First music I recall was Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen, Debarge and Hall & Oates cassettes in my dad's car. When I was 8 or so succumbed to the hair rock by fully endorsing acts like Def Leppard and Bon Jovi along with slightly more substantial acts like Guns n' Roses and Faith No More, as well as heavier acts like Metallica and Megadeth. After holding onto hair rock too long cost me any potential social life, I went the darker route of what I guess is termed 'death metal' (go figure: Testament, Obituary, Sepultura and Death) while concurrently getting into classic rock (Black Sabbath, Cream, Hendrix, Led Zeppelin). Got into hard-core (Earth Crisis, Snapcase, VOD) when I joined Left In Ruins which was my first 'gigging' bandtheir shows are still legendary as far as I'm concerned, largely because of the LIR Crew. Discovered jazz in college (Miles, Bird, Trane, Monk, Mingus and Dolphy). It was at this time that I got into Jaco and I still haven't recovered. Followed by getting into funk (Meters, War, James Brown, Mandrill, TOP). Rocco is another guy that messed me up permanently. Then after doing some jazz gigs, a cat told me I sounded like Bernard Edwards from Chic (he must have been high) and that's how I got my triumvirate of Jaco, Rocco and Bernard. I can't seem to shake any of these dudes, and will probably go my entire life trying to.
Future goals (in addition to electric bass mastery) include continued development on the upright bass, guitar, vocals, drums, songwriting and the spanish language. I also aspire to play congas, trumpet, flute and harmonica.
