Before The Left Hand Set, there were many musicians who played and worked with me. Some of them have credits on Plutonian Music releases (please see the personnel listings for details). Others recorded with me, and I hope to find clean copies of the tapes I can publish here. All of them taught me things – about music, theory and practice; about writing and arrangement; about performance; about sound. I want to list some names, focusing on folks I’ve performed with. If you see I’ve missed someone, please drop me an email.
- Henry, Ken and Gary – Roll Over
- Henry, Tom S., Jim, Constantine – The Stray Cats
- Tom S., Jon, Harry, Tom A. – The Wonderdrugs
- Henry, Jon, Scott – The Tone Controls
- Jon, Chris, Alicia – The Tone Controls
- John, Dave, Scott P., Chris – The Hacks
- Blake, John, Dave – The Longshots
My cousin Henry and I would play drums and piano together whenever we had the chance as kids. Often, we would just improvise chords and rhythms; later, we tried writing music, then lyrics. Eventually, we worked on arranging and recording songs, which we performed with the folks listed above.
Scott went to school with Henry. He had a passion for the stagecraft of live music, and was a pure child of the ’70s. He really helped me understand how guitars and amps worked together – to sound good, and look good – and he was into recording (he trained at IAR).
Ron and I met at college. I saw him in the lobby of our dorm in 1975 – we had both been to see The Who at the Spectrum without knowing each other. He had better seats; I sat behind the stage, just even with Pete Townshend’s line of Les Pauls (ready for smashing). They opened with “I Can’t Explain” – what power! Ron seemed like a pure rocker, but like Scott had an appreciation for all kinds of well-crafted music.
Jon and I met at college. He knew about classical music, but also folk, progressive and hard rock. When we got our hands on tape recorders, we worked separately and together on sounds and arrangements. Jon was always willing to experiment; later, he brought reggae into the Tone Controls.
I met Chuck at Apple Valley Studio, my little business during the early 80s, and we played on each other’s projects over the years. He already knew about songs and arrangements when I met him, and I still listen to his material to understand how pop music is made. He also made me focus on the emotion of vocals beyond the lyrical story.
When I lived in New York City during the ’80s, playing in The Longshots was a bridge back to enjoying music the way I had in my teens: just the joy of getting up in front of people and letting it rip. It also reconnected me to writing, with songs like “The Back of the Bar” and “Traces of Soul”.
Since 2019, it’s been a joy to play drums with Big Boots, the rock ‘n’ roll outfit headed by Donna and Bobby Jay. I love Donna’s songs, and the vocal arrangements by Donna, Barb, Mariah and Dorothy; and Bobby, Joey and Mike are fierce instrumentalists. I’m learning more about drums and drumming than ever before – and my own arrangements are better as a result.