In the beginning of the new millennium, the 21st Century, I was still very active as a wedding and portrait photographer. And each year I covered weddings that were the same month, day, year; what I mean by that is I shot weddings on January, 1st 2001; February 2nd, 2002; March 3rd, 2003…I always thought that made it easier for the groom, in the future, to remember not only the wedding anniversary, but how many years they’d be married.

Well, in the summer of 2008 I was needing a hobby, something to do to unwind from running a studio and a 60+ hour work week. So I started kicking around the idea of getting back to playing rock and roll. Yes, a Blues Brothers moment, “Hey man, we’re getting the band back together!”

Stan was playing some great Motown songs and we started singing them together. He said, “Man, I wish I could get back in a band.” I was already talking with a friend, Todd Duncan, about that. It was kismet, karma, really freaking cool. The band became Stone Gerald. And like most bands, we practiced a lot, played a few gigs, and then broke up and went our separate ways.

But that experience kept me going and in a few months Vinyl-Live was formed with Marty Rogers. We did music from the 50s, 60s, and early 70s. The line up of the band changed several times, but it lasted until 2017, and then attrition did us in. To say that it was one of the best times of my life would be an understatement. I loved playing music.

I love being a writer and photographer. Being a guitarist and singer is probably not the most successful thing I’ve ever done, but it was certainly one of the most fun things. When you’re a writer or photographer, you don’t, or rarely, get to see, to interact with your audience. But when you perform “Land of 1,000 Dances” and see the audience dancing to the beat, or play lead on “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” and see a cadre of air-guitarists in the audience, or just hear the thunder of applause…well it gets the adrenalin and hormones raging, and you’re a teenager again.

Like so many things in life, this is probably a part of my past. It’s possible that this sense of loss is part of what motivates me to find, and document these abandoned places.