6th Grade Punks From Connecticut

The 12-year-old with the mohawk, stolen Hot Topic plaid pants, and plaid vest that he sewed himself, yeah, that’s me.

I’ve wanted to play music my entire life. It started with various fascinations at a very young age…. the upright piano with ivory keys that my grandfather gave to my mother and father as a wedding present, the junky guitar that my father kept in his trunk that was an unappreciated birthday present for my brother, and the abundance of shit to bang on in the world. My older sister used to yell at me all the time for drumming at the dining table. As a pre-teen, there were many times when I pulled out all of the pots and pans in the kitchen and made a homemade drum set. Eventually, my parents got the hint that this wasn’t going away.

See, my dad had a Rock n Roll heart and was always playing CDs and cassettes by bands like Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, AC/DC, The Byrds, The Animals, Santana, Joe Satriani, Led Zeppelin, U2, Aerosmith, Neil Young, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Billy Idol, Pink Floyd, Elton John, and Booker T and the MGs. He spent all of the 90s driving around South Florida with an old Ibanez electric guitar in his trunk that he had bought my brother for Christmas one year. My brother never got into it so it just lived back there slowly warping and dying in the Florida heat and humidity for years. I secretly went wide-eyed at that thing every time he opened the trunk and, aside from the soundtrack to the Wonder Years, old Elvis movies, and Ricky Ricardo singing at the Copacabana, it’s probably one of the biggest reasons why I’m a musician now. I remember it calling to me. It was the coolest thing I had ever seen. Years later, he finally gave it to me, but it was so far gone that I smashed it to pieces out of the anger that I held in.

Although, it was actually a cassette of the Counting Crows’ album, “August and Everything After” given to me by my brother when I was 6 years old that stuck with me. I played it on a Talkboy until the tape wore out. I hope to make an album like that someday. Not long after, I discovered the album “Dookie,” by Greenday that had just come out and fell in love with bands coming out of the California skater, surf punk scene. I was hooked on bands like Rancid, The Offspring, AFI, and Blink-182. Those bands helped me trace back the punk scene to bands like The Clash, The Ramones, The Velvet Underground, The New York Dolls, and Iggy Pop.

One of my friends played the Saxophone and I thought they were cool. So, I figured, me being cool and all, that I would play Saxophone. I approached the school band teacher in 6th grade to play the saxophone. The teacher said there were already too many saxophonists and that I could play trombone. “What the fuck is a trombone?” I thought. I played it for about 2 weeks before I returned it to the music store that my parents rented it from and never associated myself with the school band again.

Another one of my friends played the guitar, which actually was the coolest thing in the world. We decided to start a punk band (because nothing makes you want to rebel against the system more than living in Fairfield County, Connecticut, and having a stepfather that worked on Wall Street.) One of my other friends was able to convince his folks to buy him a drum set and I was able to finally convince my parents to buy me a bass guitar for Christmas. Not totally a guitar or a drum set, but I was on my way.

It was a Squire P-Bass. I wish I could get a cologne that smelled like that thing when I opened the case for the first time. For anyone that learns to play an instrument, the first time you open the case of a brand new instrument that you don’t know how to play is a sight and smell that you never forget.

I practiced every free second I had. My other two friends and I got together and rehearsed in the drummer’s basement as much as his parents would allow. We were a real band. We were young and had everything to prove.

We would get our parents to drop us off at this place called Empress Ballroom in Danbury, CT. I don’t know why they let a bunch of middle schoolers hang out at punk clubs. Unbeknownst to our parents, we were stealing cigars from the gas station to go smoke at the club while listening to all kinds of killer bands and hanging out with people in their twenties, thirties, and forties. We were learning how to drink. We were learning how to hang. It was definitely the best time in my life and it was the time which all of my future would be measured against.

I started taking bass lessons from an old Rocker named Jay. He would come over with his acoustic guitar and teach me tunes like “The Letter” by the Boxtops. I remember the overwhelming pride I felt when I heard him tell my mother that he couldn’t teach me anymore and that I needed to be taking more professional lessons.

The guitarist wrote some great songs and we eventually recorded a demo. I’ll never forget it. We recorded it in the guest house of two members of The Talking Heads. It was a time in my life that I took for granted and only now realize how awesome it really was.

At the same time, I was learning how to exploit the negative aspects of having an addictive, “go big” personality. I was learning how to drink, and smoke pot, and I was starting down the path of making all of the mistakes that my stepfather warned me about in the world of Rock N’ Roll. I wanted to be like Iggy Pop and Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton and Pete Townsend. I wanted to break shit and sleep around. I guess I would call my younger self just a real fucking punk.

Getting kicked out of the band hurt was hard. I loved music so much and they were my best friends. Ultimately, it just helped fuel my burning desire to be a professional musician.

They said it was because I was flirting with a girl while we were on stage, but I knew it was probably something that had been compounding for a while. I have, what my psychiatrist called, “a pretty sharp edge.” It wasn’t the last band I was kicked out of.

I had saved up some money and bought a cheap Rogue acoustic guitar not long before I got the boot from the band. I never wanted to be a bassist. Rogue guitars are cheap knockoffs of Squire guitars, which are cheap knockoffs of Fender guitars. I was on my way.

I started taking guitar lessons from a guitarist that was fresh out of Berklee College of Music, Jean Sandoval. He brought Miles Davis into my life and taught me music theory. “Kind of Blue” will come with me to the grave. You can hear a group of guys stepping into a new frontier. What the hell do you do with that as a ninth-grader? Being the introvert that I am, I isolated myself for years and shut myself off from everyone while I learned to play the Blues and Jazz. I’ve had the blues my entire life. Down in my bones. I don’t know if I found it or if it found me, but we were made for each other.

The universe gave me the album, “Riding With The King” by B.B. King and Eric Clapton. The two of them were definitely my gateway drugs and, through them, I had an endless amount of musicians to explore. Because of B.B. and Clapton, I was able to find guitarists like Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Buddy Guy, Muddy Waters, Albert King, Howlin’ Wolf, John Lee Hooker, T-Bone Walker, and Robert Johnson. My step-father got me the Woodstock CD collection and then I just had everyone by my side.

I played that cheap acoustic until it started to fall apart and I saved up to buy the Telecaster that I still play today. I stole my mother’s car to pick it up from the music store. I was grounded for a week. but I didn’t care at all. I had my guitar. I spent every hour I had behind closed doors with a wah pedal and my stereo blasting Jimi Hendrix.

After my parents moved us to Greenville, SC to try to repair their crumbling relationship, I got to see Buddy Guy live. He sat right next to me during his solo in “Damn Right I Got The Blues.” I already knew that I wanted to be a musician, but if ever there was going to be someone looking me right in the eyes and telling me what I was going to do with my life, it was him.

This was the same time that Napster was mainstream and I definitely utilized it to its full potential. I was studying guitar at the Fine Arts Center in Greenville from a former L.A session guitarist named Steve Watson. Every time he mentioned a musician or band I hadn’t heard of, I would go home and download everything I could find from the artist. I continued to shift my focus to Jazz at this time and began listening to Pat Metheny and Wes Montgomery.

Before my senior year of high school, I spent the Summer studying at Berklee College of Music. What a place. There’s an overwhelming amount of talent. While there, I watched every video the music library had of Eric Clapton like I was sitting there doing research for something. I didn’t even want to go to college. I wanted to go to LA to play guitar. My parents made me believe that college was the only choice and “that’s” what you do.” (I’ll talk more about that sort of shit later). Unfortunately, I submitted my application to Berklee late and wasn’t accepted. So, I pursued a Bachelor of Music Performance from an in-state liberal arts college, which turned out to be a blessing since I could get such personalized attention within a smaller music program.

It was my college guitar professor that exposed me to everything from the early ragtime and big band music to modern Jazz guitarists. I was able to add George Benson, Charlie Byrd, Jobim, Jim Hall, Mike Stern, and Barney Kessel to my arsenal of influence as well as non-guitarists like Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Nat King Cole, and Billy Holiday. I studied Joe Pass extensively. I also dove much deeper into Pat Metheny. He has such a unique sound that is a conglomeration of an immense amount of influences from across the world. After my freshman year, I even auditioned to transfer to the University of Miami, where he studied. I wasn’t accepted there either.

I was playing guitar for musicals, accompanying dance classes, gigging around, and dating as many of the dancers as I could.

My mother and step-father divorced early on during my Senior year of college. I still don’t know what to make of it and don’t know why I feel compelled to bring it up here. It’s just where it fits into the timeline. He had been in my life since I was 5 years old and then all just wanted nothing to do with any of us. He left and started a new family. He was the one that bought me the ticket to go see Buddy Guy by myself. He took me to go see the Allmann Brothers live. He introduced me to Disco. Then he was just gone.

I was gearing up to graduate not long after the economy collapsed and didn’t have any plan about what to do afterward. So, I joined the South Carolina Army National Guard Band and started working towards a Master of Music degree in Jazz Studies at USC (not the one in California).

There wasn’t a whole lot of room for Rock n Roll in higher education and I started to distance myself from the idea of being pigeonholed as a “Jazz guitarist.” I continued studying and practicing everything that I was supposed to, but I spent the next two years diving head first into Bach (one of the first Jazz musicians), Chopin nocturnes, Beethoven string quartets, Debussy preludes, the extensive live jams of Keith Jarrett, and the Tales From The Acoustic Planet Vol. 2 albums by Bela Fleck while also trying to figure out how to make music like the indie rock bands I love.

Once again, I was spending every free hour locked away studying and practicing and my personal relationships all started to crumble. I was gigging around the Southeast as a freelance musician, performing for corporations and government agencies, but I wasn’t happy. I was a Rock N Roller. A punk that somehow decided it was a good idea to join the Army and start settling down. Something had to change.

As soon as I finished my degree, my wife and I packed our stuff and moved to Asheville, NC to continue forging our own path.

Musically, I drifted around while trying to figure out how to take the influence of all of my musical heroes and scream out in my own voice. How do I tell my story and inspire others so that they can find the strength and love they need to overcome their own demons and hurdles? I started trying to create businesses and learn about marketing.

I played in an instrumental funk band (got kicked out of that band also), a folk rock band (I quit), and a rock band (good people, it just wasn’t right).

I spent most of the next couple of years in my home studio, on my knees with my pedal board, trying to learn how to write songs. I also got really into photography, backpacking, carpentry, farming, and fly fishing thinking that I would potentially run away to live in the backwoods of Montana.

It’s been over 20 years since that photo of me with a mohawk and plaid pants was taken and I realize that, especially in the entertainment world, friends come and go. Bands come and go. You may think you are in a band that will last for eternity. People change. They move away. Unforeseen things happen and there aren’t any ways to predict them and there isn’t anything you can do to stop it except tie your haystacks down in preparation for the storms.

I’m still a punk and I still bang on anything that’s around, but I guess all I can do is continue building my character and working on my craft. What do you want? How bad do you want it? What are you willing to give up in order to get it?

If you are in this for your own love of art and you prepare yourself to weather the storms, then you will come out of it smiling in the sun. I hope those people that were with you, in the beginning, are still with you in the end but don’t ever count on it. Count on having some great stories to tell someday and try to keep your eye on the prize.