Sound and music always in my life
Since I was a little boy…
- Playing with my dad’s reel to reel when I was a little kid, splicing tape and trying to speak backwards, making bizarre audio collages, building radio kits and taking stuff apart…
- Interned at a Radio station when I was in junior high, recording news carts, dubbing tapes, and helping where I could…
- Grew up with musical influences all around, though my sister Jessica was the one with both the talent and discipline to make it a career…
Through high school and beyond…
- In high school, did stagecraft, concert production, video and music production — along with programming computers back when that wasn’t a thing kids did…
- Worked here and there as an assistant audio engineer, building speakers and cables, helping with session setups, tracking, mixdown, and of course sweeping the floor…
For real money, or sometimes not so much…
- Worked at Atari — I am the world’s first consumer video game sound designer — composing sounds and crafting audio production software…
- Built and ran the sound systems at Cazadero Performing Arts Family Camp for many years, also taught home recording and concert sound production there…
- Freelanced and ran a small company doing live sound at various venues, including SF Blues Festival, warehouse shows with Deerhoof, Triangle, Black Dice and a range of unknowns, or even little pub gigs — and of course Cazadero…
And really for the joy of it…
- Jammed with friends and tentatively joined/formed a few bands over the years, on guitar, bass, vocals, coffee can, whatever made the right noise…
- Lately discovered film scoring competitions: the best thing is that they provide some film that needs a score!
- Most recently I joined a salsa band as a bassist…
Who are my influences?
I was raised on the local bands like Big Brother, Santana, Creedence, Jefferson Airplane, and the Grateful Dead.
Also Pink Floyd, Hendrix, Cream, the Allman Brothers, and of course the Beatles and Stones. Later I was into The Cars, Elvis Costello, Talking Heads, Bob Marley, and then Nirvana, REM, and many others. Was never into Whitesnake or Scorpions.
Though I hung out with a mostly blues and rock-oriented circle of friends, I also had friends and family very much into jazz, so I got some education there. High School dances grooved best to soul and funk, and I later shared a house with some Puerto Rican salsa musicians. I lived in Australia for nearly a decade, and absorbed a lot of the Aussie rock canon too.
I know I’m leaving out plenty; here’s a pairwise comparison to look at things from another angle:
| More into this… | Than, say… |
| Tower of Power | Bee Gees |
| Miles Davis | Eric Dolphy |
| Frank Zappa | Ted Nugent |
| The Police | Black Flag |
| Joe Pass | Steve Vai |
| Aretha Franklin | Mariah Carey |
Overall, I savor groove and tone more than technique and cleverness. B.B. King, rather than J.S. Bach. I like things that let me tap my foot and hum along. Then again, love love love a good hook: I remember by heart quite a few radio jingles from my childhood.