The Music in the Mower…

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When I was about 5 years old, my dad was out mowing the lawn between the orange trees in front of our house in Woodland Hills, CA, and in the sound of the engine I was certain I could hear rhythms, melodies, and horn solos… I thought to myself, I could be a jazz musician! Well, I never did venture deeply into studying and playing jazz per se, but I have had an extremely wonderfully, joy filled time making music for about forty years now. 

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It started with listening to the early 70’s hits in the back of our Grand Torino on the LA Freeway. A little later it was the bus driver's choice on long morning and afternoon school bus rides in Clovis. In fifth grade at Fort Washington Elementary School the music teacher came to our class and asked if we wanted to play a musical instrument. My hand shot up, because I wanted to play the electric bass and specifically learn how to play the bass line from The Barney Miller Theme Song. A few days later she handed me a cello. It produced none of the sounds I was familiar with via Stevie Wonder, Steely Dan, Chicago, etc. I spent a few weeks lugging it around and decided it wasn't for me.

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A few years went by and my brother Steve started playing the electric guitar which I got to play with and a little later brother Tim was getting into drums. So soon we had a drum set in our garage! Doug Hyatt stepped into the garage one afternoon and commenced to destroy my understanding of time by splitting it into millions of tiny pieces with ease and grace. That was enlightening! Music began to well up inside my body. Finally at sixteen I finally got to lay my fingers on an electric bass… it was worth the wait! Fat Jerry brought his custom Kramer bass into my room and asked for $200 in exchange. Done! It was mine and I quickly found my fingers making sense of The Barney Miller Theme Song at last. :)

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Someday, I will eventually add the details of how I ended up in Loch Ness and The Monsters during high school and how I formed Big Butter with Tim Biskup, Etc… 

 

For now, lots of music can be heard at the right.

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- Mike