I decided early on that my chances of being a successful rock star were slim, and the whole starving artist thing wears thin after a while so I went into engineering as a day job and music as a sideline. With job and family demands, late night weekday gigs lost their appeal quickly, so I backed off from the full-time band life. I spent some years playing occasional solo gigs locally – first guitar and vocals and sometimes bass and vocals. I also started writing and recording a few original songs under several different band names and using some of the people I knew in the area but without the attraction of forming a full time band it was hard to find the right people, and so I was limited in what I could do.

Covid changed things for me. When I was spending time at home and on the internet, I started meeting people I could collaborate with that were scattered across the planet, many of whom were available because they, too, were sitting at home looking for things to do since no one was playing out or touring during the lock down. This really opened up my options, and I decided to write and record some music under my own name using a line-up of people that could bring exactly what I needed. The first song I wrote and released under my name in 2021, “New Day Dreams," included some outstanding guitar work by Duke Levine who I knew from playing in bands in Worcester. Duke was one of the people available largely because of Covid and is normally in high demand, He’s touring with Bonnie Raitt at the moment. I ran across a bass player in Texas who I really liked, and after chatting a bit it bizarrely turned out that we had actually known each other as kids growing up in Ohio. Talk about a small world moment!

Having found a good working formula, I started cranking out some singles for the first few years, then two EP releases, and finally a full album. I’ve been fortunate to have had a great stream of musicians that I have worked with. It’s great to be able to use people with the right talents to help bring my songs to life!

I realize Sid kind of stands out in that lineup. No, he was definitely not a great musician, and yet was part of a band that became a flagship for an entire musical movement. He was a reminder to me that you don’t have to be a virtuoso to make music. It can be as simple as sneering at the audience and attacking your bass like a rabid woodchuck. Music can be intellectual, or music can be just emotional. It doesn’t always need to be clever, sometimes it’s just fun.

I had some great collaborators on this album, including Julie Slick (of the Adrian Belew band) on bass and several songs with guitar tracks by Randy McStine (recently of Porcupine Tree). Not having a regular band means I have to do everything myself, but it also means I get to pick out musicians for each song that I think will contribute the right sound.

That’s kind of an ongoing challenge – to find my center, musically, and be a little more focused. I know some people like musical diversity, but most people listen to an album because they liked a song or two, and it’s not really fair to them to toss a song on there that makes them go, “What the hell was that?”

However, the artist is responsible for providing an experience to the audience. If that includes not having people waving phones around and annoying others, then that’s their right. Act responsibly and follow the rules, whatever they may be.

I did just score some tickets to see Duran Duran this fall and have been listening to them a lot lately. I like them a lot although I don’t think of them as a band that influenced my music, really. I just enjoy listening to them.

We were not on a riser - just in an alcove on the same living room floor. We took a break and realized this wasn't going well when it seemed like we had wondered onto the set of "Night Of The Living Dead." We started in playing again and had to start pushing people away from where we were playing - the "stage" area. They just had no idea where they were or what they were doing - totally blank and feeling no pain at all. And not listening to us at all.

Then some lady stumbled over a monitor and did a spectacular swan dive into the drum kit. She knocked over half the drums, got up bleeding, and just shambled away apparently completely unaware of what just happened or that she was bleeding. At that point we said "screw this, we're out of here," but the thick crowd just wouldn't move so there was no way to get out of there, especially with equipment. There were, fortunately, windows behind us and we ended up breaking down our set, forming a bucket brigade, and passing all of our stuff out of the window to get out of there. Everyone was so far gone by then I'm really not sure they even knew we had left.