About music and me.

I was born in 1980 in North Shore Hospital, New York. Why did I tell you that? I have no clue. But I thought I should start at the beginning. My mom said she played music at her stomach while she was pregnant with me, and that's why I love music so much. I don't know if I believe her, but it's a nice story. I play Robert by the way.

And Robert plays the guitar.

Even though I was born on the cusp of the digital age I know what a 33 1/3 is. I can also correctly identify a 45 and a 78. As a matter of fact, I had a lot of them growing up. The first band I really got into was "The Monkees". I watched them on MTV and Nickelodeon and soon I was buying all of the Rhino reissued albums at my local music stores "Long Island Sound", "Record World" and "Square Cirlce" (ahh, the good old days). I even dressed up as Mickey Dolenz for a friend's "dress as a rock star" birthday party. While everyone else had moussed hair and spikes, I wore a vest and held maracas. For some reason I didn't realize that the Monkees weren't part of the 80s mis-en-scene.

Despite my love for music I didn't really get serious about playing a musical instrument until my junior year of high school. I borrowed my girlfriend's guitar and Beatles songbooks and taught myself. She had a Takamine, just like every girl who asks for guitar for her 16th birthday only to play folk chords with Ani lyrics. After that I became the guy who draws guitars in his school notebooks. I can do a mean Telecaster.

Anyway, having such a passion for music can bug me sometimes when I step out into the real world. For instance, it's not a great feeling when I ask someone if they know David Bowie and they reply, "Oh, is he the new guy at work?". Or they've never heard "The Wild, The Innocent, & The E Street Shuffle". It's also disheartening to think that for many people, the Rolling Stones catalog starts at "Sticky Fingers". But oh well.

As of now my tastes range from "Louis Armstrong" to "Love" to "Frank Zappa". You can find me at Amoeba when I'm not rehearsing.