I’m an award-winning writer on call to serve all of your word-oriented needs: copy writing, line and copy editing, proofreading, in-depth journalism, consulting, whatever you have. My chief areas of focus include manuscript and term paper editing and custom-composed bios for bands, musicians, and artists of all mediums—a service my parallel career as a performing and recording musician makes me uniquely qualified to offer.
I live in beautiful upstate New York, where I serve as the music editor of Hudson Valley arts and culture magazine Chronogram and contribute to Roll, another local monthly. In 2005, my music column for the (Kingston, N.Y.) Daily Freeman won a first place award in the Arts/Entertainment Writing category of the New York State Associated Press Association Writing Contest. My writing has appeared in the Village Voice, the Boston Herald, Jazz Improv, Your Flesh Quarterly, the best-selling book Doo Wop by Cousin Brucie, and on such websites as All Music.com, All About Jazz.com, and NeWorld Review.com. I have also worked as a proofreader for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and House magazine. Additionally, I have written marketing and web copy for noted reissue record label Sundazed Music and I’m regularly commissioned to pen bios and promotional materials for musicians, authors, and other artists.
Born the year the Beatles laid waste to America, I spent my juvenile delinquent phase in a small New Jersey town, about a half hour from New York City. A social outcast, I didn’t really connect with music until punk rock, which, in the course of a few years and after a move to Cincinnati, Ohio, opened me up to older rock, jazz, and all kinds of other sounds. My initial foray into the publishing realm came via my late fanzine, Suburban Muckraker. While in the Midwest, I worked as the booking agent and promoter for a series of underground music venues and as a disc jockey on community and college radio stations.
At the tail end of the ’80s I started the Chrome Cranks, a four-piece rock band that blends the blues and punk with all the subtlety of a concrete road saw. The group released seven albums, appeared on several movie soundtracks, toured incessantly, and was featured MTV. We broke up in 1998, but made a triumphant return in May 2009 and continue to be active. I also perform in the psychedelic/experimental duo Avondale Airforce (yes, I know air force should actually spelled as two words; wasn’t my idea).
Currently, I am at work on assembling Upstate Sounds, a book about Hudson Valley musicians and the rich music scene of New York State’s Catskill region.
