Cory's Story

    It all started long long ago. When I was very young, my mother said I would crawl to the radio and turn it on.
And now I still crawl sometimes. Some of my first memories are of listening to The Beatles, The Monkies, The
Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, and so many other great groups. I wanted to play the drums, and be just like Ringo,
but my folks didn't want to hear someone banging on the drums, so they got me a guitar instead. I took lessons for awhile,
and then in the 6th grade I started my first group. The group was called "Hot & Nasty" and I still don't know which
one I was. The members included Mike Kolar on guitar and vocals, Tony Lumia on drums, Jeff Green on bass,
and Gina Testa on flute. We played our Jr. High School dance, some assembly's, and talent contests, and even
a dance at another school.

Hot & Nasty

        There was another group at the school called Shadow. They were our rivals then, and who would have imagined
what would happen later in our lives. When "Hot & Nasty" disbanded, the guitar player for Shadow, James Musser,
was looking to find a new member to play bass with his new group. He asked me if I wanted to join, and I accepted.
James was a incredible musician and I knew I could learn many things from him, and the other members. This group
later became known as Underwater Traffic.

Cory In Leopard Pajamas w/ Underwater Traffic
To read more on the history of this group see their web site at http://members.aol.com/utjam/ut.htm
    After playing some local clubs, many parties, and other events, I was fired for being out of control, and not
dedicated enough. I was getting into punk rock among other things, but continued playing music.

    I started a group with my brother Chris on drums, longtime friends Bill and Al Bowman on Bass and Guitar,
and a singer named Robin Weeldreyer. We called the band The Cocktails. The Cocktails played some gigs around town and it felt good to
be writing some of the music for the band. The group went through some changes and after some demo tapes and
a few more gigs, eventually broke up.

    After trying to form a few other groups I joined a band called Page 22, whose drummer was Chris Weeldreyer
brother of  Robin Weeldreyer (singer for The Cocktails). The combination was good but after a few gigs, the group
dissolved.


    At the same time Chris and I were recruited into a group called "Tans from the Sun". Tans from the Sun was
the first group that I joined that were on a mission to get a record deal. They had a demo that was very good sounding
and they had management people and other connections also. We played lots of gigs and had a very regular practice
schedule. The guy that got me in the band was Rob Sullivan, their guitar player, who was one of my best friends, and
also an original member of Underwater Traffic. After about a year of playing with this band, the differences between
the members surfaced and we split up. Half of the band formed a new group called Tanz Muzik, but never played
any live gigs.

Roby Rodgers

    Then one night at a party I met a local guy named Roby Rodgers. Roby and I clicked, so I asked him to come try
out for the band. Then a few weeks later Crocodile Tears was formed. Crocodile Tears was the ultimate outlet for
me to realize my collaborative music making skills. We wrote so many songs together and I was always amazed at
what we could do together. At the same time I was playing in another group called Liquid Sky. The keyboard
player, Bob Fenger was into all these wild sounds and he opened my mind to all kinds of new approaches on
making music. This group never really played out either, but I met some other people through this, that would change
my life forever.

Nina Hagen

    Crocodile Tears vocalist Roby started dating singer Nina Hagen, and that opened doors for the group even more. We played Hollywood parties, got our music played on the radio, and all kinds of exciting stuff. I also started going out with a singer, Cindy Marble, who had joined the Liquid Sky band, and after awhile she and I formed Rugburns.

Cindy Marble
    Both Crocodile Tears and Rugburns played many gigs, and in 1987 flew to Berlin, Germany to open up a huge
show for The Nina Hagen Group. I thought to myself as we played in front of thousands of people, we are finally
on our way. When we got back to the states, it was like we never left, and after another two years both bands
were history.

    After the bands broke up I joined a few other bands, one called Vicious Suaves, with guitarist Probyn Gregory,
who had played in both Crocodile Tears and Rugburns.

    Then I started a band with my old buddies Bill and Al Bowman. We called it Billy's Room. Billy's Room also had Chris Weeldreyer, the founding drummer of Crocodile Tears and The Rugburns. To tell all the stories of Billy's Room would take up pages of text, so I will just say we wrote a bunch of songs, about drugs, girls, and other stuff. We played lots and lots of gigs, including Hare Krishna festivals in Boulder, Colorado and Venice,CA. Those years were some of the wildest of my life, and we still get together every now and then, at a moments notice, to play a gig or a party. The band's philosophy was that anyone and everyone could be in the band, and to just go for it.

Billy's Room

Billy                 Cory                 T.K.                 Chris

     Billy's Room had many different line ups over the years, and after the one pictured above, that played many gigs at places
like The Lighthouse & other bars in the South Bay, the line up changed to having Rob Ahlers on drums and Garett Griffin on guitar, with Billy and I always as the core of the group. The group lost their regular gig at the Lighthouse for always playing to loud, and after about a month was already putting together a new line up. The new one was with a guitarist, Tommy Pittam, and a drummer, Joe Leweck. We also had a guitarist that was in the band most of the time from the beggining,  Dana Shaw, and a keyboardist, Pete Ibenez.

    One of the guitar players that joined Billy's Room was named Tony Sena. He was playing with alot of different people
at the time, one of which was a woman singer/guitarist named Janine Freeman. Janine asked Joe, Tony, and I to do some showcase gigs with her so we ended up joining her band, and after one rehearsal she asked us if we would like to go to Tahiti for two weeks to play some shows there. We had to think on that for about 1/2 a second, then we found ourselves in Tahiti playing at the Sofitel Hotel, and at a club called Nashville. This was one of the best gigs I ever got, by far.
 
There was another couple of groups, Waterfront Faire, and Procedure 769, that a joined and met a great drummer, Rob Ahlers, who would later join Underwater Traffic, and helped me re-realize how much I love to play bass.

    I also joined another group with Tony Sena, that was called Tin Roof. The group played at many places in and around L.A.
and after going in to record our second demo tape, I was fired for being too mellow, or maybe not into it enough.

    I continued playing in Underwater Traffic, and Billy's Room, and taking odd jobs, untill one day when I was hired by a friend, former Underwater Traffic member
and Post Logic Studio Owner Miles Christiansen, to work on a TV show called Out of the Blue, in Florida. I was assistant editor, and also got to edit all the music videos for the show. After about 6 months I was back home.

    I also played in a punk rock band with a really cool guy, Steve Linn who is a guitar player, singer, bass player,
and he also knows alot about computers and other stuff, & Rick (Rico) Snyder who also played in
Drums in Procedure 769, and Billy's Room among many others. The bands name is Boner and you can visit them at:
http://hero.com/boner/

    Now I've been working as a video editor for the last 6 years and I still play music whenever I can.
 
    Rob Ahlers, Trevor Lloyd and I also played a christmas show in L.A.backing up a popular Vietnamese singer named Luu Bich in Dec 1999,
You can learn more about her by doing a search on the web.

   Rob Ahlers and I are also in a group called "Sharlotte's Web" with longtime friend and bandmate, Sharlotte Gibson, who sang back-ups in Waterfront Faire, and has been singing back-ups for the likes of Brandy, Berlin, Barry White and Whitney Houston, to name a few. We played our first show at the Troubadour in Hollywood in Dec. 1998, and recorded a short demo also. We went back into the studio in Jan. 2000 to record three more songs.
Our latest show was at The Dragonfly in Hollywood on Dec. 9th 2002.

Siamac Majd is a Persian singer/songwriter that I met while in the Rugburns.
We have played some gigs and parties since then, and still collaborate and record music together to this day.
.
    I also play gigs with T.K and the Krishnautix. T.K. is a great guitarist/singer songwriter in a Hare Krishna style.
We played gigs in Venice, California, and San Francisco, and Seattle, Washington in the summer of 2002.


    I will add more to this as the memories come back to me.
Cory 12-2002

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