I've lived my artistic life backward, or at least sideways. At an age when I should have been rocking out and making noise, I was a hopeless classical music nerd. When I finally grew up, I stopped practicing and started breaking things.

My mom played piano and folk guitar and started me out on both instruments. Piano came first. I wasn't particularly musical, and my fifth-grade choir teacher appointed me group manager so I wouldn't downgrade the ensemble with my voice. But when I started playing guitar at age 11, I pretty much locked myself in my bedroom and didn't come out for several years. (I was practicing. Mostly.)

Instead of playing in high school bands, I practiced classical guitar and immured myself in music theory and history. By age 16 I was enrolled in the music department at UCLA, where I studied composition with renowned Bulgarian composer/tyrant Henri Lazarof and film scoring with the great David Raksin. I taught guitar for folding money and (big surprise) became an early-music nerd. Somewhere there's a picture of me at age 17 sporting long hair, beard, tights, and a lute, playing for change at a Renaissance fair. (Actually, I know exactly where the picture is — and you'll never find it.)

I went straight into the grad composition program at U.C. Berkeley, mainly because I didn't know what else to do. After studying with Ollie Wilson and Andrew Imbrie, I left with a mere M.A. — tantamount to dropping out at a PhD. mill like Cal.

I moved to San Francisco and finally started playing in bands. I'd developed a passion for African pop, and was privileged to play afrobeat and highlife with Ghanaian and Nigerian dudes who'd actually been in Fela Kuti's and Sunny Ade's bands. Master drummer C.K. Ladzekpo was a crucial mentor and influence. Eventually I started a band called Big City with bassist Robin Balliger. We attempted to fuse punk, funk, and African music, which seemed like a brilliant idea at the time. We ruled the SF club scene for a few years before our band and scene folded. Depression ensued.

Reasoning that it was time to put aside childish things, I got my first day job: an editor for Guitar Player magazine. It was brutal, man — traveling around interviewing hundreds of the world's greatest guitarists backstage, in the studio, and in their homes. Getting paid to audition new gear. Sifting through all those free CDs. How did I stand it?

A few hundred articles later, two strange things started to happen.
First: My attitude about guitar changed. I'd witnessed musicians without a shred of conventional skill creating sounds that left me breathless. I'd heard players with more ability than most of us could acquire in ten lifetimes disgorge dismal puke. I stopped caring about things I couldn’t do and embraced my quirks. I realized that playing expressively was more important than playing “well.” Second: I started getting invited to play on cool records. First, Big City's old roadie, Les Claypool of Primus, recommended me to Tom Waits, and I went on to contribute to seven of Tom's albums. I worked on two PJ Harvey albums and toured with Polly's band for a year. I got to work with Jon Hassell, Lisa Germano, Stephen Yerkey, Kathy Acker, and Meat Beat Manifesto. I was signed to Rykodisc as a member of the quasi-jazz band Oranj Symphonette and made two Action Plus albums with my most frequent collaborator: Elise Malmberg (a.k.a. “wife”). Eventually I quit my grueling day job.

In recent years I've continued to write about music and music technology, sometimes anonymously or under a pseudonym. I've contributed music to movies, TV shows, and commercials. I'm a terminal geek on two audio recording platforms, Digidesign’s Pro Tools and Apple’s Logic, and I’ve done extensive contract work for both companies. I'm getting more bass, keyboard and programming gigs in addition to guitar work. I’ve recorded with Courtney Love, DJ Shadow, Aimee Mann, Tracy Chapman, Kimya Dawson of the Moldy Peaches, the Eels, Carrie Underwood and John Cale. And I recently completed The Clubbo Story, a tale of musical forgery set against the backdrop of a dying musical industry. It's one facet of a sprawling music fiction project conceived in collaboration with Elise. [Read more about Clubbo.]

I still love playing guitar, though nowadays I feel less of a need to lock the door when I whip it out.