On The Air Again

Last week I drove up highway 101 to the beautiful Ukiah Valley, about 120 miles north of San Francisco. I lived there last year and had my own radio show on the local low power community radio station KMEC. It was a nice return trip and I was able to sit in as guest DJ for a couple hours and spin some music. I played Chuck Prophet, Michael Franti and Spearhead, Mocean Worker, Levon Helm, The Ditty Bops, Tom Waits, Wilco and a few others. It took a few minutes to get reacquainted with the equipment, but fortunately I got out all the kinks before I went on air. My goal is to get a show here in the Bay Area on one of the community stations.

First Album

When I was about 12 or 13 I took my first trip to our downtown record store - Galaxy Records in Livermore, California. Although I was rather young I did know quite a few of the artists in the store. And I'm not quite sure how I came to decide on the album I did. Maybe it was because he was one of the first rock-and-rollers. The album I got that day was Elvis Presley's Golden Records, which has Hound Dog, Heartbreak Hotel, Don't Be Cruel, Blue Suede Shoes and many other great songs by the King.

I'd just boutht a turntable a couple days before and as I put the needle in the groove and heard those first notes of Hound Dog, I was hooked. Not only on Elvis and Hound Dog but on what would become a great ritual for years to come: the act of gently putting down that needle on the vinyl and hearting that popping noise, now all but gone from today's digital wares. I recently played Elvis' Golden Records and it brought back some great memories of those first few times I operated my new turntable.

Road Trips

California's Calaveras Big Trees State Park is located in the Sierra Foothills, just north of Arnold. Our family made several camping trips there when I was about 5 to 8 years old. The images I have of those enormous Redwood trees is still with me to this day. We had some great times hiking the park discovering all the incredible trees, fishing the Stanislaus River, cooking some tasty meals and relaxing by the campfire. There is much to do and see there, but getting there was just as much fun.

Back in those days there weren't any SUV's to get you to your favorite getaway. It was either a VW Bus like my aunt and uncle had or the good old Country Squire Station Wagon, which my parents owned. They had that faux wooden siding, almost like a Woody. The best thing about them wasn't their hip exterior, it was a little secret tucked way in the back of the wagon. In the very back were two flip up seats which faced each other, positioned to face the side windows. So that's exactly were my brother and I sat on our long trip to Big Trees.

Both of my parents were into music and before we left our house they made sure they had their 8-tracks with them. For the three or four hour journey my brother and I soaked up the incredible sounds of Neil Diamond's Hot August Nights, Simon & Garfunkel's Bridge Over Troubled Water and Kris Kristofferson's Silver Tongued Devil. At an early age my parents love of music was becoming my love as well.

First Sounds

Music has been in my life since I was born: I came into the world with my mother playing songs on her small-bodied Martin acoustic guitar - which she still has. I was born in the San Francisco Bay Area during the Summer Of Love, August 1967. And although much of the music here in the Bay Area was psychedelic, my mom's choices were of the folk genre. The songs I heard her play growing up were from Simon & Garfunkel, Carole King, Neil Diamond, John Denver, Carly Simon. I can vividly remember her and my father and me in our living room in the evenings as she played these songs which would lay the basic foundation of my interest in music.