About
Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life. –Beethoven
Guitar has always been a passion of mine, and this blog is where I’ll share it. Past and present. High, low and everything in between.
I’ve played guitar in various bands for 25 years. Right now, I’m involved in 3 different projects:
Joyful Noise! is a 100-voice youth choir based in Olney, Maryland. I play guitar in the 8-piece adult band that backs them. We play everything from Brooklyn Tab arrangements to rock to reggae. Every year we take the show on the road for one action-packed week of concerts and fun, supporting the ministry of Compassion International along the way. Last year was Colorado; this year we’ll be visiting upstate New York and Canada.
Levite at its core is a 4-piece worship band based in the Montgomery County Church of Christ. Our sound is rock with definite blues & funk stylings. Mike, Rich, Scott and I enjoy taking worship tunes and putting our own unique stamp on them.
Unnamed Funk & Blues Band is a new project with several members of the Joyful Noise! band, including the horn section. We’re learning tunes by Chicago; the Blues Brothers; Earth, Wind & Fire; Blood, Sweat & Tears; Average White Band and others. The fantastic arrangements were done by Shaun Evans.
Here’s a bit more of my history for ya:
I studied classical & jazz guitar in college, but was just as happy crunching out power chords in my band What’s Next with Dave, Stu and Chris (and Brad til he left).
After college, I moved west and landed a gig in frontman Fred Swan’s band Quixotics (now re-formed as The Imposters). I also played with the Jenny Morgan Band for a spell, but the East Coast was calling and I moved back to give What’s Next another try. But try as we did Nine Ways to Sunday, things just did not work out. The night some angry dude threw a trash can thru Stuart’s car window at the old Grog and Tankard stands out as a turning point for me.
After a brief respite, I started playing in various church ensembles and finished my first CD, Deep Waters, in 2003.
I got the bug to play solo acoustic guitar again (steel string this time) and have been learning fingerstyle tunes & arrangements over the past few years. Between that and my other current projects, I’m gettin’ my musical fix!
Deep Waters is my first and only CD (so far). It was a massive project involving work over 3 years time. Several years later, I’m still very happy with it. One of these days, I’ll get around to recording a second one. As fun as recording is, though, nothing beats performing live.
