| Home |
Bio |
Music | Images | Links |
I am an amatuer in the truest sense of the word... I play for love, not money. Which is not to say that I wouldn't want to be a professional musician... I would! But that's also not to say I'm a beginner... I'm not! I'm all pro in attitude and ability (imho, of course), so I hold down a day job and play music whenever I can.
Born in 1969, my first big musical experience was discovering a box full of 45's that my mother had collected when she was a teenager. That box was filled with great music by the likes of Buddy Holly, Elvis, Dion, Johnny Cash and lots of one hit wonders from the 50's. I fell in love with those old records and still listen to them today (albeit as digitized .mp3s!).
The first musical love of my life came along as when John Lennon was killed. The Christmas after he died, my mother gave me a copy of Abbey Road and for two years following I listened to nothing but Beatles records.
Following that I fell in with everything 60's. The Rolling Stones, Led Zepplin, The Who, The Doors, Pink Floyd, Hendrix, Joplin, were all influential. The biggest were Bob Dylan & Grateful Dead. You can't imagine the hours I spent listening to the two of them, often at that same time! Don't even want to think about the dollars I spent driving around the country to see them.
My first musical instrument was the violin, which I took up in 3rd grade. I was something of a prodigy; within a few short years I attained the title of Concert Master of the Northside Elementary School orchestra. During junior high I switched to piano, but by high school I had taken up guitar. There is no question that, from a very young age, I had always wanted to be a Beatle.
Early on I loved playing folk music, a la Peter Paul & Mary, Arlo Guthrie and Simon & Garfunkle (not to mention Dylan). As I got older I caught the hard rock bug, but even now I enjoy playing all styles of american guitar music; blues, folk, rock, blue grass, country, soul, whatever. Everything but jazz, which I apparently just don't have an ear for.
My first band, while in high school, was a Grateful Dead coverband called Chico and the Goats From Mars, which I don't think was really our name. I think we played a few house partys, but mostly invited our friends to come listen to us whenever we practiced.
In college I played in a classic rock bar band called 100% Beard Tax and we played a couple of gigs at local taverns. On the night of our first gig, the bar was double booked with us and "latino night." Suffice to say that half of the crowd was not happy to see us. Fortunately our lead guitar player just happened to be a language major and spoke spanish fluently. I don't know what he told the crowd, but they seemed to ease up a little. I've never been so happy to play Santana's Evil Ways!
Later I formed a small folk combo called Strictly Acoustic with Bill Card and sometimes bassist Jim Lemyre. Our biggest gig was playing at a coffee bar on the campus of SUNY New Paltz. We thought that was pretty cool.
After college I moved to Portland, OR where I plunked around with other wayward musicians I met in the area. My first real band in the area was a three piece blue grass outfit called Pirate Radio featuring Emery Wilson on bass and Dan Clifton on banjo/mandolin/guitar. Our biggest gigs were a few corporate events at the company I work for, Tektronix.
The bluegrass band disolved early, but Emery and I stayed together and formed several bands over the years. Together with Dennis Behm and Kevin Baird, we formed a blues band named Sweet Thursday. Emery and I also formed a classic rock cover band called Happy As Larry, also with Dennis on drums and with Mark Sladden on guitar. Later, along with Barry Clark, we put together a short lived folk trio called Simple Folk. Our one gig was a benefit show for Sandy Actors Theatre.
In the late nineties I also spent a few years playing in Kimberli Ransom's band. Often times the band was just the two of us! Kimberli is a hard working artist who booked quite a few gigs, the highlight of which for me was performing live on Kink FM on Les Sarnoff's show. Kimberli also asked me to record a guitar track for Deep Roots 2.
While recording the Deep Roots track I met Dave Fleschner, an incredibly talented piano player and patient recording engineer. I have recorded at Dave's studio many times over the year.
In 1997 I joined Big Dumb Animals, a band that is still alive and kicking today. After more than 10 years together we are so much more than a group of musicians, we are a family. Barry Clark on guitar, Chris Lamb on drums, Kurt Whitman on bass and our newist member, Rae Kraemer on vocals (she actually been with us nearly four years). We have recorded many songs and performed dozens of times around the Portland area. In 2007 we were invited to play on Deep Roots 10, and recorded a song written by Keith Gaxiola.
I am also a founding member of Felonious Punks, about which the less said, the better.
In my spare time, I am also unofficial manager, recording engineer, producer, stage manager and life coach for the greatest female fronted band in history, The Bettys (facebook.com/thebettys).
From 2006 through 2012 I was in a full throttle power-trio The Sessions. Andrew Mork on drums, Todd Murphy on bass. I like to describe us as big, fast and loud, playing "gods of rock" covers (Led Zepplin, Rolling Stones, The Who, etc). We currently make our way through the bar scene here in Portland, playing such venues as Dublin Pub, Thirsty Lion Pub and The Spare Room. Some nuggets here.
facebook.com/ericpastoral
eric@pastoralstudio.com