| 1966, age 12, hanging out playing guitar and contemplating my musical future. It's a Fender Jaguar. Note the sophisticated "light box"..! |  |
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The "Battle Of The Bands" in 1967 behind Coopers Music Store in New Kensington, PA. We played "Pipeline", "I'm Not Your Stepping Stone" and "Light My Fire" ( the short version!) Our band was called "The Vikings". I'm jammin' on stage left, playing an AceTone organ. |
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My second band, Plexus Airfoil. That's Chuckie on the drums. Mark and his SG on the bass, my brother Mike playing a Fender Jaguar and me at the Farfisa organ.
Email me if you can identify all of the amps and speakers! |
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| Publicity photo ...circa 1971. That's Ronnie, me, Mike (my brother) and Tom, our singer. We played some originals but mostly tunes by The Who, Zeppelin, Allman Brothers...you get the idea...:) Now known as "Plexus". |  |
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A proud moment for a 16 year old concert promoter. We had over 8,000 people at this concert and had eight bands play, as the byline says, "without incident". Quite a feat in the weird times that defined us. Our first big show as "Buffoon". |
| Another concert that same year. Since our band name was "Buffoon" we used to pass out balloons and play tunes and..... hey, we were kids and it was fun! |  |
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A live gig at a college somewhere in Western Pennsylvania. I'm now playing a Hammond organ, singing and playing alto sax and this was me jammin' on Midnight Rambler by the Stones, circa 1973 |
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Playing key bass on a Rheem Bass Keyboard at some club in Boston in 1974 or 1975.
Berklee College of Music by day, gigging musician by night! |
The visual story stops here for a moment.
After 2 years of gigging around Western PA, upstate New York, West Virginia and Ohio, I realized that music was really going to be my life. Since the band was changing members every 6 months, I finally decided to get really serious and go to music school. I opted for The Berklee College of Music in Boston and enrolled there in 1974. To this day, that first semester was a defining moment in my musical life. I studied piano with James Williams and studied arranging and composition with Ted Pease. My improvisation teacher was Tom Anastos and it was a wonderful musical experience. Music classes all day, gigging all night and living in Boston.
After music school, my plan was to go to Los Angeles and try my hand at film scoring, but I liked Boston so much I stayed there for 15 years! I worked various jobs to pay the bills and ended up at Bose Corporation, where I was the recording engineer for all of their worldwide marketing efforts from 1979 until 1981. In 1981, I felt the "tug" of entrepreneurship and ventured out on my own as a recoding studio owner. By 1985, I moved a small 8 facility outside of Boston into the the heart of the advertising and creative community in Boston on Newbury Street in the Back Bay. This is where the visual story continues.
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The main recording studio in Boston. That's a reconditioned Steinway in a 25' by 40' room. The room gave great drum sounds and in addition to my music, the studio played host to sessions for all the major Boston advertising agencies, corporations and publishing companies. We also recorded bands for the Ace Of Hearts label and did the original demo for the Pixies. It was a 16 track, 2 inch analog studio that also featured a 1 inch Ampex VPR80 video deck for mix-to-picture work. |
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Studio owner by day, gigging musician by night. That's me playing keyboards in my band, "Bridge". We charted in New England and had a great time playing the club scene. |  |
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After operating a studio for 10 years and recording just about every kind of music and sound you can think of, it was time for a return back to my roots. I taught at my alma mater, Berklee College of Music, from 1987 until 1989. In 1989, I divested the studio and moved to London. I used the time there to rediscover my musical passion and made plans to get back into music as a composer of songs and film music. In 1993 I moved to Los Angeles to seek out those opportunities.
Live gig at the Cat Club in Los Angeles. Since 1993, I have composed music for That 70's Show, many episodes of Good Morning America and Entertainment Tonight, scored various indie films and even an HBO movie. I'm currently exploring my writing skills as a novelist and screenwriter. Twice a month, I host the open mic at the UnUrban Coffeehouse and I book showcases and jam sessions every second and fourth Saturday. Life is good. |
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Thanks for taking the time to visit.
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