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Post Your Bio!

Phalex

Semper Gumby
Supporting Member
Oct 3, 2006
11,011
2,140
G.R. MI
It seems that every bands webpage includes a Bio on it's individual members.

Copy your own personal Bio from your bands webpage and post it here. We may just learn a thing or two about each other.

My own Bio has been certified to contain at least 78% post consumer waste.

Here's mine:

Phalex Vön Pörklipps was born on the southeast side of Grand Rapids amid the turbulence of the mid-sixties. His Father, a prominent custodian in the public schools system would supplement his income by playing the saw with a local jug band. It was at one of these performances that Phalex's parents first met.

Details of Phalex's early years are sketchy. The time was mostly spent living in the boiler room of the middle school, and are described as being happy times. Evenings would find the Vön Pörklipps family lounging by the boilers listening to Mr. Vön Pöklipps' virtuosity on the saw between shifts of shoveling coal into the ever hungry boiler fires. Thus, young Phalex's love of music was kindled and fed, much like the ever present glow of the fires his father kept burning day and night.

One afternoon, while digging through the dumpster behind the Mighty Mini searching for discarded porn magazines and perhaps a box of expired Oreo's, young Phalex made the discovery that changed his life forever. Instead of the previous months copies of Cheri or Oui, Phalex discovered a broken guitar beneath the festering garbage. He ran home to the boiler room with his discovery right away.

Using his saw, an empty bucket of roofing tar and other sundry items pilfered from the middle school, Phalex's father was able to repair the instrument that was to become his son's obsession. The resulting conglomeration of salvaged parts was big and ungainly. The neck turned out to be a little too long, and it only had four strings. The "strings" were in fact fashioned from the steel wire used to repair the chain link fence encircling the perimeter of the school building and were of a size unheard of in any musical instrument.

The next several years were blissful according to Vön Pörklipps. He would spend hours playing his new instrument, sometimes accompanying his father on the saw, or "Trading Fours" with the constant ticking of the hot boilers.

In time, Phalex grew to be the man he is today. After moving out of the boiler room, he supported himself largely by standing outside of downtown business' and playing music to the passing throngs of people, almost always in the company of "A bunch of dirty, unwashed hippies." It was during one of these impromptu jam sessions that his "Axe" was confiscated and smashed by the police.

Eventually, Phalex purchased the instrument that most closely resembled the one that he had so tragically lost. He has been playing the bass guitar ever since.

One day, while doing a stint in the county jail on vagrancy charges, Phalex made the acquaintance of a mysterious man who simply went by the name of "Drumzilla". They spent many late nights, Phalex plucking the springs beneath the thin thread bare mattress as Drumzilla would tap out intricate rhythms on the stainless steel commode that was also the primary source of their drinking water. After the ensuing riot caused by their fellow prisoners disdain for what was actually extremely cool and well played music, the pair was expelled from the penal system in an attempt to restore order. "I don't know what their problem is." Vön Pörklipps later said. "Those inmates were like idiots or something." "They were just far to stupid to appreciate the groove we were laying down."

Today the duo, along with the rest of the nefarious group calling themselves "In The Red" impose their superior musical tastes on the public at large, and even manage on occasion to get paid for these offenses.
 
Here ya go...
Blind Like Sam MySpace page said:
After spending many years playing the guitar, Eric finally found home with a bass in his hand laying down a thunderous groove. Eric's passion for music is founded in rock and blues, but influences from 60's Motown, funk, jazz, and country also come through in his playing. Eric also has a fondness for good food, good wine, and small batch bourbons (although cheap beer or Jack Daniels work just fine, too).
 
Here's mine.

Maki's Bio said:
Ham started playing bass guitar somewhere around 14 years ago. What started out as an experiment in noise has become a lifelong passion. Ham's basslines draw from a wide range of music. Structurally, Ham is very interested in songs that allow for long extended open jams like the Grateful Dead, Phish, and The Meters, but his musical influences stretch into many different genres including roots and dub reggae, funk, rock, bluegrass, and ska. Ham also has a passion for storytelling which is evident in his lyrics and basslines. He wrote the lyrics to "Grateful Man", "Mota Mexicana", "Nino's Revenge", "Sure To Rise", and "Let's Pretend (Tonight We're Old Friends)".
 
I was just thinking of this thread. The drummer of my main gigging band (a RHCP tribute) asked us to write bios for our website and MySpace page. This is what I sent him:

[TheBigO] is responsible for all our low end rumbles, most of them coming from his bass. His favorite bass player is Stevie Wonder's left hand and outside of playing music he enjoys paper mache, gold prospecting and writing about himself in the third person.
 
[Me]I play bass all liquored up. I write, I live, I sleep. Oh, and I eat and drink too. Can't forget about that...What else. I'm made of carbon, and I enjoy long walks on the beach. I don’t smoke filtered cigarettes for the same reason I don’t drink whiskey through a bar rag.
 
Nah, I'm verbose too. Means nobody's gonna read it.

"Catfish Jon" plays bass and percussion and sings for Folk In A. Catfish started playing music so that he wouldn't have to talk to people at parties. From those shy and humble beginnings he built a rhythmic foundation for a life of low end bottom dwelling.

Catfish Jon has long been known for swimming around various musical currents (often upstream). He has played rock, funk, reggae, R&B, blues, jazz, and roots music. He is known for playing country music, mostly from other countries, like Turkey, Armenia, Lebanon, Ireland and the Republic of the Congo. He has also played in Klezmer and Ladino bands, because he does not discriminate against countries that no longer have a geographic location. Whether being a funky white guy playing predominantly African-American music, or a funky American guy playing Turkish and Arab music, he has kept the groove first and foremost.

Catfish grew up in the outskirts of one of the true first cities of soul, Philadelphia Pa. As a teen he fled the disco scene, following the Grateful Dead and hitchhiking around the East Coast. This exposure to ecstatic musical adventure and enormous sound systems made a profound impact on young Catfish, and he resolved to find a way to create that kind of transcendent musical experience at lower volumes. This led him to ditch electric instruments altogether for a while, until he realized that amplification was not the enemy. Now, in acoustic settings or amped to the gills, he roams the low frequencies on his mission to make the world safe for musical comedy.

The muddy waters of Catfish's career have been deep and wide. While a complete list of the bands he has played with would irreparably clog up internet traffic, some notable discographic moments includes Irie, the One Heart Band, Juicy Lucy, Batiki Beat, Savoir Faire, Farabi, and currently playing Americana and roots music with Roots 66 . He has been fortunate to perform with Joe Cocker, Walfredo Reyes, Necati Çelik, and Willam "Smitty" Smith, among others. Rumors that he chloroformed their bass players to get those gigs are unsubstantiated.

For his playing in Folk in A, Catfish mostly focuses on augmenting T-Bone's songs with the expressiveness, textures, and irresistible groove of the fretless bass. "Folks is always frettin' too much. Americans is a fretful people. We worry all the time. I figure that playing fretless bass helps balance out all that fretfulness. Singing helps some, too."
 
Hmmmm:

In the beginning, (*mjolnir*) knew nothing of groove. Then one day he figured it out, and that's been working out pretty well for him ever since.

...Occasionally he dances. If ever caught in the area during this occurrence, we strongly advise fleeing as quickly as possible.