Member Since: 15/07/2007
Band Website: StringTheories.com
Band Members: Michael Healy-
In 1979 moves to Sausalito, CA where he gets a job at the Trident Restaurant. His love for music is represented by his creating mixed tapes from his growing LP collection and going to see as many live shows as his budget would allow.
These were the BOHO years, living with three friends from high school often working at the same restaurant we lived the high life on payday and then experienced 14 days of increasing poverty leading up to the next paycheck.
Michael bought a guitar and he and his brother Ed hitchedhiked around America during the Reagan years, they were racing another team of BOHO's, Ray Alberich and Syd Bellige.
It was on this trip that Michael started on the path of music for good, he had brought along a drum stool to sit on while he played guitar by the side of the road.
When he got back to Marin County in the summer of 1984 he spent every cent he could spare on musical instruments and began to play with experienced players.
This led him to Marc Wendt, Paul Kovin, Steve Moore and Machi Tumat, after a few appearances at The Sweetwater open mic night with Marc alone, Michael began to play around the area with this group of lads as Commander Casual and the Cool Cat Crusaders, there were a few drummers that played with them, quite a few in fact, it was the Spinal Tap factor, the first was Tom O'Callahan who came in with considerable previous live playing time, Chris Dobrec joined us for a memorible series of gigs including the SF Womens Ultimate Frisbee Party at The Mission Rock Resort, Chuck Noah played with us at the end playing our farewell gig with us at the Sweetwater in 1991
Michael had been playing drums with a group called IKNAKFU (Iknakfu.com) Chris Furbee- Bass and Dave Collings- guitar, now this became is main focus, they would play a handful of times a year for the next decade and record a ton of great stuff and release very little of it. Nigel Angst joined as the drummer and Michael became the lead singer, this is the line up your can hear on the website.
They are still a threat.
Michael met Walt The Dog in the early 90's and played drums for him when his good drummers gave him attitude, he learned a lot about playing less, not more from Walt.
Great guy Walt The Dog, Bluesman in every sense.
In 2002 Michael Healy came to Renegade Studios with the intent to form a band to play his growing catalog of work, he contacted everyone he had played with previously and invited them to become a part of the project.
It was an exciting time for all of them and they attempted to avoid the pitfalls of earlier projects by rotating control of the rehearsal time in order to hear opinions and song choices from every member of the band, the idea was; get a group of talented musicians together and work on eachothers great songs as a collective, sharing rent and sharing thought.
Like most Utopian projects this one failed due to human nature, Michael salvaged from it the most viable elements for his project and became very selfish, he was assisted in this by the love and energy from Mike Stecher and Pat Mundy.
The amount of time these two men have spent for no reward on Michael Healy's music cannot be underestimated, he is extremely grateful.
As you can see Michael is very fond of speaking in the third person.Mike Stecher- Not much is known about this Bass Guitar phenom, it is known that he played for a time as an auxillary bass player for Walt The Dog, he also played for Carson City Rocks (DreamBigMusic.com) and Red I, a Bass player in the classic mode he is still water running deep, a powerful musical force. Michael Healy is lucky to have him on board.Pat Mundy- Michael met Pat at the second of the now legendary Pirate Parties of the early 90's in Marin County, young Pat challenged gigantic Michael (Captain Eggplant) for the possession of an unopened bottle of Prussers Naval Rum, Pat believed that this huge invader Pirate had found his reserve bottle.
The fact of the mattter is Michael had been invited to this soiree and felt it only right to arrive with the appropriate elixer, when confronted by this man who politely asked for the return of his bottle, Michael introduced himself to the brave young man and assured him that he was mistaken, Michael was bearing a gift to strangers, not ill gotten goods.
Pat then sought his cache of libation and emerged with an intact bottle of Her Majesty's finest grog, toasts were made all around and great friendships forged.
Pat has played with numerous bands in his short life most remarkable of them the legendary JelloHat (JelloHat.com)
The Ideal Husbands was an experience that I will never forget and hope will come raging by again like a cicada emergence (IdealHusbands.com)
I was hired by my good friends Neil Osborn and Peter Nevins to play some drum tracks that they had in mind to finish up a project that they had been painfully and carefully constructing that represented their vision, it is tremendous stuff and should be listened to, it is forbiding to some of the small brain people, which apparently lurk everywhere in this risk averse society.
I had the honor of practicing with the husbands two days a week learning the parts from recordings of the session drummer, Alexis Razon (Vinylgroove.com) and learning the parts they had written for me for their new songs. this was a great experience for me.
The band imploded under predictable circumstances surrounding the subjects Tesla and Mermaids and the current availibility of top notch Absinthe.
Actually they didn't implode, they fired me.
Quite nicely,I must say, I still have the letter, they currently have the continent surrounded as Peter is in Brooklyn and Neil is in Bolinas.
Influences: Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Yes, Cream, ELP, Jimi Hendrix, Frank Zappa, Pearl Jam, Wolfmother, Stevie Ray Vaughn, The Who, AC/DC, Black Sabbath, Return to Forever, Carlos Santana, Gabor Szabo, The Everly Brothers, Bread, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Chrome Johnson, Vinyl.
Sounds Like: Michael Healy
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Record Label: Unsigned