PureVolume

I attended high school at the Arts Magnet High School For The Performing Arts and graduated with a music degree in 1990. It was a jazz music course and the music instructor (Bart) didn't exactly like my long hair or the fact that I had "rock" gigs on the weekends taking away from my "jazz" practicing. I was in the jazz band with Roy Hargrove. He was quite an inspiration and I learned a lot about how to rehearse with a band from him. The last words Roy ever said to me before he went to Berkley was, "No matter what Bart sez, you're gonna be a kick ass drummer someday. Ya got your own thing going on." During high school I also took lessons for 3 1/2 years from Lucy Flohr, the greatest friend/therapist/teacher I could have ever found. She taught me how to teach myself, build my own style and how to play what ya gotta play but put a little twist of lime in it. When I was about 17, I started playing in a band with Scott Stine. He introduced me to Derek Taylor and about 8 months later Tommy Lamey was born. We did a bunch of recordings for Mike and Mark Varney trying to get a record deal and in the meantime landing on a few Guitar on the Edge cd's. Mike Varney found a singer for us, Eddie Ellis, and we gigged and recorded demos constantly. (Scott and I were also playing with another band, Mother Road, a kinda Black Crows thing. We gigged and recorded all through this whole next paragraph, just to make it more confusing!!!) Ellis was also rehearsing with a band on the other side of the rehearsal studio called Haji's Kitchen. Taylor got tired of Ellis and Crimeny was born. We recorded 1 cd, Peat, for Shrapnel. A month later I recorded Derek Taylor's solo cd Dystrophy and Scott Stine's solo cd Broke, then Taylor got tired of me. At about the same time, Haji's Kitchen was looking for a new drumming style. Clint Barlow, their current drummer, was a more straight ahead drummer. So Clint was out and I was in. I have so much respect for Clint and the way he delt with the whole thing. He was so cool about it. Clint is now with Whipping Post. In Sept. 94' through Mike Varney, Yngwie Malmsteen calls me and wants me to audition for his upcoming tour. After a couple of confusing phone calls on a Sunday from Yngwie and his manager, I was told, "I got the gig! Be looking for some plane tickets via Fed X Wednesday so we can begin rehearsals in Florida by Friday." Fed X never came, a couple more confusing phone calls as to the whereabouts of the plane tickets.................and............. I didn't get the gig. I never did get a straight answer, but Yngwie was very polite to me. One month later some guy rear-ended me doing about 60mph. I had two seperated shoulders, a sprained ankle, all kinds of back problems and a slight cuncussion. I could barely lift my arms much less play the drums. After too many pain pills (I gained 30lbs) and a lot of therapy, I man'd it and recororded the first Haji's cd. 2 months later Clint and I recorded with Michael Harris on his cd Ego Decimation Profile. This whole paragraph happened over a period of 9 months. pheww!! Haji's then gigged for the next year and a half playing everywhere from Texas to Tennesse to Kansas. After that we replaced Ellis with Vince Mullins. During the time that we were breaking Vince in and writing new material, Michael Harris called me and asked if I would be willing to do a battle of the bands for the opening slot for the 1998 G3 show here in Dallas (it didn't sound cool to me at the time). We won, did the G3 show, Derek Blakley and I recorded one song on Michael Harris's cd Distorted Views and continued to gig up until about 5 months ago. I'm glad I did it now. In the middle of all that I recorded drum tracks for the 2nd Haji's cd 4 times and added a keyboard/sample guy Chad Littlepage. We could never get the drum sound we wanted and when you get 4 cooks in the kitchen we tend to get a little too picky! In the past few months we have been trying to mix at Chad's studio. If the Mackie DB8 counsel would work without the digital distortion, we would be done. (Mackie has fixed the thing 4 times now) During that time I have joined another band Odd-Trasey to keep playing live and received an endorsement from Attack Drum Heads. I'll play anywhere anytime.