About Me
I'm not going to write this in third person so it sounds like I'm so important that someone else wrote it. So, Hello. Hi. What it is? You can call me Steve, Stephen, or any variation of the two is quite sufficient.
My mother has told me that I always wanted to play guitar. The year was 1997, I was 5, poke'mon was cool. I was meandering around with my mom in Sam's Club when to my recollection there was a huge acoustic guitar (it's actually about the size of a ukulele, but when you're 5 everything is fucking huge). So my mother says "Steve, if I got you this guitar would you play it?" and my reply, "Yes." So into the cart it went. Now I could say "...and the rest is history" but that is not as long and drawn out.
So my mom sets me up for guitar lessons once a week on Saturdays at 2:00 p.m. with what I can only remember as a skinny bearded teenager. I'm fucking 5, I had no attention span. I took lessons for about a year. I got no where which was my fault (I was 5). And dig this, apparently I was a sarcastic, obnoxious kid when I was 5, go figure. My mom actually made me write a letter of apology to my guitar teacher on my last day. I don't remember what it said exactly but I bet It went along the lines of "I'm sorry" then my mom writes "for what?" on the paper so it is like an embarrassing verbal apology. "uh...For not practicing."
My guitar went to a dark room some where for 8 years. Around the age of 12, my interest in the guitar began to rekindle. So for my 13th birthday I asked for an electric guitar. It was a black and white Strat knock off, like most guitarists first electric guitars. I picked up the instrument plugged it in, and man did I suck. So months later I get lessons. Same place. I was taught notes, and rests, and THE POWER CHORD!!! by a cool dude with long blonde hair. I learned some simple Black Sabbath, Twisted Sister and AC/DC riffs. Then my teach split on me. He had to go to college or something.
I was quickly moved to a new place with a new teacher. One of the finest players I have ever had the pleasure of meeting or listening to, Chris Ladd. His thing was classical guitar with nylon strings. At this point I had upgraded from crappy knock off, to crappy name brand. It was a black Ibanez Gio. Mr. Ladd taught me a lot. Besides just classical stuff he dug metal, progressive metal in particular, which was cool because I was hip to that scene as well at the time. Then he had to split. He had to teach at college or something.
My last and most important stop in guitar teachers was Christopher Galvan. A good friend of Mr. Ladd, I had actually met Chris previously to my formal lessons with him (Chris being Christopher Galvan, I was always too intimidated to approach Mr. Ladd as anything else). Chris went to Berklee College of music, where I hope to attend. An amzing guitarist of all the cool genres to be a guitar player he has helped me grow as a guitar player, composer and over all musician.
My current guitars are a Gibson V, a Jackson Randy Rhoads model, a discontinued Global acoustic (that I use exclusively for slide guitar). I use Fender or Marshall amps. For effects I go no further than my Dunlop wah and Pignose distortion. My biggest Influences would probablly be my all my surroundings, dreams, sounds, Frank Zappa, Chris Galvan, George Carlin, Lenny Bruce, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and what ever philosophy I happen to be reading at the time. Genre wise, in an attempt to classify all the music I write and play, you could call it improvising, instrumental, avant-garde, blues, rock, humor/satire, slide blues, funk, jazz, folk, weird shit, classic rock, soul, modern classical, and eastern indigenous. As for what I listen to, it is everything I listed above, plus mo-town. Not that I don't want to play mo-town, I just don't have the cool voiced resources. I really like Marvin Gaye. My guitar playing style, specifically soloing, has been called "sounds like" or "you remind me of" to Carlos Santana, Frank Zappa, Jimmy Page, and Jimi Hendrix.
In my spare time I like to write poetry, participate in theater sports improv (which is the same thing as "Who's Line is it Anyway?"), read into poetry, philosophy, ask people questions, walk anywhere for no reason, think, debate on the existence of god, and what ever I happen to be doing at the time I'm doing whatever it is I'm doing as previously mentioned. I speak fluent jive. It's easier than 4 years of spanish.
"What should be' is a horrible lie, there is no such thing as what should be. there is only what is."-Lenny Bruce. I have come to find that people are best in small doses. That is most people, some I can't stand at all, others are interesting and I could converse with them all day. If you're interesting please talk to me, if not leave me alone, your comments ain't any good here.
