[JohnnyCNote]

'Twas a pleasure! I'll use this to thank in advance anyone else who has any comments, including constructive criticisms.

I wish I could dig up some pictures of our system. It was something to be proud of, even if I was just the operator. Without getting into much detail, the drummer of my band actually owned it.

We were in a great position. I got us a long-term job at the club at the bottom of the article, the venerable "On Broadway Theatre", above the legendary "Mabuhay", a legendary punk/alternative club in San Francisco. Any punk band from SF, along with many from other places (e.g. Black Flag) played there. We weren't at all a punk band, but I knew a lot of those guys.

We were able to rehearse at the club during the week for free, plus make some cash on the weekends. We could use our own PA and play on a stage in a theatre, all for free! It also put us directly into the rock music scene of late 80's SF. No other band I knew of had a situation like that, and I was convinced it was just a matter of time before we were playing music full-time, i.e. recording contract, touring, MTV - the works.

BUT, someone got himself into addictive substances, and that ultimately led to the demise of the whole project. What was particularly frustrating was that we had finally found a good bass player, had always gotten good reviews from the local music rags and had A & R people interested. Plus the drummer and I'd been together for 5 years, and we both had lots of friends, not to mention fans, who really wanted us to succeed.

Once the drugs took over and the other guy bailed out, I had to take a break and try to make some money. SF was never a cheap place to live, and I needed to put myself on better financial footing before I could resume the band. Eventually I wound up back in Florida and finished my BA in Russian (not exactly the most marketable degree, but it was the easiest one to get).

The problem is, to paraphrase others, you can take the man out of the music scene but you can't take the music scene out of the man. I've been a rock musician at heart since I was about 10, and find anything else to be less than satisfying, to put it mildly.

There are some lights at the end of the tunnel, however. My brother, who plays bass, is moving up to Jacksonville (yeah, I grew up in the same neighborhood as Lynrd Skynrd, if you can believe that!) and we're planning to start recording my songs.

Fortunately, there's a fairly diverse music scene here these days. When I left in the mid 70's, if you didn't sound like either the Allman Brothers or Skynrd, you could forget about ever playing anywhere. Being mostly inspired by Jimi Hendrix, along with growing up during the whole psychedelic period of the latter half of the 60's, I needed to find a place more receptive to my ideas.

That was San Francisco. The rest can be read on my site (check my sig). Stay tuned - you've only heard the tip of an iceberg. Well, okay, let's just say the best is yet to come . . .