Growing up in eastern Pennsylvania, the not-so-proud host of the end of the industrial revolution, I kept thinking there must be more to life than steel mills, Billy Joel songs & Yuengling lager. "But what could that possibly be?" I asked myself while playing video games & programming my DX 27 synthesizer.
What indeed...
I had always leaned toward sound design & mixing, even before I knew exactly what it was. I would tape songs off the radio & compile mixes for my paper route, but instead of listening to the songs, I'd ponder over whether the keys should be a bit louder or if there should be a more dramatic reverb, all the while thinking I could have done a better job myself (a sign of a true audio professional).
I bought a fancy Sony Walkman with my paper route money. "Fancy," because in addition to the tape player & AM / FM radio stations, it had the audio feed from TV stations. I'd watch the first half of the late movie and after my parents hurried me to bed, I'd listen to the 2nd half on my Walkman in the dark, drawing the imagery solely from the memory of what I'd seen before my bedtime and, of course...the sound.
So after 10 years of classical piano, two keyboards & a failed Grateful Dead cover band I applied to Berklee College of Music & got in just in time to avoid the soothing lull of suburban classic rock, low cost of living & BYOB clubs. Boston was different. I started out feeling severely under-qualified, watching Chick Corea at the Performance Center & being in classes with Marsalys relatives. I eventually found my niche in the Music Technology department bouncing between Production & Engineering, Film Composing & eventually landing on Music Synthesis, studying the zeros & ones of music & audio.
In '95, I was accepted into a summer internship at Blue Man Group Boston. This was the performance art troupe's first foray outside of Greenwich Village, so they weren't known well outside of Off-Broadway. This internship turned into a paid position on opening night & lasted for 3 years over 3 cities; New York, Boston & Chicago.
In '98 I got in on the dot com rage. At that time if you didn't have thousands of vapor-shares from a soon-to-be-publicly traded company & go to work parties that cost more than the firm's annual net you were missing out. I had a corner office in downtown Boston, was running audio sessions with the Jim Henson & Reading Rainbow people & got to design my own $5000 desk. I was living large. That is, until the financial rug got pulled out from under us & men with suits came in to reposes the computers & furniture.
Luckily I saw the writing on the wall & had been sewing my parachute for about a year before last call. I was able to secure a position at Stormfront Studios, my first legit video game company. 6 addresses, 10 years, & as many titles later, the yellow brick road led me to the Emerald City. It's fitting, really; my obsession with the color green, my Haida tattoos & my appreciation for coffee should have been signs that I'd eventually end up here.
Now let's see what the next decade has in store.