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| Lead Guitar & Harmony Vocals | ||||||||||||||||
| Michael was born in Seattle back in í68 and was raised on his Dadís LPís of "The Who." (Hence, one of his first vintage guitars, which he still plays, is a Gibson í68 SG - a la Pete Townshend.) He bought his first guitar, a Yamaha bass at 16, and then bought himself an Ibanez electric guitar for his 18th birthday. He basement-jammed, and played with friends until forming a band with high school friends and dipping toes into the emerging NW Grunge scene. The band opened for acts such as "Tad" and "IMIJ" and was courted by MCA, sadly to no effect. After college at EWU, and a brief time as a high school teacher, he joined the real work world in Portland, and met long-time friend Christine Young thus forming the acoustic duo "Chesterhall." The duo opened weekly for area great "Kerosene Dream" and played up until a job offer lured him away to work in the Bay Area. Moving back to bass in the bay, he joined Bill Meyerís rootsy band "The Varmints" and later forming the country machine "The McAllisters" on bass and harmonies, with Varmint guitarist and buddy Joe Carlson. It was very hard to leave the McAllisters who were quickly becoming one of the top bay area draws, but a layoff gave him the opportunity to scamper back to his true home, Portland. Back in Portland he joined Ray Ottoboni and Tony Lintzís funk trio "Wheeler Walker Ponder" on bass for a year, before a guitarist spot opened up in his friendís band "ClubFoot Sandwich." ClubFoot still gets together and plays shows to this day after 2 years of solid gigging. ClubFoot afforded him the opportunity to bust out original songs, lead vocals, lots of lead guitar work, mandolin, harmonica, and was extremely contributory for his growth as a musician and vocalist. During a drummer change of ClubFoot, he ran into a fellow musician downtown at a Thai restaurant who expressed the need for an experienced bassist and vocalist, hence the funk-grass band the "Stilltenders" was born. On bass, harmonica, lead and harmony vocals, the band has been rolling along steady with all members sharing vocal duties and contributing their own style and songs to the band as a whole which defines itís sound. It continues as a popular Portland area band for the last couple years. In the summer of í03, he received a call from Christine Young, now with her own band which has shared the stage with both ClubFoot and the Stilltenders, who was in need of a new lead guitarist to support her new CD. He joined up and has fused his own style of rock/rockabilly/twang as well as harmony vocals to Christineís music, hopefully bringing it to new heights. Back with Christine after all these years where his Portland music scene started, heís enjoying the ride! His gear choices from his arsenal for Christineís band include: a Sparkle Jet Gretsch; í68 Bigsby Tele Custom; í76 Tele Custom; í74 Tele; í65 Jaguar; í66 Jazzmaster; into a secret weapon infused pedalboard; into a ë65-í66 Vox AC30 (or í66 Deluxe Reverb, or í66 Vibrolux Reverb depending on club size). |
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