Joe E Man

Bio

I begged my parents for a guitar. Can't remember a specific song or record, but I vividly remember obsessively listening to cassette tapes of AC/DC (For those about to rock) and Doobie Brothers (The Captain and Me). Also getting my grandmother to buy me DEVO and Police 45's at the mall record store. There was the proverbial older boy on the block who had a guitar (Ibanez Iceman like Ace Freely) although he didn't make me listen to KISS thankfully. He did expose me to Dio Black Sabbath's Live Evil double album (I imprinted on Die before Ozzy), Van Halen (Eruption), some Ted Nugent (yuck) and other less savory cultural experiences. Then there was Billy whose older brother had a band and a super loud peavey amp. Before that it was baritone horn all day long, with private lessons and Peer Gynt's In the Hall of the Mountain King which was both proto-progmetal (tho I didn't know it at the time), concert band, marching band and the bass clef. My baritone teacher warned my mother in front of me that if she bought me a guitar I'd stop practicing baritone. He was 100% right. Stayed metal and prog through middle school in Jersey. Got heavy in Rush and the Police. Maiden and Judas Priest to a lesser degree. Even Twisted Sister. Purchased a Steve Stevens Hamer at a guitar show at the Javitz center in Manhattan. Still have it. Reliced that motherfucker myself. High School got turned on to blues through older friends who had cool older brothers: Hendrix and Allman bros. And then U2. Completely missed the boat on early Hip Hop so I'm trying to catch up thanks to my son. Thought I should be a jazz player if I was serious, and got my head handed to me trying "real" music classes in college. Realized I could listen and write better than anyone in the music department so I switched my major to English lit. Fell into jam band, Grateful Dead circles, though I never really imprinted on the Dead. Saw a lot of post punk heavies at Gabe's Oasis in Iowa City, came to Chicago and tried to be cool according to Peter Margasack and that other guy so picked up on Pavement, Tortoise, Liz Phair, and Will Oldham. Stopped playing though and probably didn't even touch my guitars for years at a time until recently.