kOMpOsT

Just your run-of-the-pepper-mill, half-assed jerk of all trades jacking off, musically, for no one in particular.Currently lending my bass playing talents (LOL) to symphonic metal act Glass Wolfe (www.glasswolfe.com), just having fun and shredding, like cabbage. Been helping out here and there tracking bass and guitars for their new album, shooting some video, and basically hanging out. Good times.Former lead guitarist in The Abe Lincoln Story; former bassist/vocalist for Ryo Okumoto's side project Code Red; former occasional bassist for surf-rock legends Insect Surfers; former Greg Lake(tm) imposter in ELP tribute act Endless Enigma; former member of fusion-pop combo Tribeca; one-fifth of aborted pure pop maestros Ultra Suede (RIP); founding member of power-poppers Receiver; math-rock(tm) geek with a penchant for melody, madness, and out-of-tune instrumentation. Lower-fi home recordist with a slew of shitty sounding demos.Former this, former that; I like the sound of it.Have been lucky enough to play with -- or appear on albums by -- Stew, Kristian Hoffman, Cloud Eleven, Adam Marsland, Nelson Bragg and Probyn Gregory (Brian Wilson Band), Robbie Rist, Steve Barton (Translator), Steve Gregoropolis (Lavender Diamond), Morley Bartnoff (Dramarama), Paul Litteral (Rolling Stones), and Amy Grant. Well, not Amy Grant, but Deena Rubinson, yes. Oh, and Dionne Airwick."Compost -- a mixture that consists largely of decayed organic matter and is used for fertilizing and conditioning land." Okay, let me get this straight: all dying, carbon-based matter eventually returns its energy to the earth, right? Isn't that why SOME (thank you, Native American Laura of Omaha, Nebraska) native American people buried their dead -- because the next spring, flowers would bloom in the burial spot? Sounds like the basis for a religion to me -- I'll take it!Kompost is my musical mixture of decaying aural matter (my musical influences) which I am using to fertilize and condition my musical landscape (my own music). Simple, no? Hey, it made sense to me that time I took mushr**ms and saw the Squirrel Goddess while listening to the Beach Boys "God Only Knows" on that winter day long ago in my backyard garden in West Los Angeles (I miss that old place!).All I am trying to do with my own music is mash together chord changes that affect me, emotionally, the way other's music has done to me many, many times before. I am trying not to sound too much like any one, overriding influence; rather, I am trying to take elements from some of my favorite artists and combine those elements with some of my own wack melodic sensibilities, and create something sort-of unique in the process.I still can't help writing changes that sound like the big musical acts of my pre-teen youth -- the awesome early '70's. Bands like Steely Dan, Todd Rundgren/Utopia, ELP, King Crimson, Chicago, Bread, Joni Mitchell, The Jackson Five, Carpenters, The Fifth Dimension, and so on and so forth. Yes, I realize some of the aforementioned bands got their start in the Psychedelic Psixties, but it's the 70's where melodic rock really flourished. Sadly, those days seem to be all but gone, except in the hearts of a few of us old goofballs who *insist* on melody.Please, be my melody, would you?