Influences, early to recent:

Hendrix - Still one of my favorites. His music and playing have a very spiritual vibe.

Rick Emett - Guitarist from Triumph. He is a great acoustic player as well as rock. His versatility was inspiring and got me into acoustic playing.

Alex Lifeson - Great writer and player.

Gary Moore, Randy Rhodes, Jake E Lee, Neal Schon, The Edge, Prince - All great rock/pop players

J.S. Bach - I taped "Air on the G String" when I was 14 and coudn't stop listening to it. I eventually figured out it was Bach and started collecting his music.

EVH - Eddie was the best ,What an innovator!

Yngwie - Godfather of neoclassical. I got into all the neoclassical guys as they came out: Tony Macalpine, Greg Howe, Vinny Moore...

Paul Gilbert - Very intense player!

Eric Johnson - I was so blown away when I first heard him. I was 15 when Guitar Player came out with that soundpage with "Cliffs Of Dover" on it. He's the best rock player I've ever heard. So musical.

Stevie Ray Vaughn - Huge influence.

Other Blues - Albert Collins, Robben Ford, Ry Cooder

Marc O'conner (fiddle) - One of the best musicians I've ever heard. From bluegrass to his fusion stuff he's awesome. I have all his recordings. His live solo on "Sally Goodwin" on the "Elisian Forest" record is insane.

Bluegrass - Jerry Douglas (dobro), Tony Rice, Ricky Skaggs, Vassar Clements, Allison Krause. Amazing players and one of my favorite styles of music.

Country - Albert Lee for chicken pickin, Jerry Donahue for pedal steel bends and and Scotty Anderson for his great double/triple stop ideas.

Fusion - Scott Henderson and Frank Gambale are my 2 favorites

Meatal - Old Metallica, Slipknot, Praxis. Some of the Nu-metal was great. Very agressive.

Pop - Beatles, Elton John, Sarah Mclaughlin, most 80's stuff ,Journey.

U2 - Unforgettable Fire and Joshua Tree are the best pop albums of the 80's.

Classical - Well, mostly Bach. Brandenburg Concertos and Partitas for solo violin are among my favorites. But also Bartok and Arron Copeland.

Techno - Juno Reactor, Nebula nine, Paul Oakenfield

Pierre Bensusan - By far the best acoustic player. "Spices" is my favorite album. He plays only in DADGAD. Lots of Irish type stuff.

Acoustic/Folk - James Taylor, great player, singer and writer. John Renbourn and William Ackerman, excellent solo acoustic stuff.

Blues Sacaceno - His first Cd had a big impact. Melodic rock/blues playing and good writing.

Satriani/Vai - Both brought rock guitar to a new level. I really dug Satchs' songwriting on the first 3 albums..

Shawn Lane - He was an awesome player and great writer. I'm still working on getting some of his ideas down to add to my playing. Huge inspiration to me!

Art Tatum -After hearing Shawn Lane talk about him I checked him out and became a big fan. The ultimate virtuoso. Very inspiring!!

Tuck Andress - The greatest guitar player in the world. Get "Reckless Percision" and his Hot Licks tape and see him live.

Pat Martino - The king of cool lines!

Joe Pass - Awesome single note stuff in the 60's and unreal solo stuff in the 70's.

Jimmy Bruno - King of jazz guitar. After hearing him in 99 I decided I was going to be a jazz player. A true monster on guitar.

Miles - My favorite Jazz. The different phases with Coltrane then the group with Wayne Shorter.

Coltrane - The king.

Indian - after hearing Nusrat Fatei Ali Kahn sing on the "Dead Man Walking" soundtrack I became a huge fan. That was my favorite CD from the 90's (the CD with Nusrat and Ry Cooder not the one with all the pop songs from the movie). I've also been listening to a lot of Shankar and his doubleneck violin.

Ambient -Steve Roach and Michael Stearns. One of my favorite styles of music.

Lisa Gerard - Vocalist from Dead Can Dance and Gladiator soundtrack. Also Jennifer Berezan's "Returning" is another favorite vocal CD with some different styles of chanting (Yoruba prayer, Navajo, Alaap) with some awesome guest singers. The whole CD is one long song/chant.

Thomas Newman - My favorite film composer, actually one of my favorite composers. Road To Perdition, American Beauty, Finding Nemo...

Soundtracks - Definitely the music I listen to most frequently. Some of my favorites are Alan Silvestri (Contact, The Abyss) , John Williams( Amistad), John Barry (Dances With Wolves). Hans Zimmer (Gladiator, Thin Red Line) Randy Newman (Parenthood, the last song in lydian, one of the greatest tunes ever) K-Pax , Signs, Halo (X-Box) yeah it's a video game but the score is awesome.

Local cats:

Joe D'angelo - My instructor. One of the best teachers and players ever. For real. He's a heavy dude.

Jay Tyer - Excellent modern jazz player. My mentor while I was getting my jazz shit together not too long ago. These days I see him play at the Java hut jazz jam every other week , his playing and dedication to playing jazz are very inspirational.

Marc Respass - Jazz and progressive rock/metal bass. Great writer and kick ass jazz player. He's on my demo tunes.

Marc Ross - Burning jazz and funk player. We gigged together several times a week for a few years getting our jazz chops together.

Roberto Toscano - Berklee student from Brazil. Takes lessons with me while he's here in MA. Great player and keeps me in touch with the guitar world. Vast knowledge of all the great players out there, guitar and other instruments.

My Favorite Authors:

I dig reading science related books - mostly quantum physics and some cosmology. Also metaphysics and spirituality type stuff.

Carl Sagan - Science and some philosophy. Even his fiction novel "Contact" was awesome.

Deepak Chopra - Heavy. Science meets spirituality. I've seen him lecture a few times.

Paul Davies - The best quantum physics writer. "About Time" and "God and the New Physics" are my favorites.

Jane Roberts - Seth.

Heinz Pagels - Heinz wrote the classic "The Cosmic Code"

Gary Zukav - Every year I read the quantum physics meets Eastern philosophy classic "The Dancing Wu Li Masters"

Carlos Casteneda - Probably fiction but the first 5 are really cool.

Rudy Rucker - "Infinity and the Mind" is so cool. I read bits of it all the time.

Arnold Swarzenegger - Encyclopedia of Bodybuilding. I'm an Arnold fan so I though I'd mention him. He actually has a cool anecdotical writing style and tells some funny stories. Interesting guy.

Other interests:

I try to practice every day, chops, playing changes, memorizing standards, lines, transcribing, more chops., solo stuff, improv, I love practicing and improving, not just chops but melodic ideas, writing, etc.... every 6 months or so I try to emerge as a much better player than I previously was. My playing came out great on the J.A.M. CD recorded in the fall, by late winter I think I sounded a bit different, my chops improved anyway, the jazz clips that I put on the site may reflect that a bit. I'm going to start recording a solo CD this summer and should be playing at a bit higher level than the last CD. However ,I do get away from guitar enough to fit in a few other things such as:

X-Box.

Lifting. Some running.

MMA (mixed martial arts). I've been taking separate classes for grappling, boxing and kickboxing for about 4 years. I love the UFC -Ultimate Fighting Championship and the other similar leauges.

The Simpsons, Family Guy, Lost - Good shows. I record tons of the shows on History, Discovery and Science Channel too. Those are great to watch while I'm working on my chops.

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