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George Van Eps, a distant cousin of mine, invented the seven string guitar in 1938. That was the year he commissioned Epi Stathopoulo, president of the Epiphone guitar company, to build him his first seven string axe. George called it a lap piano and the seventh string allowed him to play bass lines and chords simultaneously. He was a great guitarist and I'm sorry I never got to meet him before he died in 1998.

One of my earliest memories is of my mother playing Tan Shoes and Pink Shoelaces on the piano. It was a goofy little song, the exact type a child would like. As soon as I was big enough, I fiddled with that same piano. But Mozart, I was not.

Autumn 1986, my first month in college, I bought a beautiful Vantage bass guitar from a fellow student who was down on his luck and needed fast money. It was a woodie and the neck went straight through the body. That fucker never goes out of tune and I've used it in all recordings since...well, for what a 4 string can handle. For a couple tunes, I needed notes lower than open E and I have a cheapie Ibanez 5 string for them.

Anyway, the following year, me and a couple buddies rented a house in Utica, NY. I went up to the attic of this ramshackle Brinckerhoff Ave. house and discovered to my surprise the neck of a guitar. I took the neck down to my room and I affixed little stickers to the fretboard that told me what note would play if I fretted a string there. I read in a magazine that Paul Simonon of The Clash learned how to play bass that way and it seemed to work for a 6 string.

Skipping ahead a little, by 1999, I'd written and recorded some new material for my second official release, Cruel & Unusual. In 2002, I finished my third record, Where I Am.

In 2003, I hooked up with Mike Sweeney to form Jack Ruby's Alibi.

Solo-wise, I've put together a double release in what I hope is my finest effort: Choppa City and Pseudo Placebo. All of them were mixed & mastered by an uber-talented fellow named Bryan McGee. Visit him at polarpattern.com, won't you?

I may not be able to play guitar like my cousin George but I enjoy creating songs and hopefully someone out there will like it too.

Full Bio Here

The winner of the Half-Life 2 giveaway to my 1000th friend thing was Hungover Stuntmen. The prize doesn't exactly split four ways but they'll figure it out.