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In 1968 at the age of 4, I was listening to Dion's The Wonderer over and over again on my old gray record player. My mom getting just slightly agitated at the time said..."you put that on one more time I will break it on your head". So...me being me, I just had to played it one more time. My mom grabbed it and chased me around the house...and finally caught up to me and broke that 45 on my back. It was then that I said.."I want to be one of those" Not a 45 record, but a rocker. Dion was and always will be the number one voice of my musical soul. For the record, a few years later my mother bought me a Dion album called "Sanctuary" and it had "The Wonderer" on it. It was a really cool blues version of the song and that also helped to take me into a different direction. To this day it is one of my all-time favorite albums. Thanks Dion!

Soon after the "record breaking incident", I heard Elvis Presley. A friend up the street turned me on and I was blown away. I used to take my Hotwheel track holder and use it as a microphone. My dad really liked people like Jim Reeves and Hank senior and I heard a lot of that back then. A lot of gypsy music, marimba bands, polka, country western and early rock and roll was my day to day enjoyment. My dad played chromatic harmonica and accordion and my sister tried her hand at organ. I got a guitar and would try and try to figure it all out. Not one to sit still for very long, guitar practice didn't go well, and my guitar abilities still suffer to this day from the same lack of attention it has always gotten.

In the summer of 1977 my buddy Ron and I wanted to form some sort of band so we could become big rock stars and never have to worry about money again. Well, at least we thought we could make a living at it some day, and at the same time get some of the music we have been talking about written down and played. At first I was going to play bass because as a younger me I was a Peter Tork fan and I thought the bass was the way to go. Needless to say, Ron obtained the 35 bucks for the bass and amp that someone was selling before I had, so I stuck with guitar.

My first electric guitar was bought for 20 bucks from a guy who used to play with Eric Carman in the Raspberries. I had no idea at the time who that even was, but at least I had an electric guitar. We needed a drummer and I knew of only one at the time. That was Bobby Malinky who lived quit a distance from me at the time. We had met a few years earlier when he moved across the street from me at the house we had moved from about 2 years previously. We added John Atzberger, Paul Fresty later and Blah blah blah. That whole story can be read at the Echo Grove website.

Music has been my continuing soul savior for most of my life and even back then it was more about the creative outlet than the scheme for attention and picking up the chicks (and for some reason, that never happened to me anyway..). As the world turned and rolled into the 80's I had the luck (or fate) of having many peers who had a lot to say and a lot to do. The supply of creative output was tremendous amongst them all and I was surrounded with art, music, poetry, writing and so many more influences of different calibers, that my brain almost exploded on a few distinct occasions. It was a way of life that I can look back on and not want to take one moment from.

The main thing about those days is my interest into the craft of songwriting and the flow of chords, lyrics, hooks and bumps in the road that can make or break a song. Not saying mine necessarily, but just the formation of it all. I have yet to write the best song I have in me, and chances are that will never happen. But in that timeframe of my life, I discovered a lot of my influences into the craft that I still listen to, to this day. John Lennon, John Sebastian, Pete Ham, Pete Townshend, Muddy Waters (Better known as Plant and Page), Chuck Berry, Jim Morrison, Leiber and Stoller, ..well, the list can go on. Those were the early influences and the music I listened to in my teens was Rock, Blues (mostly the early Chicago and delta stuff), Early Country Western, Pop, Punk well, just about everything. There are just too many people, places and things to list here, but it's safe to say I bit into everything I could sink my teeth into.

Along the way I also discovered other ways to express myself other than music. I really don't consider myself anything but a person who needs to get crap out of my head in anyway I see possible. Some call it art, I call it stuff. Any art I do (charcoal, pencil, painting (some day..lol), …any poetry or writing other than songs and any other non- music expression is usually done for my sake and sits in boxes and drawers and is done mainly to "get it out".

In the late 80's I was without a constant band of my own. That was the time of spandex, 100 note a second guitar solos, chicken hair, singing ranges 3 octaves above middle C and men wearing makeup. Well…I just couldn't… So, I began writing more music, and with my 4-track tape machine did demo upon demo of the thoughts I was thinking underneath this skull. I did get to jam a bit and played with many people to keep the "chops" up, but I was mainly a one-man act and I liked it like that. The challenge of trying to record with a 4-track with limited equipment got my interest in sounds flowing and experimentation was my enjoyment and pleasure. I didn't know that later in life I would be in a studio helping to engineer and produce a ton of different musicians and works. But I have to say that the time with the 4-track was a great learning process.