BKJ formed back in February of 2000 and continued on and off over the course of a year

If Russ smiled, I would've made his more visible! I would like to dedicate a small portion of this page to an inspirational group that I had the privilege to work with. The name of the group was Beau Koo Jack and featured Morris Edwards on drums, Russ Starke on guitar and myself on bass.

BKJ formed back in February of 2000 and continued on and off over the course of a year. Within that time, we managed to piece together several song ideas, most of which were captured on my 4-track recorder. Playing in this group was nothing short of enlightening for me. As I began experimenting with two-hand tapping on the bass, Russ and Morris provided a perfect, creative outlet for my ideas. Together we incorporated them and many other ideas into songs.

I remember spending entire nights trying to think up something wacky enough for the guys to dig. Sure enough, a couple of those ideas made it into tunes. Others, we had to nix because there was no coherent time signature. All in all, we amassed a large sum of complete instrumental and vocal-oriented songs. But if there's anything I can appreciate more than the music we created, it was the chemistry we had while playing off one another. If it weren't for that, I wouldn't be dedicating this web page.

Since this group was such an inspiration and helped open my eyes to so much, musically, I would like to share a few of those pieces. Please click on the icons below to hear each piece in Real Audio format. Enjoy!

P.S. Russ, Morris: Thank you!

This song almost wasn't going to be a song! One practice, before everyone got set up, I was just playing this random riff in 7/8. When we were ready to get started, Morris suggested we jam on the riff, only I had forgotten it! Fortunately, he was able to sing it back to me and lo, we jammed in 7/8.

The Head Song is one that I will always remember in this format. This track was recorded during the first time Russ and I got together to exchange ideas. I recorded the entire session so that we could go back and piece together future song parts. Head Song is almost a prelude to Distant Clouds.

Now here's a song that features some really cool ideas! Russ introduced this piece to us because of our ability to comprehend odd meters. Check out the sweet 7/8 - 9/8 bridge! Something about this song always reminded me of the music from a Pink Panther-style spy flick. The outro jam was completely on-the-spot! Enjoy!

While listening to this song you can almost picture a coyote standing at the edge of a cliff, howling up at the Moon. Clouds are stirring slowly above as the howl carries into the wind. This track featured a two-hand tap bass intro that was one of my first. (Please be kind.) The rest of the piece was basically a structured jam with some guitar swells and an ending solo.