I had been in High School bands, a cover band, and I worked two years in a theatrical orchestra, but at the beginning of 1981 Crüx Änsàta was my first real rock band to write original music. We called it Progressive Punk. Joel and I were into King Crimson and Yes, while Brad and Phil liked Black Flag and The Circle Jerks, so we combined the different styles.

Though not pictured, Bill Dillenbeck was heavily involved for a while. Bruce Stedron and Russ Williams also had short stints.

In September 1981, I transferred from UM-Flint to that other university in Lansing. Brad and Rose and Blair were also moving to Lansing, and they asked me play in a hardcore punk band. I said okay if I could play drums. I don't know how they found guitarist Mike Thomas, but Free Cheese was born. Brad was more of a pianist that a bass player, so we got the idea he would do the bass lines on keys (not the norm for hardcore, but it worked).

Unfortunately I don't have any photos (Anyone have any? Please contact me.) We played and toured all over the Mid-West, to growing fans.

I lived in the basement of the home of Gus Varner (guitarist for The Crucif*cks), and he and Doc Dart helped us get gigs, and a phone call from Jello Biafra of The Dead Kennedy's. We played mostly in Ohio and Kentucky. (We gigged with Faith No More)

Gus had an old 4-track reel-to-reel that he let us borrow and we spent some time learning to record. 11 months after we started I transferred back to UofM-Flint, and Michael went off to Europe.

Back in Flint, Brad and I got into some money-making band. Montana was a country band, Blackhawk a classic rock band. Later we got into a funk band called Thrust.

Bill Dillenbeck came back to join us in Avant Garden, doing obscure covers and originals. Also invloved were my twin brother Lin, girlfriend Dee Wilbur, Debbie Wilcox and Diane Russell. We all played multiple instruments and switched a lot.

Back in the early '80s we were recording on whatever we could get our hands on.

I started recording with Bernard Terry while in the R&B band In-Flight. We got local and regional radio play for one of our songs. It was my first taste of limousines and meeting stars and fans singing our lyrics at our concerts. We met with record label execs and entertainment lawyers, advertisers and TV news people.

As often happens, egos bloomed and the band self-destructed. Law suits were filed and settled in court, and I used the money to buy my own recording studio.

Joel Fairman and I pooled our resources to start our studio. Joel was and still is a test engineer for GM.

The computer would sync to tape via SMPTE timecode striped to one of the end tracks, usually number 8. Joel built a felt covered studio work table.

I worked with Terry Sheehan at his studio in Grand Blanc. Terry was an alumnus of Full Sail Academy, the school of recording arts in Orlando Florida. I also graduated from Full Sail, however I studied film and video production.

I used Terry's computerized mixing console to program final mixdowns. Terry recorded on four Tascam DA88's 8-track DAT recorders linked together for a total of 48-tracks.

Mackie 32-channel 8-bus Mixing Console. Features lots of outputs, 6 stereo aux returns, full parametric EQ: Hi-Mid w/separate band center & "Q" controls, swept Lo-Mid, and Hi & Lo shelving EQ. Low cut filter on every channel.