WHO I AM AND WHAT I DO

WHO I AM AND WHAT I DO

I have always marched to the beat of a different drummer, so I decided to electrify the drums. And guitars. And whatever else I could get my Rock n' Roll Rebel hands on. I built my own audio system when I was 16, and to the consternation of seismologists it's been evolving ever since.

Oh, how I love that music! Been in two Rock bands, but that's really just a hobby. Electronics is my bread-n-butter - actually whole-grain bread and low-fat margarine, as I'm a health and fitness devotee too. This Rocker ain't gonna die at 27 like Janis, Jim, and Jimi did, because he's already well past that!

Some people put great faith in academic credentials, despite so many professors being total nutcases. In my youth I did not, being a whiz-kid prodigy that fixed TVs and radios for neighbors at age 10, before even going to High School. In High School you learn more about getting high than about hi-fi. I took all the science and math I could, and tolerated all the useless crap I was forced to take, like a foreign language, revised history, and "music appreciation." I aced the science and math courses and won all sorts of awards, but being a freethinking hip dude does not endear one to academic tyrants. So I skipped a 4-year college and went to a 2-year technical school to get an Associate's degree ASAP.

I then held a series of boring, frustrating technician and junior engineering jobs, each worse than the last, but I did gain valuable experience in audio and other fields of electronics. I got tired of the snobbish, Scowling Stuffed Suits - “Cutcha hair, kid!” - that won't even talk to you about a real engineering gig if you don't have a BSEE and suck up to them, so I wound up at the Cooper Union School of Engineering. There I got my degree, Summa Cum Laude. Please don't ask me for any "Cum Laude" jokes!

The dream came true within two months of graduation - Design Engineer, then Manager of Analog Circuit Design for ELECTRO-HARMONIX. From 1976 to 1981 I was responsible for the design of most of the company's products. Proud Papa! I'll list some that I created:

The Memory Man series - all but the earliest model.
Deluxe Electric Mistress
Talking Pedal
Clone Theory
Frequency Analyzer reissue
Attack Decay
Deluxe Octave Multiplexer
Polyphase
Stereo Polychorus (redesigned reissue)
Soul Preacher
Deluxe Big Muff
Guitar Synth (rackmount version)
Ambitron
Boomer
Panic Button
Blaster
Silencer
15W Freedom Amp (recent product)
Special projects for Pink Floyd and other artists.

I also performed some of the R&D, design work, and/or design upgrades on:
Small Stone
Small Clone
Hot Tubes (vintage solid-state)
Big Muff Pi
Bassballs
Graphic Equalizer

Creative, independent people that refuse to grovel to Krazy Korpserate Kulture must really work hard to prove themselves. Mike Matthews of Electro-Harmonix (not your typical conformity-coercing corpseration) provided me with the free-spirited environment for doing so. Gladly I rewarded him with the best work I was capable of, and happy I am to know that many musicians and music lovers enjoy the fruits of my labor.

As an independent engineering consultant I now do circuit and product design, and custom mods and repairs on guitar pedals and other gizmos - many of which I originally created. Want to be happy? Own your own business, but don’t let it own you. The spirit becomes trapped in unhappiness by unknowingly allowing itself to be enslaved by its own creations.

I work my own hours, and dress and wear my hair however I please. If anyone attempted to violate my freedom and privacy by demanding a urine sample, I'd say, "Open your mouth!" Black leather and living in liberty are still cool, and they always will be. Some may disagree, but it truly is the American way. As I wrote in my song titled YOU CAN'T DO THAT: *

For Freedom is as Freedom does
And Freedom I embrace -
And if they try to take it
I'll ---- right in their face!

(Fill in an appropriate four-letter word. I usually use spit).

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