Alright - I'll be perfectly honest and drop the third-person description. This is all my doing, be it awkward or banal, but damn if it isn't fun. As the bassist for Medea, this sort of extraneous tweaking makes being in the band all that much cooler. I've always enjoyed creativity, and that's one thing I really like about our sound.
I've been playing bass since late 1991, when several friends and myself (none of which could play an instrument) decided to form the greatest band ever - Everything and Everyone, featuring myself, Matt Turner, Dave Meany, Justin McRoberts, Mike Buckman, and originally, JT Billeter. We actually played a show, too , at our high school, at which we fumbled through 4 or 5 songs. I was playing keyboards at the time, and only bought the bass so my friend Davey had something to play. The band folded, and I moved away to a more secluded region near Cazadero, CA. With all that time to myself, I really began to study the bass, and took some informal lessons.
Another Lesson In Hate, with Mike Crawford and Brian Clark, was my first recording experience. We thought we were hardcore, however, the group never played the all-important, band-making live show. But it kept me in music. Next on the historical train was Emphatic Distraction, a 5-man supergroup featuring Chris Ward, Harry-Ben-Harold Taylor, Ed Reed, Dylan Zambo, and myself. This band played several times in the Santa Rosa area and was recieved well, for being a sort of funky-alternarock thing. E.D.'s last show featured a local hero, No Color's Jesse 'the Cat' Mills, and the ensuing fourth of july party ended up costing me my job.
Nobody, with Matt Turner, was my next band- or maybe not. We never did play the all important live show, so I suppose that Nobody was more of a project, which I'm proud to say is still ongoing... Matt and I did play one acoustic show, as Nobody, but for these purposes, we'll keep it at a project.
After that came some dark years... I had to relocate back to Santa Rosa, and spent the next several years playing around quite a bit, in a handful of decent bands, but invariably something crumbled or someone grumbled and it was time to move on. Lucid Dreams, a cover band featuring long-time collaborators Will Hand, Mike Buckman, and a dude whose name I have let slip, Helicopters Flying, a very weird thing featuring Eston Extine, Rich Dobscha, and Greg Wiltermood, Sex Cells, featuring Dylan Zambo, Jason Bonilla, and Jessica X, Somewhere Between, featuring Dylan Zambo on the kit and Joe Stanley on Saxophone, Plan 9, featuring Dave Hensley, and a plethora of guest stars, Eclipse, who continue to thrive today in Sonoma County, and Loose Change, featuring John Seveda and Aaron Perkins, not necessarily in that order.
Nug deserves it's own listing, being one of the funnest projects I've ever been in. Thrown together out of mismatched parts, the group jammed once and decided it wasn't happening. For reasons unknown, reggae influenced drummer Dave Hensley, rock guitarist Ed Reed, and unique vocalist Patrick Maloney jammed together one more time and the thing took off. Parties, copious gigs, much funk... all of these things were Nug.
As a disclaimer, however, I would like to say I'm very happy where all this has led me.
This is my wife, Mechelle. We are very happy being young and married with no children. We were married on 4/1/98 in Las Vegas, NV, on our 13 month anniversary. I figured if we could survive all that dubious numerology, we would last forever. Mech is working on becoming a licensed dietician, and is smart, pretty, and content with her situation (or so she tells me-haha). We do have a cat, the enormous 'Baby' Carlisle, who takes up all the air in the apartment and bitches at us constantly. Despite this, my new family is the most important thing in my life.