Artist description Acoustic/electric, alternative folk-rock guitar stylings! Witty, clever, heartfelt, and often poetic lyrics (or the mere attempts thereof) are where it all begins. From there, Bri weaves aural tapestries (a phrase he heard once, but nevermind), thick with multiple guitar textures and vocal harmonies. The toned-down solo mix arises, but Brian rarely misses an opportunity to thicken things up. And you can never get enough MIDI drums. Despite the seemingly-endless procession of Songs About Girls he used to churn out (Hey, he was just following the age old tradition of unrequited love in secular music, where it all began ... if only he had a lute!) it's not all schlock. Often thought-provoking, often wry, often sardonic, often sentimental and always metered and rhyming, Bri's lyrics and music strive to be deep. "It's all about the feeling, man! You know? You gotta listen, like, with your eyes, ears, heart, and mind open, man ... like woah, like, you know what I mean? The words just float there in this ether and the music flows in and fills the room and, like, it all comes together, man!" he once said, but the drugged-out hippie intonation and dialect was purely for humouristic effect. Brian's been going for a fuller "band" feel with more beats and drums than he used to use, and that adds to his aural tapestry, so watch out!

Music Style singer/songwriter stuff ... acoustic, electric, folk, rock, alternative, solo, pop, techno ... kind of, but not necessarily in that order.

Musical Influences You may or may not hear me emulating ... Steven Page / Ed Robertson / Barenaked Ladies (Ed is my hero!), Guster, Weird Al Yankovic, They Might Be Giants, Tom Petty, Kurt Cobain, Van Halen, Eric Johnson, Tom Scholz / Boston, Mark Knopfler / Dire Straits, The Who, The Cars, Live, Collective Soul, 10,000 Maniacs, Danny Elfman, Steve Bartek, Tori Amos, Kathy Fisher, Sarah McLachlan, Lisa Loeb, Chip Davis / Mannheim Steamroller, Ludwig van Beethoven

Similar Artists Elliott Smith, Barenaked Ladies, Ben Folds, They Might Be Giants, Guster, Dweezil Zappa, Collective Soul, Live, Tom Petty, Fountains of Wayne, John Mayer

Artist History Well, let's see ... first the Earth cooled, and then the dinosaurs came but they all got big and fat and then they died and turned into oil. And then the Arabs came and they bought Mercedes Benzes. And then Brian taught himself to play the guitar, took years of music theory courses, wrote tons of songs, recorded them on his Tascam 4-track and/or with his hard-drive recording software (God bless Sound Blaster), joined mp3.com and submitted some of those songs for all to enjoy. Now there are hundreds who look at him as if he's some kind of rhythm section want ad. Several albums later, he's still goin' strong, seeing as he's still recording, yet nobody is buying.

Group Members Brian: all vocals, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, bass guitar (where applicable) & MIDI sequencing (where applicable), recording, mixing, processing ... basically everything you hear was done by Bri.

Instruments Brian's voice (often in two- or three-part harmony with itself), Fender Jag-Stang electric guitar, Ovation Balladeer 12-string acoustic/electric, Parker P-38 electric guitar (gotta love a piezo pickup system), an old acoustic 6-string, a Sound Blaster Live! card . . . and that's pretty much about it.

Albums Cognitive Autostimulation (Mar. '00); Still Haven't Walked (July '00); Therefore, One Can't Conclude (Feb. '01); Cognitive Autostimulation DLX (June '01); Still Haven't Walked re-issued (July '01); The Obligatory Sampler (Nov. '01); Proceed Without Caffeine (Nov. '01); Proceed Without Caffeine UNCUT (Dec. '01); Long Hair Phase (Oct. '02)

Press Reviews There was a short blurb mentioning me once ... on a bathroom stall with a black Sharpie ... saying something to the effect of ... oh, well, you know, it really doesn't matter anyway.

Location Costa Mesa, CA - USA

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