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I have been a musician all of my life.

My father was a 'flat picking' bluegrass and country player and most of my family from as far as you can look back were either singers or players. There was always gospel and bluegrass at family reunions. Then, my dad discovered The Beatles in 1962 and by the time I was born in 1964, my dad had quite the collection of original acetates and 2 track reel to reel tapes that he got over seas when he was in the Army.

I grew up with a great foundation for where I was heading in music and it has played out to where I am right now. My dad gave me most of the instruments that I have ever played until recently, i.e. a '73 Martin D28, a Gibson Custom S-1 which is a rare guitar and that is just to name a few.

I went through the 70's and 80's just like everyone else did but because of my roots I always found myself going back to the classic Beatles, Bob Dylan, Rare Earth, Sly Stone, early Motown of any kind, etc... And because of their flare for improvisation on anything from simple folk to progressive jazz, I learned to love The Grateful Dead,... not for who they were per se, but because they just couldn't be what the record companies wanted them to be, They were just 'The Dead'. For that I have a lot of respect for them.

The material from the earlier projects I was in was pretty progressive. And I was completely happy doing that kind of music. The difference was that I was really good at hooks. So, it had more appeal than straight up fusion. Just not enough. The bands always stuck out and were different than the acts we were touring with. Until,... Phish. I was doing the same stuff long before it was the fodder for every Eddie Bauer wearing college kid from Vermont to San Diego. God it was great to finally sort of fit in.

After play and touring with The Watching, Timothy Pure, Libra Square and Nick Savage and Friends, I decided to look into hiring the best band that I could for the Nick Savage Band. I found John McKnight, a drummer that was a gun for hire among the 'blues' circuit and remembered him from his days with The Barry Richman Band where he was playing with the original bass player from The Watching, Steve Mays. I found out that they were on hiatus from The Barry Richman Band and I snatched them up. These two were phenomenal separately but together.... Whew!

Then, I went to a jazz club one night to hear this combo play and the keyboardist/leader of the band was the unbelievable Andrew Fazackerly. I asked him to come on board.... but he said NO. I asked him three months later if he would just play one gig and he agreed to just do one gig. After we had just played a steaming set, Andrew looked at me and said that he would love to play in the band. That was the official start of NSB.

We did the entire club scene in Atlanta, Athens, Georgia, the Southeast. We were featured artists with the City of Atlanta's Summer Concerts in the Parks series, the Montreaux Music Festival in front of Cowboy Junkies, The Atlanta Dogwood Festival, Dekalb Counsel for the Arts Jazz Fest, several Z93/Dunham's events including live broadcasts from the Brandy House, opened up for Col, Bruce Hampton and the Fiji Mariners, as well as Blueground Undergrass. I think one of the best shows was a Brandy House gig where we released an album on the day before Trey was playing Lakewood Amphitheater with his new band. This was during the first 2 year split of PHISH. We billed the show as 'The Day Before Trey Show' and ran ads along with Trey's ads on the radio. We bought 50 tickets to Trey's show and raffled them off at our show. Perfect marketing. There was more people at the Brandy House that Wednesday night than I think that I have ever seen there, ever. And as you know, all of the tour kids and Phish heads were in town for the show the next day. It was just the cat's pajamas.

Since then, I have gotten married and have been playing Dad until my wife graduates from college. I have also been writing a great deal of material and recording it at Makeshift. I did almost a year on the road with The Soundmen as vocalist/keyboardist. Now, I am ready to get things hot again with some different musicians and fresh perspective.

The future is here and now.....

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