Spot the Wonder Dog

Songwriter / Musicians Tom Valenty and Todd Stahl started jamming together in high school. Tom on drums, Todd on guitar and a guy name Jimmy on bass. This lineup didn't last long. However, Tom and Todd kept things going. Todd played for a band called Irony for a while and bought a synthesizer to play Rush tunes. After Irony disbanded Tom decided to play around with the synth, and the song writing team of Todd Stahl & Tom Valenty was born. Early on, the band was named Ssense, with a female vocalist named Lynn, Gene Gene the drumming machine ( a real person), and Gene's friend on bass. Starting with songs based on our 80's influences. We played a couple of shows, but nothing big. Tom and Todd decided that a female vocal was not quite right for the band and eventually changed the whole lineup to include: Rick Hazel on vocals, Bruce Brody on bass, Pat Mcdermott on drums. A little edgier sound was achieved. The Wonder Dog was let out. Unfortunately, only a few shows, a recording, a video and that was that. Tom and Todd went on hiatus for a couple of years and started back up with the latest lineup which included a Roland R8 drum machine and Kawai Q80 sequencer to handle the backing tracks. Then we incorporated our early 70's and 90's rock/metal influences into the mix. The result was danceable but rockin' tunes. All originals gave way to some cover tunes for live show purposes, but the originals were enthusiastically embraced by their small but loyal following. A two man band, with Tom handling vocals, keyboards, bass, and drums and Todd shredding the guitar, and assisting with the vocals, bass, drums. (almost Daft Punkish) A few songs with lyrics were written, however, instrumentals were dominant in the writting. "Salesman", hands down a radio hit, will be released for public consumption shortly. Today Tom is looking to update the sounds of the old tunes as well as tinkering with new stuff. Tom now has a son, Kevin, that can play all the keyboard parts to most of the tunes. Kevin and his sister, Wynter Rose, can rock on vocals too. That leaves room for Tom to experiment more with the guitar, bass and drums. Todd currently resides in Arizona and is not collaborating in Spot, but hopefully someday soon. Kudos to Blake Murphy for the sound and lyrics on the older Spot stuff, and Fred Gardner for the guitar work and animal sounds on our comedy tune called "Feed the Beaver". See everyone soon