The Story of Fresh Chrome
I started
composing songs before I knew how to play an instrument. I would create
entire songs in my head, several instruments at once, and attempt to
vocalize it - humming, clicking and boom-boom-booming it. I was about 13
when I actually applied myself to learning an instrument, and I
basically just copycatted my brother's piano lessons. We had a classical
guitar in the closet with big hippie-ish flower stickers on the back,
which belonged to my eldest brother, who is a bassist - and the
condition was that if I strung it and took care of it, I could play it.
Two years later I was actually writing songs on guitar. I stuck with the
bass more, because I was under the impression that four strings were
easier to learn than six. Being a bass player, I learned that I was in
demand. I remember being in several bands at once.
By the time I was 18, I had written nearly 30 songs, and I started
playing my originals with a band. I had been playing covers in many
bands as a bass player, but this was my opportunity to test my material
on an audience. The name of the band was "Octopus Ride". We were a
psychedelic revival, so my "Lite FM-style" acoustic ditties were barely
appropriate, but provided some variation. The "Ride" was short lived,
but I continued to write songs in that same folk-rock style - Neil
Young, Cat Stevens, and James Taylor, to mention a few of my influences.
The next flurry of bands during the late 80's barely made it out of the
studio. Everyone was a metal-head, so I couldn't get anyone to play my
originals. In '89, I bought a cassette 4-track, and made some demos. It
was enough to get some people interested in my originals, but I still
couldn't seem to form a band. I manage to befriend a professional
drummer in '91, and we formed my first working band... I even forget the
name. We did 4 shows, and before we had a chance to work on my
originals, we were no longer in existence.
The '90's proved to be a bit more hopeful, with the whole grunge-rock
fad going full force, so my eldest brother and I got together with a
group of guys in '92 and started a working band - Thingamajig. We gigged
pretty successfully for the next couple of years, until I left to try
and go solo... I did the whole open mic circuit thing, traveling all
over NYC with my Acoustic guitar and meeting all kinds of players. I met
a band of guys who were in need of a singer, and they asked me to join.
They called themselves Num, and I was finally playing my originals with
a band! However, they were young and inexperienced, and not quite ready
for the stage - we never made it out of the studio.
In '97, my brother & I re-teamed with a new band, and again started
gigging locally. The new band, Crooked Smirk, featuring Banj Foxx and
Robert Benson, gained notoriety immediately. Although my brother left in
'99, we continued to gig successfully until '02 - playing a mix of
covers and originals. We started recording an album, with our rinky-dink
equipment, right in Banj's bedroom. Robert formed a new band in '02, an
instrumental/fusion project called Mindgasm, with which I played bass as
well. This ended our recording project prematurely, and Crooked Smirk
became defunct. Fortunately I was still working with another local band,
Out of the Blue, since summer of 2000, and I continue to gig with them
today.
In 2002, a my dear friends Tim Berg and Adam Davis got together and made
an indie film called "Spare Rib for Samantha". They consulted me and my
friend Mike Magoo, who was with a project called Deadnude at the time,
to provide music for the film. I submitted some digital recordings of a
few of my songs made on my new computer system. This sparked much
interest in my originals from our friends who saw the screenings. I
didn't think my equipment was professional enough to record an entire
album, but after playing the first ever Bearapalooza festival later that
year, my good friend Freddy Freeman assured me that my recordings were
good enough to release - and thus forth, the idea for "Fresh Chrome" was
born.
After nearly four years and much agonizing, I'm finally able to release
"Fresh Chrome" - no more humming and booming, I have actually gotten the
music out of my head and onto a CD! I tried to replicate my songs as I
hear them in my head - fresh from my chrome-dome to your ears... |
