Testimonial

To paraphrase a laughable moment in recent American political history, “Who am I and what am I doing here?” Seriously, the answer is simple. Like all human beings, crafting a vehicle for self-expression.

Not long after I took my first breath

of oxygen and therefore became hooked, my senses locked in on a specific stimulus. To be more specific, it was a 45 by a band called The Surfaris (their name says it all) called “Wipeout”. Three things about it grabbed me; the hideous maniacal Frank Gorshin-as-the-Riddler laughter at the beginning which I associated with my older brother’s Weirdo and Rat-Fink models, the badass drum solo at the end of each 12 bar chorus, and most of all, the sound of an electric guitar. Ok, I’m dating myself here; I don’t have a problem with that. It was the 60’s. No Internet. No video games. No MTV. No cable TV, from what I recall. Some great shows, though. Ok, ok, I ‘m going off the subject. The point is, there were fewer stimuli around at your disposal. But there was music, and that was my stimulus of choice. I used to hear older siblings listening to the local San Francisco AM radio station, KFRC. A lot of Motown, which was cool, and THE BEATLES. They killed me. Their songs were so good, and they looked cool. I was always grabbing a broom, a tennis racquet, whatever, and pretending to be Paul playing the bass on some cool tune of theirs like Hey Bulldog, Lovely Rita, or Flying. A lot of people often comment on their harmonies, etc. The “front side” of their music. But what about the backside? They laid down some killer grooves, and much of the hip hop and house stuff you hear today has basically ripped off Ringo’s scissors hi hat and heavy down beat kick and snare ala’ Magical Mystery Tour and Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band Reprise. The other band that got to me were local boys Creedence Clearwater Revival. John Fogerty’s wicked soulful voice was bone-chillin’, and they had a tough guitar sound. My grandfather bought me Willy and the Poor Boys, and I was shocked to discover they were white. In 1968, Bob Dylan told Rolling Stone Magazine his favorite song of the year was Proud Mary. ‘Nuff said on that.

I got a “drum kit” for Christmas, and wrecked the paper heads and tin shells in no time. By the time I was in 6^th grade, I got a plastic acoustic guitar. I had no idea the left (fretting) hand was supposed to do anything but hold the neck, whilst you beat on the strings with the right. I remember sauntering down the block with my new Christmas gift, to a friend’s house, who had just received the same thing for a gift. He opened the door, and exclaimed “Check this out!” and proceeded to play an exact duplicate of my first musical composition, a little one-handed ditty of cacophony, note for note. I stood there stammering. By Junior High, I had my second electric, a used 68 Fender Mustang that had been stripped to natural by a hippie in Berkeley. My first was a Silvertone, and man I wish I still had it. Both of them, for that matter. I joined the school’s jazz band, along with 2 or 3 other guitar players. Kind of like having too many fries with your Happy Meal. And I was the most useless of us, having no idea how to play. Two memories of that band room I have; getting into a fight on the front steps with a now famous bass player, and the guitar that belonged to one of the other guys named Nick Tutino. It was a Sonic Blue Mustang, and the coolest looking guitar I’d ever seen.

By high school, I was in my first real band. Real meaning they had a P.A. Now all they needed was somebody to sing through it. I was supposed to be the lead guitar player, but the other guitar player was too chicken to sing, so guess who ended up with the job? I think the first song we ever played was “Can’t Get Enough” by Bad Company. We played parties and stuff, and it was fun.

Ok, true confessions time. It was at this time that I made a startling discovery, at a very critical age (14): Take any ordinary, underweight nerdy introverted loser kind of kid on the block, put a guitar in his hands, and he suddenly becomes interesting to the opposite sex. Even if he’s not all that talented. This truth is as undeniable as the Earth is round. Thankfully (then again maybe not), the bug bit me before puberty, thus preventing this from becoming my prime source of motivation, although for some time it ran a very close second.

Summer, 1975. Two significant events took place. First, I was goofing around on a friend’s drums after band practice. I playfully lobbed a drumstick at the other guitar player/singer. He dodged it and picked it up, and lobbed it back. I’ve never been that coordinated of a guy, so when I attempted to dodge it, I effectively put myself in its direct path. The blunt end of it struck me in the eye, and it stopped seeing immediately. The vision slowly came back, and the next day I went to see the eye doctor. His words: “You were lucky; you almost lost the vision in that eye.” I wish that was true. Eighteen years later, it succumbed to Glaucoma, and went blind. I now have two different colored eyes.

The second event; I stayed up late to watch Midnight Special, specifically to see this band I had heard a little about. Out came these four freaks, painted up like clowns, wearing black leather. They were LOUD. Every instrument they didn’t throw, they BLEW UP. And the first words out of the bass player’s mouth were “Get up, and get your grandma outta here”. That did it. I was hooked. I had to be like that. I spent the next decade and a half obsessing over rock stardom, and coming close, as you will see on one of the following pages. But that is a story in itself….

The days that have passed since then have brought lots of changes; friends, bands, jobs, marriage, divorce, lessons and experiences. But some things never change. I still have a metabolism that allows me to eat an entire large pizza at midnight, I still have a full head of hair that I will never be able to control, and I still have the freedom to play guitar and write about whatever I want to, just because I have the desire to do so daily. And I still have one good eye…..