AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SINGER/KEYBOARD PLAYER

I was born in Germany, was taken back to the States at nine weeks, and grew up in Michigan - Grand Rapids and then Detroit. Started playing classical piano around age seven, after hearing Bach's Goldberg Variations for the first time. Still haven't gotten over that particular love affair. Sometime in junior high school I started listening to jazz on a boring night spent babysitting - it turned out my employers had a nice collection of Mingus, Monk, Bird, Bud, Dizzy and Desmond. Let it be noted that I do not play jazz. I just love it. Then came funk, which I really really liked, even while playing and singing in classical ensembles. Go figure. I spent some time working for one of the best music teachers I have ever known, Robert Ayres, in Mendocino, California. He's the one who taught me that it is possible to learn to play by ear. ("Of course you can teach yourself to play by ear! You just have to be willing to sound like s**t for a couple of years!) Not that I do it well. Eventually I hooked up with a drummer who hooked me up with a West African band, based in Berlin. It was starting all over again, but I was in love with that music. I played keyboards and sang backup with several African bands in Western Europe, occasionally playing in West Africa. That's where I learned about bushtaxis, a very fine mode of transportation! I also co-wrote a rock musical (in German) with my fellow lead-singer and the clown (literally) who directed and produced the whole thing.

Then I got homesick. I still remember the night I was driving home, in an incredible blizzard, from Heidelberg to Hanau with my significant other of the time, a drummer (of course). We always spoke French with each other. I was trying to say, "I'm so tired, I feel really spacey," in French. Suddenly I was overwhelmed by a desire to be back in California, where "spacey" really means something.

Within a few months I was back in the States, though I continued to work stints in Germany for a while.

I'd met Evan Brooks, co-founder and chief engineer of Digidesign, in Frankfurt, Germany, at the equivalent of the NAMM show. Our friendship had its roots in the fact that we were both keyboard players and both played a Rhodes Chroma (a really wonderful instrument in many ways) When I moved back to California, Evan started introducing me to everyone in the Midi Mafia that he thought might be interesting or useful. That's how I met Andy. The day after we met, we jammed, and Bushtaxi was born that day.