I began playing drums when I was 10 years old (1974). I used my Mother's (R.I.P) wig containers, which looked like the ice cream containers that you would see in an ice cream store, along with using her yarn sticks as drum sticks. My father had reel to reel tapes of the Rolling Stones' early albums, which I would play these wig containers along side each track. I thought I was the greatest drummer in the world because I would be able to keep up with any beat that I heard. It was not until a schoolmate heard me play following my professing to being the greatest drummer in the world and, subsequently leading to him letting me hear Neal Péarté, followed by me moving down a path with far higher goals.

I began playing the guitar when I was 12 years old (1976). I would use my Father's (R.I.P) tennis racquet to strum along to the early Beatles' albums, which lead to the strings on his racquet being shreaded. He knew who did this to his racquet, but he wanted to know why. When I demonstrated to him, he left my room without yealing or spanking me, which I found to be very odd. The next day he came to my room with a new racquet in one hand and a Fender F-15 in the other, followed by saying, "This one is mine and this one is yours."

I would get into the keys when I was 18 years old (1982 - graduation from HS) and bass sometime in the mid 80s, followed by the beginning of my studying music theory in 1989. I would drop out of college in 1985 and I would return in 1994, followed by transferring to UT in Austin in 1997, in which I took courses for music majors, which I was a computer science major. That is usually not allowed at UT in Austin, but a professor vouched on my knowledge of music and the dean of the college signed the waiver. Had there not been an ear training/vocal component to the music theory courses, then I would have made an A, but I barely made a C in the ear/vocals, which brought my grade to a B. BTW, that was with extra credit that the professor allowed and it was only because my music theory professor showed him my test scores in music theory component.

Back to the 80s, in 1986, I began to waste my time driving around the United States in search of my music career and learning a few hard knocks along the way, which lead to the purchase of an Ensoniq SD-1 sequencer in 1990. My wife at the time, did not like any of my musician friends and she knew they were nothing but trouble. Just by pure accident in 1990, the previous tenants of the apartments that we were living in (Clear Lake, TX) received a flyer in the mail about the Ensoniq SD-1 being on sale for $1900 something. I could not afford it at the time and I thought to myself, 'if I save for about nine years, then I will be able to purchase this.' Keep in mind, that in the 80s, sequencers like this were selling for $50,000. I showed the flyer to my wife, at the time, and she wanted to see the miraculous machine that could produce the sounds of all the instruments (strings, horns, etc...). When she heard it, she knew that I could play my music, while not bringing any demons into our apartment. I also liked it for those reasons. As I stated earlier, I would be taught some hard knocks about band life and playing with a sequencer eliminates most, if not, all of those problems. Plus, it makes you a better musician. I would practice any measure of any song, over and over again, as many times as I wanted. I could slow the tempo down to a level that was comfortable for me and work it up to the actual tempo. Nothing like playing alongside perfection, to improve yourself in your craft.

The user's manual of the Ensoniq SD-1 taught me more than just a how-to guide. It taught me all the foundations of which computers are based on. When I returned to college in 1994, attending both University of Houston and Houston Community College concurrently, I was able to understand programming computers fairly easily. Granted programming C and programming the Ensoniq are two different ball games, but the principles are the same. The combination of my knowledge of my music and my knowledge of computers made me a programming fool. I programmed 135 songs in the 90s, including the likes of Zepplin's "Achilles Last Stand" and the Beatles' tri-fecta at the end of the Abbey Road album, which I call 'In the end,' but they are known by "Golden Slumbers," "Carry that weight," and "The end."

Prior to 95-96 when I began to use GUIs such Cubase, I would do step entry with the Ensoniq, one note at a time. Programming the pressure, decay, velocity, ticks of each note, etc... For each and every measure on each and every instrument, except for guitar or keys, which ever I would be performing alongside the other instuments in clubs or at parties. When I was introduced to GUIs, it made things so much more easier, but my experience with the Ensoniq helped me once more understand things at a more in depth level than most. I would program another 50 more songs from 2001-2010, when I was burglarised and one of the items taken in May of 2010 was my Ensoniq SD-1. Of course, no one makes something that is similar to what was made in 1989 and there were a few things about the Ensoniq that were unique to it's architecture, which meant that there were a few things left to learn about MIDI (musical instrument digital interface). Even though I took general sound engineering courses in the mid 90s, everything that I was taught back then was based on analog technology. However, it would benefit me once more later on, in that, the things that I was studying about general midi, were principles that I had been taught to me about analog recording. Combine that with having the Cubase Studio 4 and a Rolad Juno Stage, I could program and record any instrument(s) that I please, while making them sound like I had an entire orchestra at my disposal.

In the summer of 2010, is when I began to tire in programming music. Mainly because of the burglary, but I was also programming and developing for a living and doing more programming, even with something that I love, was becoming old. That is when I went in search for what others had done in the midi world, which lead to adding the remainder of the 230 something songs that I perform along side with either my guitar or playing the keys. While on the quest for other's midi work, I learned several things in which lead to me going back and improve my own 185 midi songs. I believe all my programming and recording techiniques make the songs sound pretty good. My, now ex-wife, used to make fun of my practicing on the guitar saying, "keep playing those blues babe," followed by a sinister giggle. Along with telling me from time to time, that I was wasting my time in the pursuit of studying how to program music.

The combination of my programming the Ensoniq, followed by later getting into Cubase, and subsequent performances in clubs would lead many people to tell me, "if you could sing, then you would be bigger than Elvis," which I took as a compliment. It is true that while I was working on perfecting my skills with all these instruments, the only instrument that I did not work on was my voice. I have tried for several years and this past November people started telling me that they like my voice. I believe this has to do with me discontinuing the usage of cough drops. Since my childhood, I have had a coughing issue. Believe it or not, the only two things that supress my cough are cigarettes or cough drops. Certainly cough drops are less expensive and I was not smoking in my childhood, which it turns out was killing my vocal chords, who knew!

Which leads us to today and why I am recording all these songs at this point in my life:

I promised my best friend, Carol Ennis, whom passed away on April 8th, 2011 (two days after my birthday), that I would record all 230 something songs that I love to play.

Almost there. Currently I am recording the vocals in my bathroom, hallway, closet, etc... Can you imagine if I had a real studio to record in, along with a real sound engineer, other than myself?

If you would like to donate to this project, then feel free by clicking on the PayPal Donate button below. The idea of having a donate button came out of a conversation between Carol and myself, when she suggested that I perform on the beach in Venice and place a little hat for donations in front of myself. The donate button could be considered as the 2011 version of the musician's donation hat.

After I complete this portion of the project, I will re-record the vocal tracks to the songs that I believe need to be re-recorded prior to recording "Here comes the sun." As I have noted earlier, my voice has improved since I stopped using cough drops to supress my coughing issues, which ironically, have improved as well. It does not make sense, but that is what has transpired. You will see the new recordings just underneath the originals, with the ending of the file name include "-new"

 

Notes of Interests:

I did not play the keys on "Between the wheels" (or any other Rush cover tune), "Bohemian Rhapsody" (mid section and ending), "Daniel," "For No one," "Funeral for a friend," "Home sweet home," "Get Back," "In my life," "Lady Madonna," "Island Girl," "Piggies" (I just have a hard time keeping up with George Martin), "Savoy Truffle" (another George Martin), "Thin Ice," "Watching the wheels" (third piano, not included in this recording), "Wish you were here," "Yer Blues," "Young Lust" and that's full disclosure.

I did not play the some of guitars (background) on "Castles made of sand," "Closer to the heart (or any other Rush cover tune - playing the distorted guitar parts are hard enough thank you)," "Comfortably Numb," "Crazy on you," "Foolin" (or any other Def Lepard cover tune), "Girls got Rhythm" (or any other AC/DC cover tune), and that's full disclosure.

"Back in the day" is a song using the music of Rush's "Camera Eye" with lyrics by me for what I feel about my best friend Carol Ennis (R.I.P.). I miss you every day.

"Best part of a man" is Van Halen's "Full Bug" and I do not know why they wouldn't name it after what repeats over and over in the chorus, so I named it "Best part of a man."

I have changed some of the lyrics to "Island Girl" in order to make it politically correct, because, as you may or may not be aware, the lyrics used terms that offended both Anglo/Aaron/Saxon groups, as well as, African/American groups. Specifically, I changed "White man's world" to "Big City world" and "Black boy" to "Island boy." I love Elton John and this song was written at a time when these terms were not considered offensive to either party. Radio stations no longer play this song because of those lyrics. Just as they no longer play John Lennon's "Woman is the nxxger of the world". He was trying to show how women were being treated as slaves, but it was towards the end of the civil rights movement and radio stations refused to play the song. If you do not believe it, then here is a youtube link