And the beat goes on.

I was 7 years old. The year was 1980. My family was making the long drive from Woodstock, CT to Buffalo, NY for my cousin Wally's wedding. We made the trip in one day. I don't recall how long it took, but I'd have to estimate (based on what I know now) that it took about 7 hours. Who knows, maybe more. It was a pretty uneventful trip, and as I barely remember most things before I was 10 or so, it's remarkable I remember it at all. Why do I remember this trip? It's during this ride that I wrote my first song.

I still remember a few lines. Nothing groundbreaking; I'm no Mozart. But it's a cute little tune:

We went through the river,
We went through the rain.
And then we turned and came back again.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Came back again.

Like I said, I was 7. I don't recall writing any other tunes until I was 11 or 12. I was in Junior High School, and I had recently befriended the coolest guy I had ever met in my short little life: Vinnie Murray. Vinnie was awesome: he had a blue jean jacket that was almost completely covered in assorted sized safety pins. Where safety pins were missing, he had drawn the most amazing images of anarchy and punk rock. Vinnie was a black guy with a six inch tall mohawk. He skateboarded, was admired by all the little white girls (and had his way with them at will), he drank and did drugs and he was an incredible comic book artist. He was an inspiration.

Vinnie and I started putting some comics together. I had my characters, he had his. They got together and wreaked a path of death and destruction everywhere they went. We were like gods in our minds. Vinnie and I used to hang out at the local Record Breaker record store. When I say record store, I mean REAL VINYL. Now, up to this point, the only records I had bought were Chicago 17, Huey Lewis's Heart of Rock 'n Roll and all the Wierd Al Yankovic I could get my hands on. Vinnie introduced me to the independent/punk section of the store. My first trip in with him, I walked out with D.R.I.'s Dirty Rotten LP, Iron Maiden's Live After Death (a choice made solely on album cover art) and Black Flag's Damaged. A week later I was back for The Circle Jerks Golden Shower of Hits, Metallica's Kill 'em All and The Cro-Mags Age of Quarrel. I was hooked on punk from this point until I discovered John Coltrane in my early 20's. It was awesome.

Vinnie and I tried to write some songs together. Here's a small sampling:

Too Baked To Skate

It's Saturday afternoon,
Had too many bongs.
Try to thrash around,
But yer too far gone.

Road starts to spin,
Board begins to shake.
Do a skull grind,
Because yer fuckin' baked.

Not exactly Shakespeare. But songs like this made us legends. A band was formed but it got to Vinnie's head. He got into some trouble with the law (arson) and was ultimately placed in a facility to get the help and attention that he required to be a functional and productive member of society.

A second band was formed called Chemical Persuasion. I played guitar and wrote the songs. We played a few shows and had a good time. We played for beer money. Eventually we got a band room that turned into a party room and we started falling apart. Those were ugly times. Then my sisters accident and it was over. I pretty much holed up for a few years. I was the reclusive artist. I was depressed, and the king of excess. I barely showered, drank until sick, ate acid until it didn't work any more and smoked anything I could wrap a rolling paper around. I had a death wish. I gained almost 100 pounds during this time and lost nearly all of my friends. I dropped out of school and spent all day creating. Everything I did was awesome (whether it was or wasn't).

I remember drawing this picture of a mirror. The reflection is of a man who has just slit his wrists and blood is dripping into a reflected sink. Across the page in splashed red ink was one word: SUICIDE. I drew this picture and left it hanging on my easel when I went out partying. Some friends and I dropped a bunch of acid and climbed this mountain. We spent the whole night up there in the wilderness. When I got home in the morning all spent and gross, my mom was nearly in tears as I had not called or left a note. She thought I had gone off to kill myself.

I wrote a bunch of songs during this time. I recorded all of them. It's actually pretty positive stuff. I think it's the music that got me through. I haven't played any of these tapes for anyone ever. Not even the missus. But I listen to them sometimes when I'm down. They remind me how good things are now and how far I've come. When I met my future wife, the clouds magically lifted and I was suddenly happy. I wrote songs for her. I made beautiful things again. I wooed her with poems and art and insight into my vision of reality. She came to love me and I, her.

The band got back together in the late 90's. We wrote some songs and played a few shows. Then kids and a real job and time dried up.

I've since started another band. A few guys from work play instruments. The drummer lives 40 miles away. The bass player lives in Ireland. We have only played together in the same room once. Since then, we have made music online. I write a song and record a demo. The drummer lays down a drum track, than the bass goes in. If necessary we pass it around a few times to tweak and mix and such and then, VOILA!! a finished song. This band makes me happy. I get to be creative without a major investment of time away from the family. And it's the best sounding music I've ever written.

What's next? Who knows. A show? Maybe. Right now it doesn't matter. Right now I'm happy.