I first learned how to play guitar when I was 7. My grandfather used to take me to what would later bemy High School and I sat in a room with about 30 people and we all strummed the same guitar chords at the same time. Thirty guitars hitting the D chord.

Later on, I hate to admit this, I became a fusion geek. I even went to Central Park to see a free concert with Carlos Santana and John McLaughlin. I shook John's hand and it was 5 times the size of mine. Well, anyway, this led to thoughts of becoming a session guitar player like a Skunk Baxter or Eric Gale. Then punk came around and I lost myself to post-punk, new wave etc. Around the same time in the early 80's I discovered British Folk and loved people like John Martyn, Ralph McTell and of course Nick Drake. I started to play guitar again and through trying out alternate tunings I was able to write songs for the first time. In 1985 I met Jack at Maxwell's while seeing The Three O'clock and Salem 66. My friend Jeff Kelson was an early subscriber to the Big Takeover and told me about Jack. I knew of him also from listening to WNYU and the show Hellhole which would showcase the punk and hardcore scene. In fact, Jack's punk band Even Worse had a hysterical song called "Last Night's Blimpie". We met again a month later during a soundcheck by Aztec Camera at The Bottom Line. I went out for dinner with Jack and we became friends. In 1987, I asked Jack if he was interested in playing in a band that I was starting, he said yes and we didn't rehearse for another year.

When we finally did rehearse I had about 4 songs written. I really did not want to be the singer and Jack and I started tryouts for our female singer. We found Alex, she played guitar and had a good voice. Now it was on to find the bass player. Jack and I wanted a bass player that would fit in with the music we wanted to create. We placed an ad in the Village Voice and asked bass players if they could answer the names of the bands the following bass players were in, they could get an audition for our band. Ok, the names were Segs (Ruts) Lewis (Rire), Chuck Dukowski (Black Flag) and I forget the other two. No one them all, but one bass player said two of them and still wanted to audition Jack and I said alright. We met at at rehearsal space that was on 23rd Street. In walks Larry Heinemann sporting a kinda of Adam Clayton of U2 October hairdo (maybe?) and we proceed to go through a few covers. I don't recall any of the covers except Talking Heads "Mind", which when we played it was a complete mess. Larry asked me to play any of my songs. I played him about a minute of "Layers" when I broke two strings on my electric guitar (Hmmm, maybe a classical guitar next time). He said thanks, and was about to say no thanks, but Jack and I convinced him to go for a drink. A week later Larry came back for another rehearsal to hear just my material and I brought Alex. Alex sang her songs and Larry said he would only be in my band if only my songs were used. Alex did not like this and next thing I knew she was out.

Our early material was pretty interesting, but to me really did not have a specific sound. Around this time the classical guitar with a pickup became my main instrument and then came the distortion pedals and delay. Now, we had something. Time to record some material. Larry, had a producer friend Mike McMackin who had a studio in his basement on 15 street and Prospect Park West which in the late 80's was a bit run down. In this basement we recorded about 6 tracks at last 3 would end up on the first Springhouse album. The seeds were in the ground and the water was added. Time to see if anything would grow.