About us

Born: Oct. 16,  in Fort Bragg, North Carolina

I first preformed while in kindergarten at Halcyon Elementary
School in San Leandro, California, with Dad playing guitar.
Both of my parents are very musical and guitars and music
were a part of growing up in our household.

Having been bitten by the performing bug, I continued to enter
the school talent shows and my dad taught me chords to
accompany myself on guitar.

It wasn’t long before I was invited to join an organization called
“General Talent” that booked acts for pizza parlors, hospitals,
fairs, rest homes, or any other place that wanted some sort of
entertainment. Usually, I sang and played guitar between
dance troupe acts while they switched costumes. It was about
this time I started taking lessons from the now legendary local
instructor, Jim Bedford, who has since gone on to assist acts
such as Green Day, Britney Spears and a host of others- how
to sing night after night without straining the vocal cords.

At 12 years old I joined my first band “Spitfire”  “Spitfire” was
comprised of me on lead vocals and electrified acoustic guitar,
(I didn’t own an electric at first), Steve Murphy on lead guitar,
Steve Stanton on bass, and Gary Hoffman on drums. Not even
in my teens yet, and they being 15 years old, I was dubbed
“Baby Dave”, a name that happily didn’t stick. We went on to
play school dances, weddings, community concerts, hospitals
and placed 2nd and third in the local Battle of the Bands.

In my next band, “Blue Onyx”, I teamed up with  my ex- band
mate from Spitfire - Steve Murphy . Steve and I later went on to
form the nucleus of the band Snowblind. We became well-
known on the local club circuit, even though for the first few
years, most of us were underage!

I graduated from San Leandro High School in 1981 with the
new bass player from Snowblind - Ron Tripp, and two weeks
later, we were living on the island of Maui, trying to duplicate
our mainland success.

After realizing there was only so much to do on an island, we
returned to the mainland and concentrated not only on playing
cover songs, but writing songs, eventually recording with Chris
Solberg, guitarist / songwriter and multi-instrumentalist from
Santana and The Eddie Money Band as our producer.

Snowblind reunited in 2005 and played together again until
August,2008. In the two decades between Snowblind gigs, I’ve
been lucky enough to play with some outstanding bands and
musicians, and as a result, travel around the country, as well
as the world. Following Jim Bedford’s advice, I played all types
of music with anybody who had a gig. I played country guitar
and bass and sang in Mustang Club house band, The
Palomino Club house band, learned about “scratch” guitar in
Funk /soul band Race ‘n Rhythm, which allowed me to expand
my musical horizons, as well as travel throughout the country,
Japan and Canada.
The next several years, I played in various bands throughout
the bay area, expanded my teaching schedule, and, taking
advantage of technology previously unavailable, formed a duo
called “Times Two” with a fellow music teacher. We
sometimes had surprising evenings, like the night The
Coasters happened into the club we were playing after one of
their gigs and came up and did a few songs.   

Classic rock and oldies bands have been a mainstay for me
over the years, and I worked with some of the best in the bay
area before joining a band called “Cruise Control” in 2004
playing on Princess Cruise Lines newest ship “The Diamond
Princess”. Once again, being versatile came in handy as part
of the theme night band’s job was to play a different type of
music each night to match that night’s event. As luck would
have it, I was joining an established group fronted by Grammy-
nominated Yolanda King from Canada and her long-time band
mate, Mike Carey.

I feel like I have now come full circle, playing mostly solo
shows, backed by my “laptop computer band”, which allows
me the versatility to play in a small room at a low volume for
background music, or a large party for dancing, all at the touch
of a few buttons.
I’d like to thank you all for supporting live music and for being a
part of my music for over thirty years.

There’s a fine line between a rut and a groove.  Find your
groove.

See you at the next gig,
Dave