Try our new chef Stephen Zurla then the show starts at 8:00. Michael is a fantastic talent that will not disappoint.
Michael started playing drums as a nine year old in 1963 and was impressed by the Beatles as were most people 25 years old and under. He wasn't getting much done as a drummer but at least I was exercising my timing. Within the year he recognized the limitations of drumming, particularly when it came to writing songs. He had been entertaining myself with "home made" songs from the time he was 3, and he needed more to work with. He started playing guitar at 10 when my sister who was left handed let me use her acoustic guitar. He was a right handed player so the strings were reversed but he didn't care. He had found what he wanted to do. A few months went by and she decided to get another guitar so he inherited the first one. Right away he changed the strings around to suit a right handed player. He had to relearn about twenty five songs but it went by quickly. Now, he was on a mission. For two years he played six to nine hours a day, 7 days a week. He started to feel as though he was connecting with the music at a much more intimate level than most of my peers. He formed a band in my twelfth year and the junior high school gave us a sound proof room to practice in. He noticed that the music teacher was listening in on some of our rehearsals with much interest. He ended up firing his first drummer and upon replacing him, the band took off.
His first gig was in front of over two hundred class mates. It was like a scene from a movie. When we came off stage we were surrounded by other kids wanting to know who we were. He had arrived. It was all about the music. Throughout my high school years I played in progressive bands with dreams of grandeur. We were all learning what our place was in life and making great music was important to us as we figured out what each of us were going to be. My inspiration came from The Beatles, Eric Clapton, Led Zeppelin and Stephen Stills. High school ended and I began pursuing how to make a living playing music. He wasn't much of a business man and he wore his heart on his sleeve with whoever he was involved with. He started performing in bars when he was nineteen.
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By the time he was 22, he was making a living but he wasn't thriving. From that point on, he played in a couple of his own bands, show bands and Jersey club bands that all had moderate success. He wanted control of things again so he developed a high tech duo with his wife Lisa. The history of that duo was the longest tenure he had ever known. They made decent money for nine years until 1996. A good musical friend Al Bien invited him to do a set of originals at his new coffee house. It was like stepping into a time machine. There he was at 53, feeling the way he did when he was 18. He knew he needed to play again
