My humble beginnings began at St. Anthony's Catholic Grade School in St. Cloud, Minnesota. I began piano lessons at age 8, after convincing mom and dad to buy a piano after I heard a 78 rpm record of the Mendelssohn violin concerto. I took lessons from a nun, Sister Elvin, who was very strict, for a few years, followed by Sister Elizabeth, until the end of 8th grade. She discovered I had perfect pitch at one of my lessons. I had also started violin lessons at age 9 from Mr. Mueller, so when I started at Cathedral High School in 1970, I began at 4th chair 1st violin under the direction of Mr. James Strang, and became concertmaster by the beginning of my junior year.
I began playing in the Minnesota Youth Symphony then under the direction of Ralph Winkler, and in the summer before senior year in 1973, MYS went on a 3 week tour of Romania. Not taking piano lessons anymore, I kept up practicing the piano during my free time in high school, played the organ at church, and bought a Fender Rhodes piano and a Hammond M3 organ, plus a Harmony guitar, a Vox Royal Guardsman amp, a Voxton Les Paul copy electric guitar, and a Framus bass guitar.
I played in two bands during high school, Glass Condor (60's and 70's rock and country), and Wild Ivy (a seven piece horn band specializing in the music of Chicago, Blood, Sweat & Tears, Cold Blood, and Tower of Power, but also tributes to Jeff Beck, Van Morisson, Boz Scaggs, and Loggins & Messina). Glass Condor (3 piece guitar, bass, and drums--I played bass) played many gigs at area bars and schools beginning when I was about 15. Wild Ivy was a conceptual band, formed of 7 of the best musicians from all 3 high schools in town. We got together for practice every day after school. We had about a dozen or so gigs before our breakup 3 months after graduation, but we had a rare, highly energized sound that was truely ahead of its time. And there is a live recording that survived that was remastered to CD during the 1990s.
After graduating from Cathedral High School in 1974, I moved to Minneapolis with a guitar player from the St. Cloud suburb of Sauk Rapids. We started a progressive rock band called Ornge doing heavy rock classics such as Jethro Tull, Edgar Winter, Yes, ELP, Elton John, ELO, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Steely Dan, and Joe Walsh. A year later, we revamped into a band called Glider, and continued the progressive rock tradition in the Minneapolis music scene for another year until I decided to move back to St. Cloud.
After getting settled in St. Cloud, I began my college career at St. Cloud State University in 1977. I soon became a music major at SCSU, taking piano lessons from Dr. Carmen Wilhite and Dr. Charles Echols, and violin lessons from Dr. James Johnson. I took music theory, music history, conducting, arranging, and played in the college orchestra and jazz band. I also studied pedagogy of winds and brass, and took lessons on cello and bass. I played in various bands such as Living Color, On Tap, Wichita, and The Sound Production. I played violin in the St. Cloud Civic Orchestra, and in 1981, I composed the music for the theater production of "The Good Woman of Setzuan," a play by Bertold Brecht at SCSU.
The Sound Production became The Cloudy Towne Strutters in 1978, and we became probably the best band in the area. I stayed with "The Strutters" until 1992, playing with many different musicians that came and went, but the core of the band was always Walt Moorhouse (formerly of the Soulful Seven in Kansas) and myself. In the end of 1980, the band split up, and Walt and I started a 8 piece horn band that lasted 5 months doing great 70's music including J. Geils, Bruce Springstein, Stevie Winwood, and Chicago.
Then Walt and I started over again with new musicians and went on the road playing full time (6 nights a week) across Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, and Montana for 6 months. We were recorded on various occasions, and played music by artists such as Billy Joel, Robert Palmer, Journey, Loverboy, Doobie Brothers, Pat Benatar, Heart, The Cars, Gary Newman, Cheap Trick, Phil Collins, Eddie Rabbit, and Bob Seger. We always brought the house down, and in those days, the clubs were always busy.
In May of 1983, I graduated with my B.A. in Music, Walt and I decided to go part time, and I became employed as a cab driver, which I would be for the next 10 years. In May of 1985, the Cloudy Towne Strutters broke up temporarily due to financial pressures, and I joined a country band named "Beat's Working" with Scott Maleska. After 3 months, Scott and I left the group and started an 80's rock group called NRG. In November 1985, NRG teamed up with Walt on lead vocals, and began the second phase of the Cloudy Towne Strutters that lasted for another 7 years until 1992.
In the spring of 1985, I started college again taking pre-business courses, and in the fall, I took a music composition class, while working part time in a warehouse, cabbing, and gigging. In the fall of 1986, I took a full time night job in a food distribution warehouse, and stayed there a year, still gigging. In 1988, 4 of the 5 members of the band got married, including myself. Then I went back to college full time, studying accounting, still gigging and cab driving. In February 1992, I graduated with a B.S. in Accounting from SCSU, and The Cloudy Towne Strutters broke up for better or worse that year.
In the fall of 1992, I began playing piano and organ at the Church of St. Paul in St. Cloud, and in the fall of 1993, I met Larry Anderson and Bud Danzl, and we started One Nite Stand. For the past 16 years, Larry and I have played an average of 100 nights a year in taverns and clubs around Minnesota. I paid for three professional studio demos in 1994 and 1995 of three songs that I wrote. In July 1997, I won 5th place in the national Follow That Dream Songwriting Contest (Nashville) for the song, "Blues and Fiddles."
Bud left the band in 1998. Since then we have had several drummers, including Mike Ranck, Stu Johnson, Al Stumpf, Jim Voigt, Doug Geist, and Steve Short. We do classic rock of the 60's, 70's and 80's, blues, and a bit of country. I wrote and recorded the music for "Shades of Blue" from 1993 to 1998 in my home studio, Diode Grande Studio, and released "Shades of Blue" in 1998. One Nite Stand also released an original CD in 1998, with music that Larry and I composed and recorded live at our gigs.
I began work on a Masters degree in September 1998 and graduated in December 2003 from SCSU with a M.A. in Special Studies entitled "Business in Music." Since then, I have had employment as a substitute teacher, a tax professional and bookkeeper, and a maintenance clerk in a grocery store. In October of 2008, Steve left the band and Jerry took over on drums through June of 2009. Subsequently we enlisted the expertise of Tim Chandler in the position of drums and vocals as we rock on into 2010.
March 19, 2010