Forty Years of Bands

At the age of 53, I'm still hanging flyers

I started my first band when I moved to Sandy, Utah from the San Francisco Bay Area in the sixth grade, enlisting two red-headed, jack-Mormon brothers from next door. The younger one was an exceptional pianist. The older knew some folk chords on guitar. I played drums and wrote the songs. The year was 1985 and my two favorite bands were Duran Duran and The Cars. The first song I wrote was a jangly pop tune called, “Going The Wrong Way (On A One Way Street)”. I remember the chorus of this song only because my sister, seven years my senior, still insists on singing it (“I’m going the wrong way on a one-way street and baby, I can’t, I can’t compete…”).

The name of this band was Coven. I forget why, but I assume it had something to do with our strong anti-Latter Day Saint stance. The pianist was a minor league punk with a love for The Clash. We bonded over gas huffing, lighting things on fire, and burglarizing the neighborhood. The band folded after a few months, but the experience triggered a lifelong compulsion to write songs, form bands, and play live music.

The Psych-Folk Era

I moved back to the Bay Area for high school in 1987. As a freshman, I was in the chorus of our school production of Oklahoma! I sang along to the big numbers and had one speaking line: “Too rich for my blood!” During the post-production cast party at the Sierra Ski Ranch, I snapped my tibia sledding through the forest at night with a handful of drunk, upperclass cast members. Fortunately, the senior who played Jud was an Eagle Scout. He set the compound fracture, packed it with snow, and oversaw my evacuation.

During my lengthy recuperation, I picked up my mother’s nylon-string Goya and began to teach myself songs from the Grateful Dead album American Beauty. Once I’d learned a handful of chords, I “crafted” absurd psychedelic-folk songs in the vein of Syd Barrett and Donovan. The drums joined a list of abandoned instruments that already included the piano, the cello, and the alto saxophone.

At one point, my mother signed me up for guitar lessons, but when the teacher saw I was only interested in bouncing my own songs off him, he told her she was wasting her money. When my mother asked if I wanted to make a career out of music, I told her, “No, I’m a writer.”

The Rock Musicals

In the early 1990s, I formed the Kama Sutra Grind at the University of Oregon. The Pacific Northwest from 1991 to 1994 was a miraculous place and time for live music. I saw some of the best shows of my life during these years. The KSG was not a great band, but we had a great time rehearsing. During my senior year, I wrote a rock musical for the theater department and the best players in the KSG formed its back-up band. This theater band was tight, focused, and wildly satisfying to play in. The play, Wasted Youth, sold out its run at the Black Box Theater and moved to a local bar called John Henry’s for additional shows. The success convinced me to try another musical.

In 1995, I moved to Seattle. As Grunge™ withered on the vine around me, I wrote and produced In A Texan Paradise Found, a rock musical about David Koresh and the recent events at Waco. It ran for two months at The Velvet Elvis Arts Lounge & Theater in Pioneer Square. The play was remarkably good, in my opinion, but we were skewered by an arts critic on the cover of The Stranger. I was only 21 years old and the public shaming stung like alcohol in an open wound.

Taiwan

Burnt out, disheartened, and sick of being broke, I moved to Tainan, Taiwan and started a band called Pan with a British bassist and a Taiwanese drummer. We played gigs all over the island with other expat bands and Taiwanese outfits. During this period, I bought a chorus pedal and my songwriting skewed darker and heavier. Our drummer, Spike, was a monster on the skins and I wrote tunes that played to his strengths. At the time, Taiwan had the highest foreign reserves in the world. The middle class paid us handsomely to teach English, the pharmacies didn’t require prescriptions, and the kids loved Western rock. It was a good time. Pan’s vaunted Taiwanese run culminated with an appearance on MTV Asia.

Alaska

From there, I moved to Fairbanks, Alaska for three years where I formed Goatboy Johnson, a band scarred by tragedy. The early iteration of the band was excellent. We won a Battle of the Bands and developed a following, playing regular gigs at The Marlin and The Blue Loon.

In the summer of 1998, our drummer, Krist Anderson, died while trying to descend the Klutina River in a canoe. My drinking took a turn for the worse. Goatboy Johnson stumbled on, but was never the same after Krist’s death. It was during this period that I played the worst gig of my life.

The Suborbitals & Smoke Chaser

By the year 2001, I had a shoebox full of demo tapes, but no real recording to speak of. Up until digital came along, it was prohibitively expensive to record in a studio. And, to be honest, I was pretty loaded throughout the 1990s and probably would have made a mess of things.

When I accepted the position of Poet-in-Residence for the coastal California town of Pacific Grove in 2002, I also sobered up. Clearheaded for the first time, my songwriting and guitar playing began to mature.

The Suborbitals featured the loopy, intricate bass lines of Heath Proskin, the genius baritone sax and flute of Ben Herod, and the drumming of Gordon Stokes. We started out playing a weekly gig at a biker bar called Ocean Thunder, but moved over to the legendary venue Monterey Live the following year.

The SubOs released our first album, Blackout Rolling, in 2006 and a second album, Hey Oblivion, in 2018. During the COVID-19 pandemic, I formed a side project called Smoke Chaser and released a third album called Alazapul.

Still Hanging Band Flyers at 53

Here at the close of 2025, The Suborbitals are gearing up for another run. We have a slate of shows lined up in the new year and have returned to the studio to record a third album.

Forty years after I formed Coven in a Utah basement with two red-headed, jack-Mormon kids, I’m still hanging flyers around town and asking people to come to my gigs. It’s kind of ridonk, no doubt, but fuck it. I still have the same burning compulsion to write original songs and perform them with others as I did in 1985, so whatever.

No, none of my bands ever really achieved anything beyond regional success, but I guarantee you, the memories of these bands and all the amazing people I played with over the last four decades have made me far richer than most musicians. Besides, my generation was always dubious of success.

Anyway, The Suborbitals are playing tonight on the Eastside of Santa Cruz. Maybe see you there!

The SubOs in 2026 (more dates TBA)

• Saturday, Feb. 28, Pop & Hiss, Pacific Grove

• Thursday, March 5, The Crepe Place, Santa Cruz

• Friday, March 27, Hotel Utah, San Francisco

• Friday, April 3, Shanty Shack, Santa Cruz

• Saturday, April 4 The Caravan, San Jose

• Saturday, June 13 Henry Miller Library, Big Sur