MY MUSICAL JOURNEY: My journey with audio really began at age 7, when for my birthday my Poppi (grandfather) bought me a Fisher Price cassette recorder. It was really nothing special, but I took it everywhere and would record myself telling stories, interviewing friends and sometimes just walking around the block describing the things I saw. So, Poppi saw how much I used it and for my 8th birthday he bought me a better, dual cassette recorder/ boom box (incidentally the same year I got my first RUN DMC tape). This boom box had the ability to dub a cassette while simultaneously recording through the mic and would lead me into my first experience with overdubbing (would be my method of recording until 1999),...MY MUSICAL JOURNEY: My journey with audio really began at age 7, when for my birthday my Poppi (grandfather) bought me a Fisher Price cassette recorder. It was really nothing special, but I took it everywhere and would record myself telling stories, interviewing friends and sometimes just walking around the block describing the things I saw. So, Poppi saw how much I used it and for my 8th birthday he bought me a better, dual cassette recorder/ boom box (incidentally the same year I got my first RUN DMC tape). This boom box had the ability to dub a cassette while simultaneously recording through the mic and would lead me into my first experience with overdubbing (would be my method of recording until 1999), and it didn't take long before I started learning to make remixes by simply pausing the recording between a quarter beat and down beat then resume at a downbeat from another point or another mix. Fast forward to my 11th christmas, when Poppi bought me my first DJ mixer. We were too poor to afford proper turntables, so my aunt donated me a turntable from a shelf stereo and a neighbor gave me another in exchange for pet sitting. Unfortunately, lack of pitch control and crappy needles wouldn't allow me to advance but so far & good turntables were just not an option. My brother gave me what was one of my favorite gadgets then, a Grandmaster flash Transformer box, still, every gentle scratch led to a mix disaster. But I kept at it for a good while, did a few friends parties and even did a dance in a teen club called The Odyssey basically just being a human jukebox. I don't remember my age or the year when I got my first CD player, but I do remember how awesome it felt even though it was a new technology and it's capabilities were extremely limited back then. On my 14th christmas I got what would become my new love, a guitar, though the guitar was pretty busted up, could only hold 4 strings and lost tune constantly. But I played that thing like it was nobodies business and would eventually start selling off my DJ gear to get a better guitar and gear to go with it. Shortly after that I manged to find a bass for $50 and would form my first band (playing bass) Metal Bluez later to be renamed Herb. It was truly some of the best times of my youth, eventually the band broke up & I joined another called Spinning Jenny. Spinning Jenny didn't last very long & my drug use was starting to get a little out of control to the point I starting selling off all my gear to buy more drugs. The one instrument I kept was a Oscar Shmidt acoustic guitar but my playing was falling behind & actually felt like my skills were being lost altogether. I missed what I had with all my being, it was like I lost everything that mattered & all I wanted to do was die & be done. Then, in 1996 I came into almost $1,000 (which for me then was like winning the lottery), and I immediately knew how to spend the money and me & my brother went to Ace Music where I purchased a new electric guitar (we call her Ibby) and a distortion pedal, then ordered a amp through Musicians Friend mail order. This was a brand new beginning for me, and in alot of ways I picked up almost as if I had never stopped! I was having so much fun, I even, after a short time, formed a new band called Maggie Mallaine, another awesome time that would only be ruined by my increasingly confused state of thinking and poor attitude. So after breaking up, me & a couple others from the band formed the first version of Tribal Groove. I was still having major fun and we even played out once, but it would fall apart at the same time I was starting to fall apart when I blew my engagement because of my poor judgment, attitude, and refusal to stop drinking and drugging. This period was just as tough as when I gave up my music for drugs, I gave up the love of my life and my band, things were definitely looking bleak again. The next few years were trials & tribulations, wound up in jail several times as well did I spend quite a bit of time in mental institutions. Then, in 1999, a severe blow to family was dealt as Poppi passed away suddenly. This was particularly hard, the man who really made my musical journey possible, and I never even got to say goodbye. Little did I know, that even in death he would open up new roads to me in the form of stocks and bonds. I think some people in my family were upset with me for cashing them all in, yet I also think Poppi would have approved in that I was using the money to buy new music gear. I bought my first digital multitrack, a pair of belt drive turntables (at least these ones had pitch control), a drum machine, new guitar amp, as well as a cd recorder and many other things. Things were actually looking up again until my poor decisions caught up with me yet again, this time landing me in prison for just over a year. If you don't know me very well, you're probably thinking this became the darkest period yet, but instead was one of the best things that ever happened to me! Not only did it give me time to think about my direction in life, but it gave me time to educate myself, get further into my poetry, and because they had guitars in the rec building, even started writing new songs for what would become almost a whole new style of playing. Upon my release in 2001, I was not gonna let anything detour me from my music, and I then wrote more new songs and even got my first Gibson Les Paul. At this point I had already let my turntables go, even though I learned to beatmix on them crappy needles and belt drive motors just gave me more frustrations than joy, and my drug problems were about to reach a new height as I allowed myself to get strung out on crank (meth). Luckily, I didn't sell off enough equipment to pause my musical journey again, I actually recorded a rap ep under the name The Ninth Sword and an acoustic goth ep under the name Son Of Kingu while using (though listening to the tracks it's obvious something wasn't right). Still, by the time my probation officer caught me I had been up for a week straight and was down to 120 lbs, I looked like death incarnate and may have very well been an inch away from death once more. But Chris, my probation officer put me in jail making it clear that this was to make sure I stopped before it could kill me. When I went in front of the judge they made a deal to release me into a day program where I would be drug tested twice a week, and it just happens to be I haven't used crank or any other hard drug since. So the next few years I kinda bounced around from place to place, just trying to find my way when around 2005 or 2006 I found Ejay Mixstation 3, which I ended up selling without registering as I bought my first DJ controller the Hercules MK2. I fell back in love with DJ'ing almost right away, even bought new turntables to use timecodes and an all in one CD unit. One of my long time friends heard I had gotten back into DJ'ing and asked me to do his wedding which I graciously accepted. This was the very beginning of my mobile DJ service, and even though I only used CDs for that event it went over really well and it didn't take long before I had Virtual DJ up & running for events. Here I am several years later, gone through several upgrades and changing of gear, still running my production services and my DJ services, am more than halfway through completing production on my friend Keith's (K $pell) album, and always have at least one DJ gig every month, but more importantly have I grown older, wiser and am leading something of a fulfilling life. Hopefully the next chapter will be going to school either at the Arts Institute or Full Sail, money is still an issue but the lesson I've learned through all this is to never give up on my dreams!
Anyway, thank you for taking the time to read about my journey, I hope you can reach your dreams and blessed be well;^]
