bio
I've
been drumming since I was a little kid -- four or five maybe. My mom, a music
lover and a huge Elvis fan, used to lay pots and pans out on the kitchen floor
and let me drum with wooden spoons. I think it was a sign of a natural
inclination. I continued to bang on anything that would make a sound, much
to the annoyance of my sister, Jeanette.
I was fortunate to grow up in a musical home. In addition to my mom, there was my older brother, John, and my other sister, Stephanie, who were into all kinds of great music. John was more than just a fan, though. He was an accomplished guitarist, practicing classical music on his nylon-stringed acoustic upstairs (when Stephanie wasn't playing Todd Rundgren, Queen, ELO, or Genesis records) and playing guitar or bass with rock bands in the basement. Watching those guys haul amps, drums, keys, and the rest into the basement was like watching Santa slide down the chimney and surely cemented my desire to play.
The
coolest thing was hanging out on the basement steps or next to the drummer,
which I did -- even though my brother tried, unsuccessfully, to shoo me back
upstairs. Sometimes he was able to get rid of me, but most of the time I just
slid further up, high enough that he couldn't see me. I was sitting on
those steps the first time I saw Markey Mattoe play the drum part to Blue Oyster
Cult's Cities on Flame with Rock and Roll. I was floored. Markey still
has a great right foot and a huge rock sound. There were other drummers
and other drumsets, too, and often, I was allowed or even encouraged to play
after the guys were finished. As I recall, I have Lester Mavus and Tommy
O'Donnell in particular to thank for that. Lester also sold me my first
drumkit at around age 10 -- a cheapo, brush-painted U.S. Mercury bass drum and tom-tom, to go
with my Ludwig Acrolite snare. It was a start, my start.
Since then, I've been lucky to have played at least 1000 gigs. I've spent time in Istanbul with the late, great blues legend Keisa Brown and jazz vocalist Alan Harris, played Zappa with Project/Object, funk and R&B with Melvin McKnight, Dixie Dregs tunes with Chessmen...and so on.
I still grow a
little every day and have a ton to learn, but mostly I've been playing for the
music, letting the melody or lyrics do the heavy lifting. An energetic
drummer's primary challenge is to learn to relax and let the tune flow. That's something that has taken me 20 years or so to figure out, and
I'm still
working on it. But even after so many years, I still feel like a kid when
I play, and not because I feel like a novice, but because I drum like kids play
-- with joy and confidence and imagination (or so I'm told) -- especially kids
who are lucky enough to have big brothers with rock bands in the basement.
See you at a gig.
