Mark was too young to go see his Dad's jazz quartet play any gigs on the Oregon coast where he grew up, but he was allowed to tag along to some rehearsals . He figures that is where he contracted the music bug which he would carry the rest of his life. “I'd sit behind my Dad's drum throne and watch the whole band play, and communicate with their faces and their axes. The whole thing seemed so telepathic to me. They had some squiggly lines on some paper, but nobody ever seemed to pay attention to those crazy things.“ When Mark was @ 10 yrs. old, they let him sit in on a couple of numbers once in a while at those rehearsals. “I knew I was never gonna be a jazz drummer!“
At home his Dad taught him rudiments, (Flams , Rolls, Paradiddles...) made a few simple charts, and gave him money for lessons. “Yup, every Saturday morning he dropped me off with the money.“ That lasted until his Dad found out that the money (and Mark) were going to the record store instead. “We eventually came to the agreement that my head was -“con-clave.“
By age 15 , Mark's first band had broken up. “14 or 15 year old bass players were hard to find in a remote area of the southern Oregon coast back then . But so was da lyeberry.“
Later, after moving into the Willamette Valley, the music scene “was enormous by comparison.“ and Mark played in several different cover bands up and down I-5 from Roseburg to Portland.
After “an awesome 5years with a band that I thought was my future, but was really their past.“
“I was the youngest guy by like 5years, and it never came to my mind that bands don't leave cushy gigs in Lake Tahoe, Nevada and move to Albany, Or.
I was crushed when they all decided to become upstanding citizens of different communities scattered throughout the U.S. For awhile, it made me hate the fact that I love being in a band.
Butt-ch- a gotta do it again, cause it's like stickin' yer tongue in a 'lectric sockit ! Ya know? ZAP -Snap -Sizzle -WHAM ! RIGHT ?! Then after a couple little sparks, yer arm hair stands on end 'cause yer playing' a couple gigs here and there...
THEN..... KABLAM ! LIP SERVICE beamed me up ! WARP SPEED! SET A COURSE FOR AWESOME!
