At 12, I got a camera for my birthday. I believe it was an old Kodak 110 with a flash cube on top. Remember those? I used to love taking photos but at that age, didn't really know what I was doing. I did practice, or at least that's what I thought I was doing. Waiting on film to be developed from the local drug store was torture. It seemed like an eternity waiting 3 or 4 days to get the final pictures into my grubby little hands. For the life of me, I never remembered what camera settings I had used, nor do I think I really cared. Ok, to be fair, I think the old Kodak 110's were fully automatic, but I did have to decide between which film speed to use.
At about the same time; guitars, dirt bikes and cars entered the picture. All this took cash and with a limited allowance and savings, I had to narrow the field of my fun a bit. At the time, guitars won out over photography. Most of my money went towards the purchase of my first guitar, amp and strings at the age of 13. Shortly after this, I switched from guitar to bass guitar.
I played in several local bands in the Wichita, Kansas area; Trinity, Critical Mass, MJ Project, The Dark and 69 Slam. Of which, The Dark had the most success during this time period if you want to call it that. The Dark placed 4th in the MTV Battle for the Basement Tapes. After the MTV Battle for the Basement Tapes in Wichita, several members of the band "The Dark" moved to Los Angeles and set our sights on the big time. Well, "The Dark" as we knew it never quite materialized in LA as we envisioned, but the drummer and I were able to land spots with the band "300". At the time, they were getting some airplay on the World Famous KROQ. The band "300" went through several personnel and name changes over the years; 300, The Local Group and finally, The Attachments. The band "The Attachments" showcased regularly at The Palomino, Bogart's, Club Lingerie, Madame Wong’s West, The Roxy, The Troubadour and even toured Europe for a short stint.