. We couldn't play anything we heard on rock radio because I didn't know any chords. Then punk rock changed my life. Terry and I started a punk band -- Dead Fat Pigs -- in 7th grade after watching The Specials and The Clash on the SNL knockoff "Fridays" and Elvis Costello on SNL, and I started making up my own damn chords and writing my own damn songs. We still sucked, but we got better -- I learned some real chords. I taught myself how to play "Breakdown" and I was off to the races. Terry learned guitar too. We formed Zen Lunatics (power pop band influenced mainly by the Byrds, Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers, Dream Syndicate and early R.E.M.) with badass bassist Gilbert Padilla and drummer extraordinaire Ric Napoli, and we started playing out on Tempe's Mill Ave. in it's '90s heyday. We met some great bands and some great friends, released couple critically acclaimed (in the local press, anyway) albums, and ultimately got snuffed, scuffed and rebuffed, after a few agonizing weeks spent twisting in the "are you gonna sign us" wind, by Echo Records out of London. Heartbroken and thoroughly bummed out, we formed our country/punk (like Buck Owens fronting The Clash) offshoot (I love classic country music -- George Jones, Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash -- not the contemporary pop country crap), The Cartwheels (check out myspace.com/thecartwheels), and released our debut album on the New-Fi imprint out of Junction, TX. More critical kudos followed, and no major labels were interested. It sold a few copies and we gave away the rest free (as you can tell, we are great businessmen) to anyone who asked for it on our tours of the Southwest. I have recently formed a new band, Mudwagon (with Charlie Shooter on vocals, Steve Borick on guitar/banjo/mandolin, Michelle Aigner on bass and Terry Garvin on drums)and we made our debut at Tucson's Club Congress in September 2008( and look for a debut CD in 2009). In addition to singing and playing with the bands I helped found, I am honored to play guitar (and occasionally bass) with one of my true musical heroes, Tucson's Rich Hopkins (of the Sidewinders/Sand Rubies -- my favorite Arizona band of all time), in his band Luminarios, and I played some friggin' great twangin' guitar (in all modesty!) on my current Mudwagon comrade in arms Charlie Shooter's self-titled debut album. I also help host Rock Karaoke every Thursday night at the venerable Yucca Tap Room and every Friday at Dos Gringos (both in Tempe) where we play and you sing -- everything from The Beatles to Zeppelin to Skynyrd to AC/DC to Waylon and Merle and whatever else we can learn on the spot. I always thought I'd be a novelist (I got a B.A. in English Lit at ASU), but instead I became a music journalist, formerly working at the East Valley Tribune in Mesa, AZ and I'm currently a freelancer for the Phoenix New Times. I am researching, compiling info and conducting interviews for the ever-thorough, grandiose Buck Owens biography that the late, great Buck deserved but was never rewarded with during his lifetime. Since I am not a novelist, I did myself one better by marrying one -- the novelist Jennifer McKinlay (who will have 6 novels -- two series -- written under her Lucy Lawrence nom de plume, coming out over the next three years) -- and we have two amazing, creative little boys who blow my mind with their youthful worldview and wild senses of humor.