The bio:

I was born on April 15th, 1964 in Carmel Ca.
My parents had met in the Army, my Mom was a WAC nurse's assistant and my dad was a medic. In those days if a woman got pregnant she was done in the Army.
From there I lived in Turkey and Fort Lewis, WA and Salina Kansas. My parents were divorced in 1968 and we moved back to Carmel to live with my grandparents.
My grandfather was cool, he'd been a marine science teacher, music teacher, city administrator and city manager of Monterey, CA. We'd go to the tide pools and he taught me about the ecosystem of the coastline and how you could have a small world within each pool that could change with each tide. My grandmother was a socialite and her big achievement was organizing the Monterey County symphony.

So music was a big thing around the house. My Mom had played clarinet in high school and my dad had played the trumpet in college and was a professional church organist. I learned the clarinet in grade school and played for a while but got bored. My brother learned to play piano and did recitals and so on. He also took guitar lessons but got tired of them after a while.
    
I picked up the guitar on a whim in the last week of September, 1978. I needed a 6th period class because I was ditching the one I had. My teacher, Henry Avila, handed me a sheet with all the open chords and three songs that I had to learn. To my surprise I learned the song s and the chords by the end of the first hour of class. I have a mild ceribral-palsey so I was surprised that it was so damn easy (it took me 2 years to figure out how to tie my shoes). The first song was Glen Campbell's "Gentle On My Mind". So I was off! The rest of the year I spent learning all of my favorite songs on my little classical guitar. I'd go to the music store and get the music books from my favorite bands (KISS, Ted Nugent, Cheap Trick). The class was great because it had people from all grades and different levels of ability. We'd just head off to a corner or a small group and play and joke around. There were the cool guys who had electric guitars and played in a band. They'd give me crap for the most part but once in a while they'd show me something. One of the cool guys who wasn't a jerk was Christian Nesmith, Mike Nesmith (Monkeys) son. This guy had been playing guitar forever and could quickly show me licks and tricks. I owe him...

  And then all the cool guys went to see Black Sabbath (with a new band from Pasadena opening) in San Francisco. The following Monday there was no guitar playing in class, instead we spent the hour huddled around one of the cool guy's boom-box listening to Van Halen 1. Now, I already had the album, my brother had picked it up in Modesto. We used to read BAM magazine and there had been a lot of hype about this band from Pasadena so I was already ahead of the "cool" guys. It was like that scene in "2001: A Space Odyssey" were the apes have encountered the alien stone. They would play "Eruption" over and over. Then they'd stop and discuss what they'd seen at the show. This left an impression on me because I liked the album and I thought this Eddie guy was hot but I also thought Ace Frehley was hot, it would be a while before I understood and appreciated Van Halen fully.
    
I ended up in a band, we would play at the drummer's house which is the gate house at Little Sur (five miles north of Big Sur). We had no neighbors so we could play literally all night and we all had different tastes in music. With these guys I was exposed to the Greatful Dead (not a fan but Garcia's cool), Santana , Al DiMIeloa and Larry Carlton. This was more sophisticated than the KISS and Cheap Trick stuff I'd been playing and for a year I'd work durring the day and play almost four nights a week for 7 or 9 hours. I learned to solo with these guys. I learned that it's had to solo for 20 minuted straight. I also taught the guys that it's just as hard to solo in 20 seconds. Big Sur was still the home of the "Hippie" so we'd have some strange and interesting people drop in and jam with us and I learned to open my mind to all kinds of things that continues to make my life more interesting today.

The band broke up in 1985 and I decided to try the studio thang for a while. I had a drummer friend who would get me crappy gigs in San Jose and I did a few (3) jobs up in Cotati, CA (north of San Francisco, Sonoma State is near by) but by 1987 I'd had enough. I worked at a toy store in Carmel for the next 12 years as the Hobby Buyer and salesman. When we went online I took over the shipping and management of that department as well. In 2001 I injured my back and was laid off. I retrained through the State of California's "One Stop" program for computer networking but by the time I was done that market had vanished. Since 2001 I've been researching and writing and I hope to publish a book on the 7th Infantry Division(L). I work front desk at a small motel and that gives me time to read and write. This is a huge project, even for a more experienced writer, but I'm learning a whole lot about a world most people don't know about. I interview the men who served with the 7thID and they're all different and fascinating.
    
Last year I bought a small amp and needless to say I got the bug again. I'm saving up for a small home studio and a larger amp. Who know where this will all lead.

Oh yeah, I'm single. Never married and no regrets either.

Marc