I was raised in Orange County, CA...ÝÝ
My Mom plays piano and sings and she tried to get me to play piano, but I hated to practice! When I was twelve years old, I started   playing Bass Clarinet and when it got stolen I switched to clarinet. Over the next couple of years I also noodled around on sax, flute and trombone. But to this day I still can't play the piano!

I gave up on the clarinet when I started high school...   because, let's face it, the clarinet player never gets the girls. When I was 16, my best friend Pete was starting a "Beatle Tribute Band" and said he needed a bass player ... so I bought a bass and  pretended to be Paul McCartney.

Whenever we rehearsed, I was always showing the other guitar players how to play their parts - I think at that time I had an acoustic guitar that I was learning on. Finally, one day they said "You should be the guitar player!" And so I borrowed an electric guitar and started  pretending to be George Harrison.

I was aware of pop/rock music at a very early age...   and used to get in trouble for falling asleep with the radio playing under my pillow. But I had a love for many type of pop music:   Beatles, Beach Boys, Motown, R&B, even soft rock and disco.

As a guitar player, my main influences have always been   Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles, Stones, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin The Who, etc. As I got older, I discovered the players that influenced them, such as  Freddie King, Albert King, Chuck Berry, Cliff Gallup and the great Bert Jansch.   I also started appreciating jazz-influenced music and Larry Carlton became a major influence. Let's not forget the King of Surf Guitar,   Dick Dale! 

It's a pretty unbelievable story,...   I had just moved to LA after living in NYC for 10 years. A friend left me a message on his way out of town saying that he heard the Beach Boys were looking for a guitar player, but he didn't leave any contact info. I called   Capitol - Records   and left a message on someone's voicemail. To my surprise, the next day she called me back and gave me  Brother Records  fax number. I faxed them my resumé and they called back and asked me to send a tape. 

I was then asked to do an audition and substituted for Adrian Baker last December.   Philip Bardowell   was nice enough to ask me to substitute for him  when he needed to take some time off from Beach Boy touring. And that included the Summer Tour (2001) in Europe. Then Phil decided to retire from the Beach Boys and concentrate on developing his own band ...   'Believer'.   I was lucky enough to be there at the right time to take his place.

Most of my recording work has been in the jingle world,...   playing on hundreds of commercials for companies such as  Midas, HBO, the NBA, Red Lobster, Bennigan's, VO5, Carefree gum,   and played many sessions for TV and radio commercials.

Album credits include ...   Angela Bofill (I Wanna Love Somebody),...  Sybil (Doin It Now),... The B-52's (Good Stuff),... Chip Davis (Party 2),... and projects by Grandmaster Flash,... Donna Summer,... and Exposé. 

I also wrote and produced a song called   "All Eyes On Me"   for the   USA Network series INVISIBLE MAN.

My first 'live' shows were as a teenager with the previously mentioned Beatles tribute band...   Of course I also played with some 'cover' and 'top 40 bands,' and I also got heavily involved with a couple of original bands, but we never got lucky enough to get signed. It's beyond frustrating when you put a couple of years of work into something and then it falls apart.

So I started looking for jobs playing guitar. That's how I ended up playing on  Broadway shows in NYC   and on going on tour with Major Broadway productions throughout the world ... such as :

My hobbies include ...   
Technical : Computer ( "Macintosh"... of course! )
Sports : Shooting Pool. 
Relaxation : Driving my 1964 1/2 Mustang Convertible  /  Movies.

And of course !... Collecting Guitars!