The Local Dungeon

  We had all just been sitting at one of our buddies places(the keyboardist), and doing what we usually did, drank beer..... Lots of beer... And laughed at just about anything and nothing at all... I don't remember how the topic came up but we had started talking about how fun it would be to get together and jam. That's when we realized how serious we were. I had gone out and purchased a bass. A 5-string Squier Affinity series JBass. It is now a fretless bass...       Next thing we needed to decide was a name. Once again, we were sitting around a table, this time at the drummers place, drinking beer and smoking cigs, pondering and saying different names out loud. We had tried an online band name generator that would come up with these random names based on the criteria we had entered. Various words pieced together kept coming up... none of them were anywhere near what we were aiming for. But, after some time of sitting, and pondering names, the word Highway kept...

      After playing the bass for some time, I started joining friends to play music outside of school. Many covers were learned and we quickly realized that it was possible to make some pocket cash by playing a few hours every weekend. At one point, I remember jamming with one group one night, then practicing a set list with a totally different group the next night. It was fun, and it kept my head in the music. It helped me gain a respect for every type of music, from jazz(still can't quite play that well) to old style country to classic rock and the present-day stuff at that time. It was the nineties so I still found present-day music quite enjoyable. That's not to say that I find the music of the 2000's+ to be bad, it's just not the same for me.       One band had made all the difference for me though. That band name was Sweet Lip. It was myself on bass, a guy on guitar and vocals that I had been friends with for years before, another guy on guitar a...

 When I was a young boy, I looked up to my father in so many ways. He worked hard and made sure his family had what was needed to survive. At the same time, he showed me so many experiences. Riding on his motorcycle to field parties, rallies and ‘Toy Runs’. (‘Toy Runs’ are toy drives where people meet at a certain location, with a toy strapped to their rides, and travel, as a group, to a final destination to donate the toys and other various items). Going with him to watch him and his bandmates set up for a gig later that day.   Later on, as I grew into a teenager, like many, I became rebellious. Maybe not as bad as some of the others I shared my high-school years with, but I was no angel. I tried to find my own way through those years, often getting picked on for my longer(shoulder length) hair, my darker clothing, and my tastes in  music. I never really let that bother me, but, it didn’t feel good.   I found myself following in my father’s footsteps,...