Over the years, I've had the good fortune to play in a number
of bands with a number of different musicians. And although
none that I know have achieved great commercial success,
I still feel that I have been priviledged to have connected
with some great musicians and human beings.
Like many other people, I started playing electric music
(rock) in my late teens. Before that, I had played music in all kinds
of school bands, from elementary school thru high school,
I started forming my own musical groups of one sort
or another in the late 70's. As time has progressed
I've come to see that being in or part of a Band
is a necessary social, emotional, and even spiritual
part of my life.
So on this page, I just sort of keep track of the bands
I've been in. They are shown starting with the most current band(s)
and continuing back, in rough reverse chronological order,
to the first real "band" I had a part in, Lively Live.
I started working with C.J. Hutchins after I heard him
play when he sat in with us at a Forgotten Space gig that
Sandy Troy had set up. We talked
about getting together, and over the next year we started working
out on some of his originals and a number of cover tunes.
We played a number of gigs as a two piece at LeStats,
and the Del Dios Coffee House before we hooked up with
Dave Martin, who, as luck would have it, was also introduced
to us by Sandy.
We are currently playing as a power trio, behind CJ's great vocals
and incredible guitar work. You can find us at the Casa De Oro
Mining Company out in Lemon Grove or at various venues in the
North Park area. Working with a three piece is great, there's
lots of room to maneuver and we don't have any problem coming
up with a full sound. I look forward to doing more
work with this group in the near and far future.
I had recorded
Ya Keep A Knockin for Theo in 2004, and I got a chance to play
guitar on one of the songs, but I really got to work with the band
a lot more during 2005, when I did stints on lead and
rythmn guitar during a series of summer gigs, including
a long distance one in Fallon, Nevada, the Long Beach Zydeco
Festival, the P.B. Block Party, and San Diego's famous
Gator on the Bay.
The relationship continued as I recorded and produced but also
performed most of the guitar parts on Theo's newest CD,
Got You On My Mind. Then Victor had to go a way for a month
or so, so I filled all the regular gigs on bass, including
a fun one out at the DeAnza Nudist Resort, and cookin' gigs
at the Coyote Bar and a number of private parties. We did
a great Benefit for Katrina at Tio Leo's in Bay Park,
raising $$$ and gathering a bunch of food and stuff that Theo took back to
Lafyette on one of his aid missions.
All in all it made for a very busy and fun summer, and now that I'm
offically part of the family, I'm on call to cover bass whenever
Victor can't make it, and will continue to lend a hand to Theo on
guitar and/or with my production efforts. Be sure to
Check Theo's Calendar
to find where he's playing. I hope you drop by! Maybe you'll get
a chance to see me too, sitting in with them.
Forgotten Space
is formed around a core including myself
on vocals, bass and acoustic guitar, Don Musial on vocals,
lead and rythmn guitar, and Virginia West on vocals.
In addition to this strong vocal core, the band also
features other players at various times, depending on the
circumstances, usually including Pat Kingsland and/or
Jim Sallis on drums, and sometimes featuring
Ted Stern on violin and guitar, Julius Kuczma on keyboards,
and/or Mark Johnston on mandolin.
Forgotten Space
plays a variety of music from Originals to Rock
and Roll and Blues standards, in a variety of formats from a 3 piece acoustic
vocal group to a full 7 piece electric rock and roll band with 2 drummers!
We've played at various places around town including Humphries on the Bay,
Java Joes Pub, Tio Leos, and the
Hot Monkey Love Cafe among others.
I've recorded two CDs with Forgotten Space, the first,
One Dream Avenue
was recorded as a demo of 5 dead cover songs to get gigs and to build the
initial website for the
band. The second CD is an all original CD called
Remember Tomorrow.
You can find out more about the band at
www.forgottenspace.com.
Dead Enuf formed after Mars Hotel
had kinda fallen apart.
The band featured myself on Bass, Peter Padua on guitar,
Ted Stern on guitar, pedal steel guitar, and violin,
and Tom Welch on drums.
DeadEnuf was, as you can guess, another
Grateful Dead cover band.
We played at Hennessey's and Victor's in P.B.
and the Road House up in Encinitas.
I recorded one
demo CD of Dead Enuf.
in order put together a promo package and get gigs.
p.s. I played some other gigs worth noting with Peter Padua.
We played up in the Bay Area with The Webs at the annual
Sonoma Crusher's Grateful Dead Day in 2000,
and with Peter and Tom at the y2k Marina Del Rey
Christmas Boat parade, both of which were fun gigs.
NOcean - 2000 and 2001
NOcean
was already a working band when I joined them.
Featuring Sam Mclarty on rythmn guitar,
keys, and lead vocals, Becki Hammett
on vocals and incidental percussion,
Mike Head on lead guitar,
Tom Welch on drums, and myself on
bass. Tom got me the gig as Mars Hotel had
run into some inter-personal conflicts.
While I was with them, NOcean played pop-covers
from the 60's thru 90's and some pretty darned good
originals. Most of the gigs I played at were at
Hennessey's in P.B., but the band played
other venues before and after my membership.
Mostly formed around Sam and Mike's friendship,
I believe that NOcean is continuing to work
around town with different musicians.
Kevin Irlen on guitar and lead vocals founded
Rita's Simple World with Craig Johnson
on lead guitar, Brian Riggs on bass, Jim Stephens
on drums, and I played harmonica and sang backups.
Rita's Simple World was a "different" kind of band.
Kevin's idea was to cover individual Artists, one at a kind,
kindof a serial tribute band. It it's first incarnation,
of which I was a part, the band concentrated on covering
the songs of Bob Dylan. Later incarnations that
I didn't play in included a Bruce Springsteen
phase, and most recently a Standard Blues stage.
RSW played at a number of parties including, perhaps
most significantly for me, Kevin and Anita's housewarming
party, where we recorded the
Down To The Roots CD.
I joined
Mars Hotel
after answering an
add in the Reader. Stu Kallen founded
this Grateful Dead
cover band featuring Stu on lead vocals and rythmn guitar,
Peter Padua on lead guitar, Ted Stern
on lead guitar, pedal steel, and violin,
and Tom Welch on drums.
Mars Hotel played quite a few gigs
here in San Diego. We played nearly every Sunday
night in 1998 at Pounders in Escondido,
and other bars in town, including Victor's.
We made an effort to get out to the local street
fairs, playing at the Adams Avenue Street Fair,
and the North Park Street Fair, and
a real fun gig at Grossmont College/
I recorded two CDs of Mars Hotel music.
The first was a particularly good live gig at
Pounders
in Escondido. The second CD was off-the-board
from the Grossmont College
Ides of March
spring festival.
In the middle to late 90's, I continued working with
Paul Via Cava on Guitar, Andy Via Cava
on Pedal Steel, Pat Kingsland
and "Conga" Dave Townsend on percussion, adding
Mark Johnston on fiddle and sax, in a band
called
the Blue Louvre Consortium.
This group emphasized popular jazz, doing songs by
Cole Porter and other classic jazz composers, influenced
heavily by the power pop format that we had evolved
in the other bands, a really interesting mix, if I
do say so myself :-)
I recorded one CD with the Blue Louvre Consortium,
which I called
A Night At the Blue Louvre.
Cocktail Flu,
with Steve Schulman on Keyboards,
Tim McFarland on Guitar, Pat Kingsland on drums,
"Conga" Dave Townsend on percussion, and myself on
bass was a 60 thru 80's top-40 cover band. We played a series
of gigs in the early 90's, mostly at the Office on 31st
and University here in San Diego.
I put together a CD posthumously after Steve Schulman's
untimely death in 2000, which, in memory of Steve, I called
Thank You San Diego!
The Fluids
was a band I formed with Mike Varneyon Lead/Rythmn guitar,
Jennifer Ball on lead vocals and
French Horn!, Steve Schulman on Keyboards,
and a variety of different drummers, including Mike Perrone.
We were more or less a straight pop cover band with
a little bit of a punk/dead influence. We played around San Diego
couple of years in the late 80's at places like the Pelican Pub,
Winstons, and the old Bachannal.
Sweardha Buddha - 1982 to 1986
Sweardha Buddha started with me on Bass,
Paul Via Cava on Guitar, and Andy Via Cava on drums,
somewhere around 1982, as a Power-Pop trio,
playing the likes of Elvis Costello, Tom Petty, and so on.
Later, around 1985, with the addition of Pat Kingsland
on guitar (or was drums?) and Keith Swenson on keyboards,
we achieved a bigger, more powerful sound. Sweardha Buddha played
some great parties, including Andy's wedding, and that rompin'
Halloween Party at La Jolla Village Square. I havent posted
any Sweardha Buddha recordings on the net, although I have
a few old archives.
Urth - 1979
Urth was only together for about 6 weeks. It was
a southern power-rock band, ala ZZ Top. It featured
Jim Oakley on guitar, and I can't remember the drummers
name. Urth was the only time I worked with a band that
practiced from 9-5 every day ... within a week we had
a kickass set going, and after two weeks played parties
to a hundred or more people at the Mad House,
in Huntington Beach. I met Jim when he was sleeping
in his car in HB. He said he was the cousin of
Berry Oakly, the bass player for the
Allman Brothers.
Jim said he was gonna get us a gig at the L.A. Forum to
open for a super-band of the 80's called Asia,
and would have done it, had I not had a crisis of
concience and decided instead to take up an offer
to start my career in Software Engineering and
moved to San Diego. The best I could do was hope
that everything went well for Jim (whom I know had
some ups and downs after our time together).
