Saturday, the 1st at 9:00pm
Joletta's
www.myspace.com/jolettas

Saturday, the 15th at 8:00pm
The Celtic Fox
http://www.thecelticfox.com

Saturday, the 22nd at 9:00pm
The College Hill Tavern
http://www.varsitybluesbbq.com/

Saturday, the 1st at 9:00pm
Joletta's
www.myspace.com/jolettas

Saturday, the 15th at 8:00pm
The Celtic Fox
http://www.thecelticfox.com

Saturday, the 22nd at 9:00pm
The College Hill Tavern

Saturday, the 5th at 9:00pm
Mc B's

Saturday, the 19th at 9:00pm
Chuckster's

Saturday, the 27nd at 5:00pm
Kill Kenny Festival
South Park, Lawrence, KS

Wednesday, the 14th
Fiesta Mexicana

Saturday, the 7th at 9:00pm
The Grainery
Lake Perry

Saturday, the 21st at 9:00pm
at Mc B's

I grew up in the beer joints of North Topeka. My parents were club owners. My mother started her first bar when she was pregnant with me. In the bars is where my love of music began. I loved to play the jukebox, drink cokes and spin around on the bar stools with my little brother. For me, going to the bar was like going to the play ground. Picking songs on the jukebox is how I became familiar with a variety of musical artists from country to rock & pop.

When I was in grade school, my mother would let my little brother and me go to work with her sometimes on Saturdays. My father would also take us to the bar after school a couple times a week to see mom. I spent a great deal of my summers there as well. My parents would hire bands on the weekends. I thought it was so exciting to listen to the different bands. As I got older into my teen years, I would sometimes get up and play the drums with different bands. Finally I got the nerve to sing a song or two. I learned to play the drums from my younger brother, John. I learned from watching him play.

I was baptized by fire on the night he was to play drums but couldn’t make it to the gig which was at our parent’s bar. His band asked me to play for him. I had never played the drums much at all and certainly never in public. I did play that night for the entire gig. I just kept the beat, no extras! I think it was that night when I was truly bitten by the band bug. I just had to play and sing with a live band from that point on. Over the years, I have played with many different bands. I have always enjoyed going to the local jam sessions and getting the opportunity to sing or play the drums with the local musicians. I have a lot of memories of those times and plan to make more memories until the day comes that I can no longer get up and make the music happen.

Who would have guessed a set of bongo drums, played along with the Kingston Trio and other folk singers, would prove to be the springboard for a five-decade love affair with contemporary music? The bongos soon morphed to a trap set, inspired by the cool jazz of Brubeck et al., which became the gateway for the first band, formed within six months of the Beatles' appearance on Ed Sullivan. Drums soon gave way to the guitar and by departure for college, jamming with friends were the best-spent nights and weekends.

Since then bands have come and gone and different musical styles explored, but it always comes back to one thing: music is a language that knows few boundaries and to be able to "speak" it, even in a rudimentary fashion, has made me one of the luckiest people I know!

I have been a drummer/percussionist since my days in the elementary school music program pounding out paradiddles and other rudiments on a silver Slingerland concert snare drum. Throughout high school I was the lead snare drummer in the concert band, tri-tom player in the marching band, and the kit drummer in the jazz band and pep band. After graduating high school I played the drum set with a garage band in Lawrence and with the Community Jazz Band.

My early music career was put on hold when I enlisted in the US Air Force, got married and began raising a family. I wouldn't pick up a pair of sticks again until the winter of 1999. Since that time I have focused my studies on concepts in linear drumming and limb independence.

I've expanded my interest into drum building by making my own kit. It's a maple-shelled, wooden-rimmed old school styled beauty mounted on Yamaha and Pearl hardware. My percussionist rig consists of Latin Percussion Congas, Treeworks chimes and a variety of other percussion instruments.

Soccer style kicker graduated from Collier High June 1976, Stetson University honors graduate class of 1980, holds 2 NCAA Division One records, one for most points in a season, one for distance, former nickname "The Mule," the first and only pro-athlete ever to come out of Collier County and one hell of a model American.

I started playing guitar after Christmas 1992. I was four. My dad bought me a White Harmony Electric guitar, after seeing me play air guitar to the radio in my bedroom. He also bought me a little Radio Shack practice amp with DISTORTION on it, which he told me only people who couldn't really play guitar used, so I should learn to play without it.

For two years, I spent unhealthy amounts of time practicing that guitar. My dad taught me some notes for twinkle twinkle and I sounded out the rest. Then the chords A, D and E. Then came my next guitar...a Fender Squier Stratocaster that looked just like Buddy Holly's. My dad, being an oldies radio DJ got me into all the good stuff. Buddy Holly, Elvis, the Beatles... I spent a lot of time watching videos and listening to records trying to find and recreate the sounds they were making.

At 9, I saw Jonny Lang (Then "kid" Jonny Lang") Playing at the Iron World Discovery Center, and it changed my life's path forever. I stole that CD when we got home and started learning this "blues" for myself. I was enamored. It went on from there.... Stevie Ray Vaughan, Buddy Guy...Everything I could get my hands on.

Eventually I did learn some "rock" but even to this day really enjoy blues music. At 16 I released an album recorded in my parents living room (with my dad as Engineer and Producer) done with my buddy and drummer Kevin Severson. We played a few small local shows, then at 17 we went to First Generation Studio in Minnetonka Minnesota to record a full length studio album complete with shrink wrap and bar code. It was pure nirvana being in that studio. To this day I still remember the scent of walking into Johnny's all-wood live room and tracking vocals with my friend Samantha giggling at me in the control room while I mess up the words to Hendrix's "Voodoo Chile."

I played a bit in the oldies band my dad was the keys player for. That was a lot of fun and gave me a good taste of what it was like to deal with other musicians.

I started another album at 18, but it was not to-be. It was probably a good thing because looking back I don't think I'd come far enough as a musician yet to make anything better than my first big studio effort.

I had two versions of a band called Ryan and the Del-Rays (which was the name of the band at the time of both recordings above) and did a lot of weekend bar shows and festivals. It was a lot of fun and though I love being a lead guy I often wish I had "my own" band again. I love being a front man.

I played with that band til I was about 19, then moved to Topeka, KS where I mostly just noodled around in the apartment until I got hooked up with Rick Roberts at Kansas Guitar who told me about a band looking for a lead guy. i accidentally met the drummer a few weeks before Rick mentioned the band, and I went to a practice and it's been smokin ever since.

I still want to record another album, so if anyone is game....lets go!!