I was born on April 4, 1974 in Jersey City, NJ, (thanks mom). Blind since birth, I began my musical adventures before I could even talk. My mom would tell me that I was singing before I could even speak. At the age of 4, my parents, trying to find things for me to do that didn't involve sight, bought me a toy piano from Toys R Us. At first, I didn't want anything to do with it, but then, after some time, I began to experiment. Imagine the shock when, according to my parents, I began to imitate the melodies I heard on TV. My parents decided that I needed lessons.
It took some time, a few years, if I remember right, but they found a teacher and bought a beat up upright piano as my first instrument. I took lessons for a few years, but from my memory, resisted it a bit, even after my parents bought me a piano that actually worked and was in tune. I felt weird practicing in my living room in front of everybody and the piano just didn't grab me much, not like all the rock music from the late 70s and early 80s did. Then, I heard Van Halen's Jump with its synthesizer intro and it all changed. I wanted to have the machine that made that noise. It was further cemented in me when keyboards became affordable in local electronics stores. My first keyboard, a Casio mt204, was bought for me in 1986 at the age of 12. I could sit in my room, privately and play whatever I wanted. I had lost my teacher by this time, and found myself learning more from what I heard on the radio than what anybody else could teach me. A year or so later, I graduated to a bigger Casio. I began writing crude songs. I also got into my first band, at the age of 14.
The music Association for Visually Impaired students was the first taste of public performance, if you don't count chorus or playing trumpet in the elementary school band. I was able to hide behind the other instruments, although I remember a solo spot in 5th grade chorus that drew standing ovations from the crowd. However, I was too introverted and shy back then and didn't want the spotlight. Such as it was in the first band, content to just play trumpet, until the one day when my mother ratted me out to the guy who ran the music association at one of our fund raisers. I was called to the piano and asked to play and sing. I always hated when mom did this to me at family functions, because I didn't want to be the center of attention, but I played and sang as told, and made some old nuns cry or something.
Shortly afterwords, I was placed in the position of running the band since the keyboard player at the time had to leave. Over time, I took over, I suppose, introducing modern music into a band that was just playing standards, polkas and various other forms of nonthreatening stuff. While the musicianship wasn't there, and we played for lions club dinners and other things, I lost my inhibitions about playing in front of a crowd.
During this time, I also attended a summer program for musicians for vocal training, and placed as a finalist in the New Jersey Talent expo twice. I attended Monmouth University, originally to learn music production and recording engineering, and fell in love with another passion, radio broadcasting. I started my own radio show, No Holds Barred Radio, which went on, when I wasn't getting fired for questionable content, until I graduated in 1997. IN the meantime, I got my first pro keyboard, an Ensoniq SQ1 and in 1993, joined my first real band.
I learned a lot from that experience. At the time, I was a top 40 nut, who had gone through phases of rap, hip hop and r&b, classic rock, soft rock, and metal. Sir Round Sound introduced me to something new, progressive rock. I had heard of bands like Yes and Genesis and Rush, a bit, but the drummer and guitarist were Rush heads. Within months, I was a bigger Rush nut than both of them. This obsession turned me on further to prog rock when it expanded to other bands like dream Theater, Yes and Genesis's 70s output, ELP, and more. I didn't realize that a keyboard player could do solos in music or be an equal to guitars until then. Sir Round Sound also introduced me to play real rock music on a stage and recording in a studio.
However, within a year, due to personality conflicts, I had to leave the band. Within a few weeks, the other members left, too, and all of us, minus the singer, put together AfterImage. AfterImage, like its predecessor, recorded a demo and played in local clubs for a while, but within another year, similar personality conflicts and a lack of focus and direction caused me to find other avenues to explore.
I joined another local band, Curving Aztec and ended up leaving AfterImage a month or so later due to severe strain, since the other guys didn't want me in two projects. At this time, I had picked up a second keyboard to help me handle the parts on the Curving Aztec material, and I was up to my neck in progressive rock education. However, Curving Aztec never played out, at least not with me. In January of 1996, they told me they were taking a break. Six months later, while walking past the production studio at the local radio station, my ears heard the sound of music that was familiar. Turns out that the band had restructured and went on without me and didn't give me the decency of any kind of notice. So, I went a year or so with no work.
I had joined a few other bands here and there, mostly cover bands that played out a few times, but as always, conflicts, usually with the guitar player, lead me to quit. IN 1997, I joined up with an experimental jazz/rap fusion called Deviants of Reality. This band combined jazz, psychedelic pink floydish type sound, my prog rock tendencies and rap. We were playing to rather enthusiastic crowds and even opened for G Love and Special sauce. Unfortunately, while recording a demo, the bass player broke up the band. Back to square 1. I had done a few solo gigs with just my keyboards and me singing, but that hadn't worked out quite to what I had hoped for, so for another year or so, I was out of musical work.
Then, I answered an ad from Russ Murray, who was starting up a prog and classic rock cover type band. I went and auditioned and got the job. The band filled out its lineup and named itself awake. We played some clubs, but lineup changes kept us from going very far. We had changed our name once to Visions after everybody but me and Russ had been replaced at least once, but while the band was tight, crowd response was lacking.
IN this time frame, I hooked up with my cousin Rich who had asked me to do some session work for his band, Mystify. After that work, I was drafted into that band, but the band never got out of the basement again and ultimately folded. Rich and I are working on material for a release as we speak.
While this was going on, Visions continued to play. With one of its lineups, we got the idea of doubling as a Dream Theater tribute band called erotomania. IN July of 2004, I was contacted by Russ and asked about joining a Queensryche tribute band called Queen of the Ryche. I accepted all of this and was in 3 bands at once.
Over time, though, the amount of work to sustain three bands became too much, especially after I took on the role of pseudo second guitar player in Queen of the Ryche to save myself from being bored out of my mind covering the few keyboard parts that are in Queensryche songs. I quit Erotomania in fall of 2005 after losing steam trying to learn one of their really hard songs, Metropolis. I left Visions soon after due to a lack of transportation, but also due to burnout and a lack of energy with the poor crowd participation. Which left me in one band, Queen of the ryche, who had the most success to date, opening for Sonata Arctica in January of 2006, where I got my nickname, thanks to a chanting crowd. Also, playing in front of over 1800 people at the starland ballroom in March of 2006, playing the Queensryche after party in September 2006, doing many shows with other tribute bands like Sanctuary and in February 2007, playing two nights in Florida to receptive crowds and a few management companies.
However, in the summer of 2007, the singer virtually disappeared and I learned, after several phone calls and several story changes later, that Queen of the Ryche had disbanded. So, after 8 years of steady gigging, I was once again out of a band. I had planned on continuing on my own, doing solo gigs and collaborating with my cousin Rich. We dubbed ourselves Ultimate Illusion. There are a few trakcs from us on the site, but due to lots of studio issues and personal ones, the project is slow in coming.
During the course of 2008, talks with the remaining members of Queen of the Ryche began and a new band emerged from the ashes, called THD. We were set back a bit by the guitar player's heart attack and the other members of the band have a side project that takes up some time, but THD played its first gig in February of 2009, doing a set of Dream Theater and a set of QueensRyche to a receptive crowd at an old Queen of the Ryche favorite place to play called Cooks Cafe in CT. The band only played out twice in a year and a half, once in February 2009 and last in July of 2009, both at Cooks, before it broke up in September due to lack of direction.
IN the meantime, thanks to Kelli, our lead singer in THD, I got myself into a second project called Days Before Tomorrow, an all original progressive rock band. While a gig with Keith Emerson was set up, it was canceled due to Keith having severe problems with his hand. This band is already established, however, with a CD out and lots of promise in the future. While THD never seemed to go anywhere, Days Before Tomorrow will be attending the L.A. Music AWards in November of 2009, is nominated for Record of the Year and has promise of being signed and touring in 2010. We've already played a few gigs to warm up for the big event and I got my first endorsement, thanks to Kurzweil with more hopefully on the way.
As THD was fading into the background, Russ approached me and some of the Visions alumnai about putting Visions back together as a cover project. This has been done and that web site is being respawned. As of October 9, 2009, we are working on putting songs together for a set to play out some time in 2010 if not before the holidays.
And this is where the story ends so far. This site will keep you up to date with things from here on out. Thanks for taking the time to read my story and I hope yu will stay with me for the rest of the ride.