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In 1989, I started my
own band, The Girth. I played guitar, Al Schwartz and then Ray Perrone played drums, Bill Lillard
played bass and did most of the singing, and Tom Linehan
played keyboard. I started writing and singing some of our songs. We played
several parties and a few local places that hired bands. The Girth lasted
about three years until Bill's dad died and he had to take over the family
business.
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I then started the Liberators in
1994. This was a three piece, hard rock band meant to emulate the power
trios of the late 60s and early 70s. We played classic rock including some
Hendrix and Cream tunes as well as several of my originals, which I wrote specifically
for the power trio. The Liberators started with me on guitar and vocals, Al
Schwartz on drums, Jerry Molzen on bass. Al was
active in the local Harley Owner's Group, so we played a bunch of biker
functions and other parties. We also played occasionally at the local
watering hole known as JV's in Falls
Church, Virginia.
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Meanwhile, I also wanted to broaden
my musical horizons. In the fall of 1997, I hooked up with Thierry Sagnier who had played dobro
in a blue grass band and recorded with Emmy Lou Harris several years prior.
He had recently taken up the pedal steel and wanted to get into song
writing. He had several sets of lyrics that I added music to, and we began
co-writing more tunes. Within a year we'd added a bass player, Crystal
Rose, and Rich Forsen on keyboards.
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Over the next two years Thierry wrote several more tunes, a few with Rich's
help. We recorded 14 original tunes that Rich did all the engineering on;
12 of which we put on a compact disc titled "Say Goodnight." We
played with a couple of drummers, Bob Shook and Nate
Oliver, in the process. Being essentially a writing
and recording project, this ensemble played a total of five gigs over the
course of two years. We used at least three different band names: Messenger,
Soul Pursuit and Idylwood. Thierry and I played several open mic gigs; Crystal and Jen Michie
joined us on another occasion; and Crystal and I sat in with a couple of
the local bands when they were in need of help.
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