On The Road Blog

Hi and welcome to my “On The Road” blog, where from time to time I’ll throw up (pun intended) some road stories, pictures and video, of my time “out of town”. I’m not necessarily the seasoned road dog that a lot of guys are, but I have spent a fair amount of time “on the bus” as it were, mostly with my dear friend Steve Lukather and his former band Toto. But my road stories don’t start there, as I met Steve in the summer of ’84, and prior to that I spent the better part of ’83 taking care of Mike Landau and Larry Klein on Joni Mitchell’s world tour. And I actually hopped off a Bette Midler tour working with Buzz Feiten (with his blessing) to go out with Joni. Whew! But my road time really started in 1982 when I was asked to go out to work with Buzz Feiten, Michael Landau, and Robert “Pops” Popwell on Olivia Newton-John’s “Physical Tour”. You see, I had been working with Buzzy for the past year or two, maintaining this crazy  new (for the time) “switching system” housed in a Panasonic home stereo component “rack”. There was nothing else out there like it, and who better to maintain it on a big tour like this than the guy who designed and built it? Buzzy insisted I come out with him, and this actually cost a guy his job, as the production manager (as is typical I came to find out) usually hires all the crew. Funny thing is, I actually worked with the guy that got fired on Joni’s tour.Lucky for me there were no hard feelings. Anyway, so here I am the “new guy” and I really had to prove myself around a bunch of seasoned “veterans”. I had a few hoops to jump through here. First, I’m as green as grass, and second, I was hired due to a “muso’s” insistance. Good thing for me, I’m pretty easy to get along with, and that is half the battle right there, especially in a touring situation as I was about to find out. I did gain respect early on due to my technical abilities which helped a great deal too. Nobody could fuck with me there! I have to give special thanks here to my old friend Barrie Owen (truly a seasoned road dog) who taught me a few “rules and regulations” about road life including what to wear (a lot of black)!

Olivia Newton-John "Physical Tour" 1982 crew. Thats me in red to the right of ONJ....

Here is Joni Mitchell's 1983 Tour crew lounging backstage at what was once called "Irvine Meadows" . Thats me, third from left, on the couch. The guy on the far left with the shades, Tony Leo, is the one that got bumped when I got hired on Olivia's tour.

Here is a bunch of tired hung over sob's waiting to go home from a long European run with ToTo in 1987. Thats me second from left, looking real happy.

So I hope to be putting a lot more stuff up in the weeks and months to come, so check back often. You never know when stuff will show up…and I have a lot of stuff!