Mike
Bass

Instruments that you have played: Guitar

Other info: music training: a year of piano lessons when I was eleven.

What inspired you to start playing music?
When I was 18 I got a summer job in a fire suppression camp. Somebody had a little record player and 3 albums, Lightnin' Hopkins, Mississippi John Hurt, and Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee. I’d never heard such fun music, I was instantly hooked. As soon as I got back to town I bought a guitar.

Greatest musical influences:
There was a club in Vancouver in the late 60's and early 70's called the Egress, where I saw people like Lightnin’, Muddy, the Wolf, Sonny and Brownie, Freddie King and others. I also spent hours listening to Jorma Kaukonen of Hot Tuna, and bought all John Hammond's early Chicago blues albums I could find.

Funniest musical moment:
My first public performance was at the Farrago Festival in the Yukon in ‘79, to about 600 people. I went through my set in a daze and headed for the bar in the performers' lounge. I got cornered by some balding little guy who said my playing reminded him of John Hurt’s. I said thanks and made my escape. I realized later it was Tom Paxton.

Most rewarding musical experience:
Playing with Time Well Wasted at the ’05 Merritt Mountain Music Festival, to an endless sea of partying people in cowboy hats.

Words of wisdom for aspiring musicians:
Playing anything with anybody is better than playing nothing with nobody.
Never sell an instrument you like just because you need the money.
And learn all the theory you can.