As a musician I am primarily a vocalist, now creating with Ableton Live 6 and some other instruments. I collaborate with other musicians when the situation is "right."

 A lot if not most or all of my musical creations, save a bio here and perhaps a small section of loops for sale, will be publicized here at my MySpace.

My music oriented blog.
This details a hard rock project I am the vocalist for: RIOTGOD

For the record I appear on an album with the group At War with Self. The album is called Acts of God and is released by Sluggosgoonmusic. AWWS is a creation of Glenn Snelwar.
 

Brief History of my Musical Etc
 I have few early memories of doing anything musical -- excuse me --  make that one.

I was living in Brooklyn. I had to have been around 5 or 6. My father had a lot of these Maxell cassette storage boxes that he brought home from work; he was in the audio-video business. I would pretend to play piano while some music played in the background. For some reason I seem certain that that music was BTO. I don't know if it was or wasn't and no one would be able to tell me.

Some parents sign their kid up for anything when they are at a certain age. I received no musical offers. I had shown an interest in art it seemed so my parents gave whatever support they could muster to that pursuit. I liked music, but it was my sister who received the piano lessons. That is the way it was and I don't have any problem with it. For the record I had a stint in Little League and the Cub Scouts... I recall very little about the latter and practically NOTHING about the former.

When I was 19, coming out of college, I took an interest in the drums. I bought a set of drums at Manny's in NYC. My grandparents -- my whole family --  soon hated my choice.  In the end I knew that however much I liked playing the drums, I would never be able to get as good as I imagined.

I don't recall when I chose to sing but I knew I could do it on my own, teach myself how to do what I wanted.

I would practice in my father's car, late at night, to blaring music or I could practice in my sister's room when no one was home. It astounds me the level of unspoken negativity that I came from. "Sure - pursue your dream but can't you do it quietly?"

In the late 80's and early 90's I did the metal/metal hybrid thing. It was fun. With a band called Elysium, I played out some good shows: our band opened for a few bigger name bands like Pantera and Suicidal Tendencies. After leaving Elysium I joined another band around 1992:  System Addict.  Soon after that experience tanked,  I went through a "Behind the Music" kind of phase -- yet without a band and creating nothing significant -- there was no music.
It was all local, every gig no farther than NYC and every band I had ever been in,  never really got extremely close to getting signed.


From 1993 to 1997 I did no real music at all;  I had no tools, no computer, no car, no job, no nothing. I was a mess.

I did some "solo projects" during the period of 1997-98 under the names "Eisenhower Smile" and "Riotgod."  Riotgod dot com was a domain for a while. That dedication dropped off when I decided to unify art and music under Armoredbaby.

In 1999 I was in a band called Peekabuddha. That band started up and fizzled.

2001:  I started entertaining the idea of really trying to get music of my own going -- it was a start. I did a project called Sweet Calculators.

2001-2003: I did some work with Bob Pantella ( drummer, composer) before he joined Monster Magnet for a few years.  Following Bob's departure for Magnet, I worked with some other musicians but that did not pan out.

I returned to my limited creations at home, where music competes/co-exists with art on a daily basis.

See above blog link for what is going on right now with the band I am in...  Or check my MySpace for the solo or limited collaborative music I do.


Updated 08.20.07