Mom and Dad gave it to me at a very early age.

I occasionally play live solo acoustic shows, but I miss the mayhem and fervor of a full-blown punk show. I hope to finally pull another band together & get back to making an awful racket live.

It hasn't. Not yet, at any rate. The business is still merrily rolling along raping young talent and over-charging the customer. Very few purely internet/MP3 musicians/bands can support a tour themselves (unless they're independently wealthy or are at least regionally established), so a vital part of the fan/musician experience is lost. This is a good start, but there's a long way to go yet.

Sure. If it was the right contract and gave me the artistic freedom I need, while not charging for a ton of crass hype I do not want. The industry can be used, but it's hard to walk in with enough clout to do so.

I began playing guitar at age 12, played in the high school jazz band, then in several punk bands (and incarnations of said bands) through the succeeding years. I started to write and record by myself in 1995, and have been working at it ever since.

My influences range from the folk, jazz and classical my mother listened to when I was a child to bands like The Beatles, The Who, Led Zepplin, The Replacements, Husker Du, Buffalo Tom, Jawbreaker, Jawbox, The Lemonheads, Descendents, and the list goes on and on. I listen to music constantly and can find something useful in almost anything. The worst thing to do as a songwriter is to narrow your vision or dismiss any music without hearing it. I get great ideas from nearly every genre of music. It's out there - one just has to find it.

Place: Dingle Town, Southwest Ireland.
Spot: On a small stage in a hot smoky club in front of a bunch of lunatics.

Drums are generally performed on an Alesis SR-16 (unless I can borrow someone else's drums - then I'll play them). Guitars are a Gibson SG, Epiphone Les Paul Signature, Epiphone Korina Flying V, Gibson Explorer, and Fender Telecaster if electric. Acoustic guitars are a Martin D-15 6 string and a Taylor 12 string. The Bass is a Fender Jazz Bass. Amps are either courtesy of a Line6 PODxt or are a Fender Vibro Champ, Marshall DSL50, or a Sunn Model T. Signals are routed via a Behringer 16 channel board into a computer and recording is done on Sonic Foundry's Vegas software. Other odd things are often implemented to make sounds, but I often forget what they are - sorry.