About Me
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I'm a songwriter, musician, and luthier who is currently writing, recording, and selling my music for other artists, T.V., and/or movie soundtracks. It all started when I was 10 years old involving a little "light" petting with a couple of neighborhood girls on my block. I figured this was a cool thing, but I was a little too young to know how to handle sexual frustration. I began noticing that all of the rock stars had girls falling all over them... even the great cheeseball stars like David Cassidy and Bobby Sherman - WOW! These guys were going all the way with the girls. I new that this was a career that would allow all my pre-pubescent sexual frustration to go away!
By the time I was 11 years old, I really knew I wanted to play in a band. This wasn't just a pipe dream, but a passionate yearning...I had to do it, or die trying (which almost happened - but we'll save that story for later!). When I turned 18, I turned down a pre-paid college education and chose the life of rock and roll. The punk scene was in full swing, and 70's suck pop and disco were dead, and the rest is history.
Well okay, I still had to work as hard as anyone else at getting laid, but I was at least playing music. In fact, I actually realized that I loved playing music regardless of what my sex life was like! From 1982 to 1998 I was very active in the Seattle music scene, at times I was even a local ROCKSTAR playing in bands with former members of Nirvana & Malfunkshun. The most famous of these Bands were Fireants, Devilhead, and The Methodists. If you've never heard of them, then NEVERMIND. Since I worked in the local music stores I had a great connection to all the bands and artists, so I got to know all, or most, of the now famous Seattle Band personnel (even the ones who are dead, imagine that!). After all, they had to come into the stores where I worked to buy strings, picks, sticks, guitars, and whatever else they needed to get by with.
Just for the record, here are the line-ups of the three most recent bands I was in:
FIREANTS: (1991-1993) Guitars - Kevin Wood, formerly of Malfunkshun and brother of the late Andrew Wood (vocalist for Mother Love Bone); Vocals - Brian Wood, also Andy's brother; Drums Chad Channing, former drummer for Nirvana (from 1988-1990, did U.S. & European tours w/them, and played on their albums Bleach, Incesticide, and Muddy Banks of the Wishkah); Bass - me, Dan McDonald. Kevin and I put this band together and we all had an equal part in the songwriting, and we had a unique sound for the time. We released an E.P. on Dekema Records, which you can still find out there if you look hard enough.
DEVILHEAD: (1993-1999) This band was the brainchild of Kevin and Brian Wood, and was signed to Stone Gossard's (Pearl Jam) Sony backed label, Loosegroove Records. There were frequent personnel changes (on every CD released), and I recorded half of the bass parts on their first release "Your Ice Cream's Dirty".
THE METHODISTS (1995-1998): Drums & Vocals- Chad Channing; Bass - Dan McDonald; Guitars & Vocals- Erik Spicer; Guitars - John Hurd. This was a very cool hard punkish pop band (ala Elvis Costello & Buzzcocks), but unfortunately we were just another hard pop band from Seattle w/a former drummer from Nirvana. I believe that was one of the reasons we attracted and repelled big labels. We went on a West Coast tour, and did pretty well on the college radio circuit. We also released a few thousand CD's on our own label... I think Chad still has a few of these available.
There were times I played in up to 4 bands at one time, I was basically a "band slut"! I played and performed in a variety of original bands, blues & blues rock bands, satire bands, and classic rock (I know, I know... GAG and VOMIT!! Hey, it was good money on the side!).
Throughout my music career, all of my "day jobs" were closely aligned with playing music and tied to the local music scene... Male prostitution ROCKS!!! (Just kidding). But mostly I worked in music retail and later apprenticed under master luthier Steve Davies of Stephens Stringed Instruments. By the way, a luthier is a person who experiences sexual frustration on a professional level... again, just kidding! Actually a luthier is a person who builds and repairs fretted stringed instruments. (Speaking of frustration: YOU try dealing with a bunch of whiny, egotistical guitar players!) I became very proficient at being a luthier and ran my own business repairing guitars for all of the music stores in Kitsap County, as well as teaching guitar lessons. I did this for 7 years.
Now somewhere during the late 80's- early 90's, I stole some guy's girlfriend and married her. Well, she actually was a really close friend first, but then I began my evil scheme of stealing her away from her boyfriend; we've been married for 16 years and have 2 boys. This amazing woman, who is also my best friend, put up with me and my shit, and my music fetish (we'll get into my other fetishes later) for a long time, so please give her a healthy round of applause.
