Music Style psychodelic, pop, folk, rock, eclectic

Musical Influences Beatles, Jethro Tull, Kate Bush, Gentle Giant, Peter Gabriel

Group Members The earliest musical influences I can remember is from my mother's dance classes. She taught ballet inEnglewood NJ, where I was born. French, Russian, German, Italian classical, stuff. When I was six myolder sister Susan had 45's like Hang on Sloopy by The McCoys and Rosemary by Edison Light House,Then she got Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band. We totally wore is out. We liked to set the turn table to 78 rpm and get stuffed animals and put on puppetshows. We had these two mice. Topojijo I think was the name of the mouse. On Ed Sullivan there wasthis little mouse puppet that had a shicht with Ed. We got them in New York at Dance Congress whichwas a convention for dance teachers. I loved the entire album as a very young kid.I remember my mother and father would play Ukulele and sing Hawaiian songs like "The Mayor ofKeanaki Kai" and "I Wonder Why" and "Little Brown Shack Down in Hawaii." My mom likes Classicalmusic but also country. She was into Olivia Newton John's semi country period. But she also liked mostof the stuff my sister and I were into.My sister got Iron Butter's In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida when it first came out. My Grandmother was interestedto hear what hard rock was, as were we all. I loved it (even Flowers and Beads). Later, Led Zeppelincame out and I remember thinking "isn't that name a rip off of Iron Butterfly". Even so, Jimmy Page isstill one of my all time favorite guitarist's. John Bonham may be my favorite rock drummer. Grandmotherdidn't like hard rock really. She was a wonderful influence on my life though. Ruby was her name. Shewas a teacher and principal of an elementary school in Shelby NC for 45 years. We moved when I wasabout 4 or 5 (to Shelby that is.)She would read the Iliad and the Odyssey to us from this wonderful children’s version illustratedbeautifully by Martin and Alice Provensen. I was really into Greek mythology. Still am. She shared alove for the constellations with her father back in Kingstree SC. Looking back I loved her sense ofreligion. It was very intelligent and not fundamentalist at all. For instance she saw no conflict what soever between her religious beliefs and the theory of evolution.I started taking guitar lessons when I was nine. Ray Ledford was a classical guitarist's and Luthier. Helater taught guitar to my sister and father. He also made my sister's classical guitar. Learning the guitarreally changed my life, even though I didn't really notice at the time. My lessons consisted of learningpop tunes off of 45's. I would stand by the record player and start it and stop it when Ray said. He wouldwrite down the lyrics and chords as we went. Then he would teach me the song. I think I only tookguitar for about a year but that method of picking tunes out from records has stuck with me to this day. Ithink its a great time in history for musicians. You have the benefit of being able to learn from the bestmusicians from all over the world, on demand.The same year I started learning guitar I also joined the swim team. My swim coach was really like a dadto me. It was a really great experience. The swim team became my close circle of friends all the waythrough high school. Out of the swim team came the first band I was ever in. We called it Montage. Wewere about 13 years old. I played guitar, J Harris played drums, Bo Harden was going to play sax, andTom Sealy was going to learn bass. Bo's brother had a Telstar bass he got for $25. Tom couldn't makethe first rehearsal so Bo learned the bass instead and became the bass player for the band. I had joined theorchestra in the 6th grade playing string bass so I could show him the basics. Our first tune was"Yesterday" Our guitar amp and PA was one of those industrial record players they had at school (it hada mic input). We used an old stereo amp for the bass. Our first gig was at J's mom's house. We played 2sets consisting of one America tune, two originals I wrote, and about 30 Beetles tunes. We were totalBeatles junkies. Bo's older brother Terry had been in bands and really showed us how to put a songtogether and how to be a band.I learned how to play the piano from another guy on the swim team, Miles Lackey. The idea was to playthe bass of the chord with the left hand and bang the triad with the right. Then you can fill in betweenchords. I've been playing that way ever since. In the mean time my sister was into Chicago, JamesTaylor, Carroll King and Simon and Garfunkel. I think those were all heavy influences on me. Montagebuilt it's repertoire and I wrote about 50 tunes between the age of 13 and 18. Most of those songs havevanished but some have survived. I have toyed with the idea of converting some as mp3 and uploading. I was OK at string bass and in high school I was nominated to attend governors school which is a NCstate funded program for students would excel in music, dance, art, biology, math, science and English. It was six weeks in Larinburg. It was great and I meet a lot of people who influenced me. I still think ofgovernors school people frequently and wonder what they are up to. Hey if any who went to NCgovernors school in 79 reads this, drop me an email. Montage had gone from a trio (bass, guitar and drums) to a four piece (another guitarist, Hanky Amaya)to a four piece with a brass section. Hanky pretty much took over the band and turned it into this smoothjazz thing which I hated. I wanted to play rock but several members of the band really looked down onrock. I didn't last long in the Montage jazz period. I quit and joined the Ramsey - Ledbetter band for awhile which played Kiss and Blue Oyster Cult stuff. My biggest influences during this period was Pink Floyd, Deep Purple, Steppenwolf, and Klaatu. Klaatuwas a great band that few people knew about. The story is they sent a tape to capital that only said Klaatu. There was a rumor that it was a secret Beatles reunion. It wasn't. But check out them out. They havealmost a cartoon quality about them (which some don't like). Never the less, I think "Hope" is amasterpiece. I would love to try something that ambitious some day. I then attended the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in music, playing bass. This guy namedMark Hetrick turned me on to John McLaughlin, King Crimson, Frank Zappa, Jethro Tull, and GentleGiant (probably my all time favorite band). Kate Bush was also one of my favorites at that time. This was1981 and REM was playing small clubs in the south east including Fridays on Tate street. Tate street wasa cool, hippies who had dropped out of UNC-G, scene. I really loved it. I dropped out of UNC-G my selfand moved into a shack with no heat with a band I was playing with. My room was the kitchen (mattresson the floor). The bedroom was reserved as a rehearsal space. That was a most enlightening time. It wasaround 1983 I went to the local community college with my girl friend. While waiting for her I browsedthe brochures and saw one on electronics engineering. I enrolled in that program and eventuallytransferred to Cleveland Community College.While I was at CCC I started playing in a trio again with Kim Leach on bass and Chris Green on drums. This was the best band I'd played in to date and the best band I've ever been in, in some respects. Wecranked out original progress rock tunes. We really had a great chemistry. Kim's playing was completelyintuitive. He learned to play exclusively by listening to albums. And Chris was an extremely musicaldrummer. He always came up with great parts, never just technical acrobatics. He has great musical taste. This band was a great combination of songs and improvisation. I probably took it for granted at the time. The band was called Exodus. We didn't know about other bands called Exodus. I think there wereseveral.After I got my associates degree I went on to get my BS in electrical engineering. The University of NorthCarolina at Charlotte was far different from Greensboro. The music scene wasn't as closely linked to thecollege. I met some really great people though, younger than me mostly and into Led Zeppelin andAC/DC the way I had been into the Beatles (sort of after the fact). Because of that influence I learned alot of Jimmy Page and Angus Young stuff. While working on my masters I met a beautiful girl, Diane and got married. We had a daughter, Lindsay. I finished my masters in EE and started a company with my professor. We had another daughter,Shannon. My daughters are both really into music. I haven't really planned my life at all, but so far it hasbeen a blast. I went for about two or three years without playing at all. I broke out of that long period of no playing when a friend from Shelby (remember Montage) moved toCharlotte. Bo and I started Dark Horse with a friend of Bo's, John Ericson on Drums and a friend of hisBill Hahn on bass. We found out there was already a Dark Horse in Charlotte. I love that name. Wefloundered around with a hundred names. Then one day in the news paper was the head line, "Life onMars". Everyone agreed that was the name. We played about half original half covers. We neverrecorded anything just played the local college club spots. A lot of good songs were written in that time.To bad we didn't record. I'll go back to those songs one day.After Life on Mars I decided to delve into the blues. I got the Time/Life blues series and learned a bunchof ancient blues tunes. I liked to go to the Double Door and play at the open session they have on Sundaynights. The Double Door is one of the coolest places in Charlotte. Its a little hole in the wall where thelikes of Eric Clapton and Buddie Guy have played. It's great to just be on a stage where those guys haveplayed. After about a year of that and I had the urge again to play in a band.I answered an ad in Creative Loafing. It was two girls looking for a guitarist. They were great. Goodsong writers and good vocalists. Anita Brantian played guitar and Beth Brown played guitar andkeyboards. They added Otis on bass. Otis had been in a band called Animal Bag which was pretty heavywhich was a nice addition. Then we got Rob Knox on drums. Before we really got off the ground Anitadecided she needed to do something else so it was just us four. We were Hag, then Soul Patch, thenLesthan Stellar. This was an astounding mix of song writing. Everyone wrote and we had a total log jamof tunes. We added another guitarist Chris Pittman, who also wrote and became Pinkwood Flat. PWFhad a huge sound. We recorded an EP, had a great time and disintegrated because of a boy meets girlthing. I won't go into it. But also because we had different visions. Part of the band wanted to just recordand create. Part of the band wanted to "make it." I'll probably upload the PWF EP. It the best recordingI've been involved in. It was recorded at Catalyst Recording. So here we are. (You actually made it to the end, hey you skipped didn’t you) My thing now is theGarage Recording Artist's Society. It's a group of people who do experimental recordings. I'm notinterested in making ready for radio recordings. I never really know what genre I'm in. I simply want tomake the best recordings I can of the numerous songs I have written over the past 26 years. I hope youlike them. Hudson11/2000

Location Charlotte, NC - USA

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