Mark Stevens

Fizzy yellow beer is for wussies...You're not worthy
Way back when I was just a little nard in Pennsylvania holding my first copy of KISS Alive! I was dreaming of becoming a musician (I'll skip the Band Camp stories for now) so I pestered my Mom one Christmas to get me a synthesizer cuz I was playing keyboards at the time, but since they were a bit too expensive we agreed on that black Les Paul copy from the Spiegel catalog and from then on I was hooked. Good idea, Mom. I went from jamming every chance I could and watching what others were doing to learning chords and actually being able to play fairly well. As luck would have it my friend Rob got a bass the same Christmas as I got my guitar and our first feeble attempts at playing KISS and Styx covers began. Well, one of our mutual friends, Bob, had a guitar also but more importantly he had a cousin, Joe, who was a drummer who used to jam away in his basement doing his best Rikki Rockett impression (despite his kit being two different colors and his cymbals sounding like pizza pans). Out of those humble beginnings came the band "Menage A Trois" (a pretty silly name we borrowed from the lyrics of "Girls Girls Girls" by Motley Crue considering there were four guys in the band...but I digress...). We played a few gigs at the local community center despite the fact that we had no bass player, but the kids in the area were that hungry for shows and they came in droves to see us do all the typical bar band cover songs. Then I moved to California... After working at several music stores in the SoCal area and basically laying low in the performance category one of my managers at Tower Records asked me if I knew any bass players. Since I had gotten a bass about a year before to make demo tapes of my own music I told him I'd play bass for his band "Gangway" which he had started with his friend Jim back in Detroit. Three years, ONE gig and a demo later, the band basically fell apart but I kept all the recordings we had done hoping that one day it would pay off. A few years later I stumbled into my next band via a guy my brother worked with who managed a band named "Newcomer" from San Pedro who were also looking for a bass player. After a few practices and a name change to "S.T.U.N." and later "Twisted Noise Association" I decided they were to be the next name in my musical resume. We played loads of gigs in the next three years or so from the now-defunkt Scruffy O'Shea's in Marina Del Rey and T.J. Charliez in Hermosa Beach (Thursday night mayhem) to the last rock show at the Lava Lounge in Long Beach and a trio of semi-memorable shows at the world-famous Whisky in Hollyweird (we opened for the Atomic Punks once!). After a few personnel changes the spark was basically gone and I was dropped by the band due to "creative differences" as the band wanted to go to a more "progressive" style of music. Enter another musical hiatus, a divorce and a few months where I wasn't sure if I liked people anymore. As luck would have it my oldest bro in the world told me about a loose confederation of guys he'd been playing with called "Tom's Garage" from the South Bay area of SoCal. Right down the street from the Tower Records that spawned my first L.A. band saw my musical resurrection and pretty much a plugging in of my life-support system. Tower is gone but the need to play Rock 'N' Roll never quite died. It all started out as a bunch of guys just playing for fun but soon the old light bulb went on and we agreed we needed to take this act on the road. Including members of Feedback, Black Box and Under The Sun, boasting three bass players, two drummers, three guitar players and a gaggle of singers all on a rotating basis, it's rarely the same band twice. The current roster of rock and heavy metal songs runs from Accept to ZZ Top with new ideas popping into the mix almost on a weekly basis. We are now playing various gigs in the Southbay area including The Crest and Keegan's in Torrance. I'm currently sharing bass-paying duties with Tom (it's his Garage) and doing some lead vocals when the need arises. Oh yeah...remember that band "Gangway"? We're currently re-forming under a new, as-yet undisclosed name (that payoff finally came through). We've had a few practices and the songs are getting tight at an alarming rate. I'll update the status of "Gangway Mark III" as it happens.NEW BAND UPDATE!!! I have a new project in the works to pick up the slack in both the Tom's Garage and Gangway schedules...since I have no life I need to fill it with as much ROCK as possible. We had a meeting at one of our favorite watering holes on April 26th just to get everyone's ideas and it sounds like we're all on the same page (if not the same paragraph) as far as dedication and musical taste goes; but don't be surprised if the first time you see us we're belting out a metalized version of some Gordon Lightfoot song! Anyway, the band is made up of Brian (my oldest and best bro in the world) on guitar, Daren from Feedback on drums, Rob, from too many projects to name, on guitar and whatever else he decides to play, Adrian on vocals and maybe some drumming (this guy looks like the ultimate frontman!) and I'll be playing bass and maybe some guitar and keyboards as well. From the sound of things NOTHING is out-of-bounds as far as material goes but once we get a hold of it POWER and GROOVE will rule all.So, there it is in a very compact nutshell. If I haven't bored the crap out of you yet, feel free to add me and be sure to check out the websites and Myspace pages of the following people: "Tom's Garage": www.myspace.com/tomsgaragerocks, Brian Buzzell a.k.a. Dane Bramage of Tom's Garage: www.myspace.com/daneroks, Jeff Gilker of Tom's Garage: www.myspace.com/dethconsumer, Cideshow Studios in Gardena, CA.: www.myspace.com/cideshowstudios
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MySpace CodesCheck out this video: Semper Fi Guitar by Gary Kramer Guitar
My "Tom's Garage" lead guitar player Jeff in the new ad for the Kramer Semper Fi Crusader guitar as will be featured at NAMM in January!

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