I come from a family of musicians; my Dad was a very good musician (and has been in a related field for over 40 years), my brother is a guitar player, my uncle is a bassist, etc. When I was 3 or 4, I got an acoustic guitar, though I didn't do anything with it except for make a lot of noise. When I was 6 or 7, my parents bought me an "air organ" and I started to write melodies and play old ballads. When I was 9, I started to play violin as part of an orchestral program in elementary school. Shortly thereafter my parents signed me up for private lessons. I am a good self-studier, but do not excel as a student in a more formal environment, thus I really didn't enjoy these lessons. During this time I also started to play a bit of mandolin, as it had the same string layout as the violin. When I was 11 I started to play bass guitar and my uncle gave me a couple of lessons. He showed me how to play triads over chords, etc. I was slowly finding my way on my eventual path to the guitar... I got my first electric guitar when I was 13. It was really a sad instrument (hollow body Les Paul no-name), but none-the-less this was really a defining moment in terms of inspiration. I would spend countless hours trying to play Led Zeppelin/Aerosmith songs. As time went on, I started to get into other players, such as; Hendrix, Van Halen, Lifeson, Rhodes, Campbell, Jake E. Lee, Clapton, Beck, Santana, Mathias Jabs and Blackmore. I also went through a period of listening to Blues players, such as BB King and Muddy Waters. As I was progressing, it was getting time to upgrade my instrument. I bought a wine red Gibson SG, dropped a Kahler tremolo and upgraded the lead pickup to a Seymour Duncan with a coil tap. Somewhere around this period I also bought an Ibanez acoustic (still have this guitar). When I was around 15 I bought an Ibanez double-neck, as I desperately wanted to play Stairway to Heaven and the Song Remains the Same the right way (LOL). Looking back, I really can't understand nor rationalize this obsession, though a couple of my friends were also doing the same. I think that we were all nuts. Shortly thereafter I acquired a Kramer Baretta. I also still have this instrument, though it is safely locked away in its case. At 16, I heard Yngwie, scrapped the doubleneck and bought a 62 reissue Strat (still have this one as well/though it is in pieces). I also started listening to others players such as Holdsworth, DiMeola, Vinnie Moore, Ron LeTekro, George Lynch, Garry Moore. Around 18, I started listening to Jason Becker, Greg Howe, Nuno, Marty Friedman, Paul Gilbert, George Lynch ... When I was 21, I had just graduated from college and got a "real" job. At this point, I felt that I had two things converging and had a decision to make. The question was; do I concentrate on my career or concentrate on developing as a musician. I chose to concentrate on a more formal career, because I felt that it provided much better odds of giving me what I wanted out of life. Having made this decision, I essentially stopped trying to improve. I regret the fact that I felt that this had to be an "all or nothing" proposition, and that I could not have found some sort of moderation. By the time that I was 29, after having been playing in a cover band for about 6 years, I had pretty much given up on playing. There were a rare couple of occasions in which I would take the instrument out of its case, but it would soon go back in its case for long periods. In May of 2006, at the age of 37, I started playing again. I don't know why I decided to take the guitar out of the case and it has been out of its case since. While I regret not being able to find moderation, stepping away from the role of the player and into the role of the listener allowed me to approach things a bit differently. Anyway, I hope that you enjoy the music on this site because I had a lot of fun making it. If you feel so inclined, send me an email or "Like" me on FB.