I just realized a few minutes ago that with my last birthday (which was last Thursday, btw) I have reached 25 years of playing guitar. I am now 38 years old.
A bit of my personal history:
I started playing guitar at age 13; I basically commandeered my mother's Martin 6 string and was instantly hooked on trying to make the guitar 'work'. I began writing music the day I picked up the guitar.
Within a year I realized that I would not get very far on my own and started a 10-year journey as a guitar aficionado and student.
I studied the Sandoli method with the man himself, Dennis Sandoli, throughout the 80s. This was an approximate 3hr train ride door-to-door each way from NYC to Philadelphia every Saturday. It also required a minimum of 4-8hrs practice every day to keep up with the material.
Later I had the privelege of taking lessons or attending master classes by:
Joseph Scro
Joe Frederico
Tal Farlow
Arlen Roth
Pat Martino
Steve Vai
Sharon Isbin
Paul Gilbert
Greg Howe
Carlos Alamar
During that time I played guitar in many bands and got kicked out of many, also. Most of the bands had classic '80s names like Back II Back and Hat Trick. PDT_008
In 1994 I joined the Chamber Society of New York and took a bunch of pickup gigs for 2 years. This was like being in the Special Forces: You get a call for X gig playing Y pieces, and you'd have 2-3 weeks to learn the material and then play it in an ensemble with people you've most likely never met before. It was nerve wracking, but also enjoyable and basically got me immune to feeling nervous when playing live.
I didn't play in many bands during this period, and started teaching guitar seriously for the next 10 years or so.
In 2004, the gravitation pull of music from my teenage years proved to be too great and I formed a progressive metal band, Urshurak. When my current writing partner, Pamela Berlinghof joined Urshurak, we trimmed the songs down and changed the direction a bit more towards classic metal and changed the name to Twilight Oddysey.
In Urshurak and TO, I've had the privilege of playing with, and in one case co-headlining with the following bands:
Jag Panzer (co-headline)
Lynch Mob
Blaze
Symphony X (3 times)
Fozzy
Metal Church
Overkill
Angel Dust
Nightwish
Angra
Nasty Savage
Testament
I also have the honour of endorsing several great products, including Bare Knuckle pickups, Wayne Guitars, Splawn amplifiers, and Home Brew Electronics pedals.
It's been a fun ride and I'm still learning new things every day. Looking forward to the next 25 years!!
