The first Spock's Beard record. There are a lot of memories that come back to me from this time in my life. The band had actually been together for a while by the time we went into record our first record. Al decided to pay for the recording and we went over to Al and Neal's friend Skipper's place to record. It was a tiny room in the San Fernando Valley underneath Skipper's apartment. I had barely enough room to set my whole kit up and my back was up against the wall.

(SIDE NOTE:) I had just received my first drum endorsement from a guy by the name of Ken Austin. I was playing with my cover band at the time at the NAMM show here in Anaheim. The NAMM show is the big music gear convention that is held every year. NAMM is short for "National Association of Music Merchants". The club I was playing at is right outside the convention. Ken would come into the club every night after the convention and we hit it off. He liked my playing and decided to give me a drum kit. How amazing is that. I hadn't really done anything big in my career yet but he did it anyway. The company he worked for at the time was called Darwin Drums. They were OK. Not great though. I didn't know at the time. I was just happy to get a free drum kit and I thought I should use it on my first record. I had my Gretsch kit but used the Darwin instead. Oh well. That Darwin kit got stolen out of the back of my pick up truck up in Sacramento a year or so later.

We had those songs really together by the time we went into the studio because we had been playing them for so long. It was a lot of fun. We were all very eager. The very first Spock's mural made its debut at that studio (you don't want to know what was on that mural. Lot's of DUDE drawings, if that makes sense. I just don't see many girls doing that. Unless they like dumb 12 year old gross boy things. LIKE I DO

Now although I don't like the way that record sounds now, I think because it is old that's all, I like the playing on it. It was a very good first effort. I remember mixing and all of us were hanging over the console covering our little set of faders. No automation then. It was really funny. 5 guys cramming over a console trying to get their parts heard.

But that record gave us our start and was the gateway for my career really. So I appreciate it in a lot of ways.