Like most people, I've always been a big music fan. When I was a kid, I'd spend hours listening to my parents albums and 8-track tapes through a pair of Pioneer headphones, and later in junior high I joined a classical music record club and started recording rock and other popular music off of the radio. Around this time, I also started getting into stereo equipment and reading Stereo Review magazine. I suppose it figures that I would work electronics into yet another hobby.

I didn't start playing an actual instrument until I was in high school and I bought my first electric guitar, a cheap and cheerful Kramer Aerostar with a black body and a white pickguard. My friend Chris Hazuka and I wrote a couple of songs and tried to get a band together, but nothing ever really materialized. A few years later, the two of us did collaborate on a 4-track recording calling ourselves Sheiko Burmese. Maybe someday I'll dig out the recording and post it here.

URBINO (1988 - 1992)

I did manage to put together a three-piece band in college called Urbino where I wrote the songs, played guitar, and sang (well, tried to anyway). My friends Doug Wyllie and Adam Schwartz played drums and bass respectively. We played a few times on campus at UMCP, as well as a few of the smaller clubs in DC like d.c. space, and we eventually recorded an album at a studio called the Hat Factory (run by Tony French) in downtown Baltimore. One of the tracks was released on a compilation CD with other Baltimore-based bands.

GREENROOM (1992 - 1993)

Next I played bass in a band called Greenroom for a while, just concentrating on improving my bass playing while leaving the songwriting and vocals to other members. It was fun while it lasted, but after a while I started to get the bug to write and perform my own songs again. Crash Khan was the main singer/guitarist/songwriter for this group, and I'm sure he's still out there somewhere belting out songs and collecting Marshall stacks.

VACCINE (1993 - 1995)

Vaccine was the last band I put together before moving to California in 1995. I played guitar, wrote songs, and did the vocals while Jim McNabb played bass and Eric Kreinar played drums (both had previously played in the band Emmet Swimming). Instrumentally, we were a bit heavier and slightly more advanced than the bands I had been in before, although I was never able to get the vocals to sound the way I wanted. We were moving away from shout-singing at the time and trying to do something a little bit more melodic, but I just didn't have the voice to pull it off.

OPTION D (1998 - 2003)

The last band I played in was called option d, a three-piece with Jo Ferneau on guitar, Brian McCauley on drums, and me on bass. This band was a little different than the others because we were completely instrumental (no vocals), we did quite a bit of improvisation in practice as well as during our live shows, and we composed most of our songs collaboratively. We released two CDs on our own record label which I'll try to upload here soon.