Hobbies and Collections:
Art Deco Furniture, Western Swing 78s,1930s Contraband Literature, 1920s French Risque postcards, 1920s-1950s Pinups, Free Jazz and Psychedelic Music, Economics/Politics/History/Current Events, collect Pre-Code Films...

I appeared in this world on August 24, 1957 as a human baby. Religious zealots and my Mom assure me that I was sentient for nine months before that but I have no recollection of it. I was a very happy baby and, so my mother assures me, perhaps the cutest baby ever born. My Mom wanted a daughter and almost got one - a few chromosomes away from being gay, I have a knack for cooking, decoration, dressing myself, and often cry at Disney movies. My biggest acheivements at this stage were producing a staggering amount of poop and routinely soaking everything around me with my own bodily fluids. My Mom was the sweetest and most beautiful woman on earth and my Dad was the strongest and most handsome man on earth. I have no reason to doubt my original assessment. I have a brother as well but you will have to go to his website to find out more about him.

Subsequent to being a baby, I became a boy and continued as a boy through the 1960s and early 1970s (some would argue well into the 1980s and 1990s), graduating from high school in 1975 in Highland Falls, New York. My interests moved through toy soldiers, then to Silver Surfer and Thor comic books, soccer for West Highline United, and on to Famous Monsters, Creepy and Eerie magazines. We moved almost every year until I was 18, as my Dad was in the Army for 40 years, so I was able to see most of the continental United States.The pivotal moment during my boyhood years was in the year 1968, when I heard The Beatles' "Hey Jude/ Revolution" 45 for the first time, soon followed by the momumental White Album. I can honestly say that I have never been quite the same since. Growing up in the sixties, I had certainly heard all of the hits of the day (I loved the group Steppenwolf and "Born to be Wild" was the first record I bought), but something now resonated completely differently. Of course, now that single is acknowledged as a moment when pop crossed a new threshold. Although I believe that, one also cannot separate it from a world gone mad with the assassinations Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy, the looming threat of nuclear annihilation during the cold war, and the horrors seen on the nightly news as the 1968 Tet offensive was unleashed in Vietnam. My dear father served two years in Vietnam and nearly 40 years later you can still see it in his eyes. 1968 is still arguably the darkest year in American history.

During these boyhood years I did most of the regular boyhood years stuff. I was already developing a peculiar personality with no blame going to my parents. From an early age I was introspective, sensitive, artistic, and slighty bizarre. Of course, for my first 17 years, I was always the new kid and would be routinely accepted by only the weirdest kids at each school I arrived at. I liked girls pretty early on with my first crush, Becky the little cross-eyed girl, in Kindergarten. I then had the same girlfriend from 2nd grade through 10th grade, Cindy Hawkins, who, whenever I moved away would take up with the school star jock, Steen Hudson, until I came back (Go figure.) Throughout my high school years and well into my 20s, girls would find me to be shy, inhibited, naive, and innocent ( Poor Ann Marie Fonseca sat in a car with me for an hour, waiting for me to kiss her, to no avail! )

This whole time in my awkward teen years, I was devouring all the music I could get my hands on. It was easy to do then as FM radio was full of stoned but enthusiastic hippy DJs playing every wild underground record that came out. You could also go down to department stores where there was racks with 1000s of cut-out albums, generally either $1-2 each or as little as 3 for a buck. Any record I could find where the band looked high and loud, I would automatically buy. These were the days I discovered Sir Lord Baltimore, Big Star, Blue Cheer, The Groundhogs, and the MC5. My mother used to complain that I had too many records at a mere 20-25 - ironic considering my collection would eventually grow to 15,000 pieces. I feel very fortunate to have seen Blue Cheer, Iron Butterfly, Humble Pie, Blue Oyster Cult, Alice Cooper, Deep Purple, King Crimson and a so many others in the late 60s and early 70s. At this time, of course, it was the age of classic rock...but in reality there was really only one band after the Beatles: Led Zeppelin. Anybody my age had their teen synapses fused by daily exposure to every fart ever emitted by Led Zeppelin. If you don't get it, I could never explain it to you. For people like me, the film "Dazed and Confused" is a documentary, not a comedy.

After I graduated from high school, I went to Westchester College in New York before moving back to my birthplace to attend the University of Washington. I initially majored in Communications and then Psychology but eventually graduated with two BAs in Art History and Germanics - my specialities being modern German history and German Expressionist art. So it should come as no surprise that I ended up with a career in cooking. I am what would be called an "old school" chef, having worked my way up from prep cook to sous chef to chef the hard way. There were no culinary schools or programs in Seattle back then. I have now been in that business for over 30 years and eventually started my own business as a freelance restaurant consultant. Currently I work in the grocery business for it's great pay and benefits, it's recession-proof nature, and the easy hours and commute. Though not quite as satisfying as being an upscale chef, the trade-off is worth it in most respects. I have found this business to be creative and a place to meet other creative and peculiar people as well. Although quite capable, I couldn't possibly have worked in most "normal" environments as I have no inclination for what seems to me to be pointless and souless - finances, insurance, accounting, sales and all the rest.

I began working in the music business soon after arriving back in Seattle in 1976 which also coincided with the arrival of punk rock on an unsuspecting world. Initially I worked at some of the seminal and greatest of Seattle' record stores including the original and legendary Cellophane Square as well as Roxy Music, Tower and Musicland. When punk came out, for some reason, it opened my mind to an entire world of music including jazz, modern classical, western swing, music concrete, blues and world music with the likes of Anthony Braxton, Stravinsky, Pierre Henry, Houndog Tayor, Bob Wills and Fela Ransom Kuti. Those were the days when I would drive all the way to San Francisco just to see concerts by Roxy Music, Public Image Ltd, and the Jam (The Sex Pistols were my favorite new band and I managed to accumulate a huge and legendary collection, which I later sold and used for a down payment for a house!) In the summer of 1978, I was promoted to manager at Peaches records and moved to Virginia Beach for what turned out to be one of the wildest summers of my life cavorting with the likes of Cheap Trick, Bruce Springsteen, Foreigner, the Sweet and REO Speedwagon - driving around in limos, going to free concerts every night, and being surrounded by eager ladies. It was not meant to last long nor would I want it to and I found myself back in Seattle in early 1979. By then the burgeoning Seattle punk scene had blossomed.

In 1979, I began working with seminal Seattle garage punk band the Moberlys featuring Jim Basnight, putting out their debut album in 1979 on my own Safety First Records. It is certainly one of the first of a handful of original Seattle punk records, along with the others like the Telepaths. Through 1979 it was a blur of local shows with bands like the Cheaters, the Fishsticks, the Little Magnets, the Mentors, the Blackouts, the Veins, the Beakers, the Little Bears From Bangkok, the Maggot Brains and so many others. Most of these bands played in rented halls and set up their own shows as the clubs weren't ready for them and many weren't quite old enough. By the end of 1979, a second wave of bands would be getting revved up including the Silly Killers, the U-men, and the Fastbacks, whose first 12" EP I also released on my Safety First label. It was at this time that I saw, was very impressed by, and was soon approached to manage Seattle's most legendary punk band, The Living. Their importance in the Seattle scene cannot be overstated as the link between Seattle punk and the coming grunge phenomenon. Not only did the Living's music already contain those elements that would explode 5 years later but the line-up included future Guns 'n' Roses and Mother Love Bone members Duff McKagan and Greg Gilmore. Duff was 15 when he drummed in the Fastbacks and was a mere 17 when he lead the Living. The band's singer, the charismatic and talented John Conte, and I have the distinction of buying Duff's very first guitar (a beautiful red Hamer.) I managed the band for nearly two years, which saw them play gigs with the likes of Dead Moon (the Rats), Husker Du, and DOA. By late in 1982, the group disintegrated from the usual personality clashes but not before recording a handful of demos. Unfortunately, I never got to release a record on Safety First as the band was shooting for something with a higher profile. History has not been so kind to the Living but everyone who was there at the time knows that they were "the shit." ( A project is currently in the works to release those legendary recordings and it will be worth the wait.)

After the last implosion of Chubby Children in 1993, I ended up in a series of short projects and band attempts, Greg popped up in Son of Man and John moved to New York. Initially, a new line-up of Chubby Children was formed around myself and guitarist Rob Dan again, with new members Jeff Couch and Tom Zcat. Rob Dan bailed soonafter to form his dream band, The Day I Fell Down , and auditions commenced again. This line-up regrettably failed as frustration set in and of all the line-ups I have had, this one was probably potentially the best and the one I lament the most (possibly the single greatest mistake of my musical career.) I did end up hooking up with one of the guitarists who auditioned - an eccentric and brilliant player, Bob Groves (later of Apes of Wrath.) He and I worked together for several years, creating demos, producing the Pygmy Tyrant material, and collaborating with Seattle jazz-rock legends Sadhappy. Bob wandered (and squandered) off into a Ten Minute Warning reunion tour and then formed his own band, Apes of Wrath.(Note the irony that Ten Minute Warning would come back to haunt me again - 15 years later....) After Bob was gone and Eyeball had folded, I contacted old Chubby Children drummer Greg Gilmore again for a cool but shortlived combo with Rick DeChurch on guitar and Brad Houser on bass. It goes without saying that this too.... imploded and again no one seems to remember why. In 1998, there was also the project/band Drug Czar, a collaboration with friend and leader of the band Swirpy. The rehearsals and subsequent recording session involved a revolving line-up including Swirpy member Steve Jones and members of my past projects, Greg Gilmore, Jeff Couch, and Bob Groves. It was one of few times I have played with another guitar player and the completion of a dream to play with my friend Brad Gordon. (It was much to my regret that he considered but turned down a slot in the Chubby Children in 1992. Had he joined it would have perhaps been a different story...)

After all this, I decided not only was it apparently too difficult to get 3-4 people into a room together to learn songs but that also I might want to take a stab at being an instrumentalist and not just a singer and frontman. After all those years as a songwriter, I had picked up a certain amount of technique, however limited. First, in 1998 and 1999 I worked with some of the musicians I had worked with before in projects like Black Fart (Zulu Killer and Brent Slater) and Spook Bomb (Rob Angus and Paul Hoskins.) Then, by 2000-2001, I formed my own punk-jazz - noise trio The Gaudy Baubles with drummer Sid Law and Dave Schick (my favorite musician I have ever played with.) Although the band existed for well over a year, our rehearsals numbered only in the dozens, we never played live, and managed only a single decent recording (with hours and hours of poor recordings.) Again, for whatever reason, it just didn't quite get off the ground before imploding.

Since all those bands over the years, musically I have only been involved in a handful of performances, sessions for Seattle "prog-rapper" Sid Law, collaboration with artist Stan Paik, and various other recording sessions and jams. At the present I lie dormant... but will perhaps play again sometime soon. I have come to the conclusion that musicians hate me. No one can say I didn't keep plugging away even after every single musical thing eventually collapsed. Unfortunately, that has left my array of music, presented on this site, in various states of completion, hardly representative or realized, often poorly recorded and tenuously played and sadly, moments that can never be recaptured. Musicians are initially attracted by myself as a personality and a poet, not to mention the opportunities of the musical company I have kept, but ultimately they are disappointed by my lack of discipline and my technique that is always a work in progress. Of course, it is all a matter of opinion - as I work hard but differently, I learn very quickly on the job, technique is merely a vehicle for me, and I have too many interests to be focused enough to succeed in Rock music alone (which is hardly sacred to me.) I sang because I wanted to, I learned to play guitar because I had to, and I wrote because it was the only way to get what I was after. I think I did pretty good considering the challenges of being a compelling and unique vocalist, an insightful and poetic writer, a striking and uncliched guitarist, as well as having to shake your ass and toss your hair like a good frontman. And of course the ultimate excuse of losers and geniuses alike? - people just don't understand my vision, man!