Welcome! I’m not sure I deserve or really need my own website, but recently I’ve been doing some things where I thought it might be useful to have certain information and resources available online. So, here we are.

I grew up in a small town in rural Illinois, where it was flat as a table, and corn, cows, soybeans, and silos dominated the endless horizon. My mother bought me my first guitar from the only music store in town, paying for it in small, monthly installments. I think she regretted it later, but I’m eternally grateful.

I played singer-songwriter stuff in late h.s. and early college, loved Bob Dylan, The Band, Neil Young, Velvet Underground, and Nico. In college I was in Philadelphia, and I also listened to a lot of jazz and the minimalists Terry Riley, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass. Saw my first fiddler playing trad American fiddle music while spending a summer working and taking classes in Eugene, OR. Then returned to Philly for junior year, found a fiddler to join a friend and me playing in a duo, and hitchhiked in the spring to Union Grove, NC for a big fiddler’s convention there. After that I was hooked on southern traditional fiddle music. The following year I met my now wife, Judy Hyman, when she was one of the people I gave a ride to on a trip back to Union Grove. We loved the driving, broad-shouldered sound of the old-time bands and still do.

Since then, we’ve been original and forever members of the alt-folk rock band, The Horse Flies (heavily influenced by old-time fiddle music), and the indie rock band, Boy with Fish. We’ve also performed as an acoustic duo under the name, Suitcase, and we’ve played lots of festivals and taught at lots of music programs and camps that focus on Southern traditional fiddle music. Also, since 1994, we’ve co-created music, sometimes with others, for over 30 feature and documentary films (J2 Film Music). I play acoustic and electric guitars and banjo uke, write songs, sing, and create, record, and mix film music.

We’ve been living in the college town of Ithaca, NY, at the southern end of Cayuga Lake, for about 40 years, and we continue to make music for film, to teach and perform at programs about traditional American fiddle music, and to play fiddle music in a few local bands.