Born in 1960, I grew up in a "music listening" family. Everyone enjoyed music and it was always playing, either on the record player or on the radio. Back then there was only AM radio. WLS from Chicago was the Rock/Pop station of choice.

By the age of thirteen Heavy Metal and Psycadelic Rock was all the rage. Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Pink Floyd, Uriah Heep and Emerson Lake and Palmer were some of my favorites. Sabbath was (and still is) my ultimate favorite though and I remember walking into the local music store and buying their first four albums. Records were $5.00 at that time.

Concerts were big when I was growing up and when some of my friends could drive (1976) I started frequenting concerts. The Duluth Arena (now called The Decc) was 120 miles from home and they had some very good bands. Concerts cost $5.00 then and the most I paid was $8.00, which I thought was an outrage. Check out my Concerts page for a full list of the bands I've seen.

By the age of eight or ten, I had discovered Hard Rock. Alice Cooper, Bloodrock, The Who and others. The Grass Roots, Guess Who, and Three Dog NIght were also among my favorites. I joined Record Club of America and started buying cassettes. But Alice Cooper remained my favorite band and around the age of ten I did a speech in school about them, which to my surprise was well accepted among the teacher and students as well.

I began collecting albums at the age of thirteen and by the time I was eighteen (1978), I had over 300 records. I held on to them for years until I was 45 years old when I sold them all. Some of these records were so ingrained in my brain I had to buy my favorites on CD, which amounted to about 200 of them. CD sound is OK, but compared to vinyl, they pale in comparison but at least I preserved the memories these albums produce.

I still enjoy music to this day. The old stuff I listened to way back when and some new stuff I discovered by accident such as The Arctic Monkeys. I bought an electric Fender Squier and tried to teach myself to play. That didn't work so well as my fingers just don't move as they need to. Still wanting to produce some sort of music I bought a Microbrute synthesizer and three Korg Volcas. I haven't had the time to put much effort into learning these keyboards but their potential is amazing.