Music has always been an important part of my life. I can still remember playing "air band" to my Uncle Roderick's 45s from the '70s and then graduating up to creating pretend instruments out of household items (a few pots, pans, and trash cans for a drum kit; tennis racquets for guitars, and well, an actually a child's organ for the keyboard). We hammed it up to the music of the Clique, Five Man Electrical Band, and Three Dog Night until I was finally able to request my own music (the first of which were cassettes of Kiss Dynasty and REO Speedwagon's Hi Infidelity, for the record).

Eventually I moved up to real instruments and joins a few bands in high school and college, and now I've settled into a more relaxing mode of playing for my church's band and writing and recording a mixture of electronic music and old-school rock and roll at home.

Between 1988 and 1992 I played bass in the Christian rock band, Reign. We had an '80s fetish going big-time, and would have given our last dollar to be Toto or Van Halen (most of the time). We played mostly for churches at camps, youth events, or community event, but we did have three big event gigs -- one at IS Fest, during which we played the same stage as two of my faves, Adam Again and the Choir, and two at Atlanta Fest, the Southeast's biggest Christian music festival. We released one cassette called i of the storm, and later began work on a second release, tentatively titled Even in the Dry Season, but never finished it before the band broke up in the early 90s.

Back in 2003, I released my first solo CD of "electronic-infused garage rock," Pop Nightmare, under the working name of st:trax and am currently working on the second, Dreaming and Other Diversions. What's it sound like? I like to think it sounds like modern incidental music from shows like Alias and the like, but I'm probably just dreaming. Maybe it's like the accident that would happen if the Chemical Brothers smashed their bus into Van Halen or Nirvana. Who knows? Just listen and find out for yourself.

One of my newest musical projects is called Blue Mercy Cafe. That's a catch-all, made-up band name to include stuff I do both alone and with friends that falls into the acoustic, folksy, art-hymn vein. I'm hoping to finish recording about 15 songs for a BMC CD I plan to call 12 Dirty Breadcrumbs. I also want to eventually put together a project called Solid, which will be a artsy-folksy arrangment of many of the hymns I grew up with in church in the South.

One of my most fulfilling musical ventures at the moment is the time I spend with the band Nothing Regal. In addition to being the worship band at my home church, Lakeland Community Church, we also gig outside the church. We're a bit different from the average church band, mostly because we throw a lot of stuff from the radio into the sets in addition to praise and worship songs. We just really aren't that big into so-called Christian music and like to find nuggets to add to the repetoire such as Collective Soul's "Shine," the Youngblood's "Get Together," the O'Jays' "Love Train," U2's "When Love Comes to Town" and "40" and Lifehouse's "Hanging for a Moment." On top of that, we have the freedom to write original songs that reflect the tone and culture of our church (relational-based and grace-focused, it's hard to find a morality-cop on duty in the foyer).

Instruments:

• Ibanez B15 bass with active pick ups
• Fender Jazz bass
• Alvarez acoustic guitar with electric pick up and ivory inlay on the neck (it's gorgeous) -- got from my dad
• Fender Telecaster electric guitar
• Ovation acoustic/electric guitar (not technically mine but a sort of semi-permanent loaner from my buddy Swami)
  
• Truetone acoustic/electric guitar I inherited from my grandfather
• set of Hohner harmonicas in various keys
• piece of crap Yamaha keyboard that manages to get the job done
  

Music Links:

Nothing Regal -- the official site of the band in which I sing and play acoustic guitar and harmonica

st:trax MySpace -- the MySpace music page for my techno-garage rock music

st:trax Fuzz -- the bigger online jukebox for the techno-garage rock music

Blue Mercy Cafe -- the online jukebox for my acoustic-folk music

Reign -- the online jukebox for the band I was in between 1988 and 1992

Streaming Media:
Enjoy the two mp3 jukeboxes below. The one on the left features songs by Nothing Regal, and the one on the right features songs by Reign and my st:trax and Blue Mercy Cafe recordings.