Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and raised in Ohio, my biggest inspiration was and remains to this day my oldest brother Tom, who was the guitarist in Dudley and the Doo-Rytes (whose only single, UFO, is a garage-band classic) and later joined The Castaways, of Liar, Liar fame. After playing clarinet for five years, I picked up my sister's discarded Harmony at 13 and learned to play 'Heart of Gold' and 'Get Together.' Tom taught me 'The Weight' and bits and pieces of 'Alice's Restaraunt' and 'I Dig a Pony.'

In college, after a few scattered acoustic coffehouses, I joined my first band, Adolph Duck and the Blue Collar Liberation Front, with John Freskos and Tom Broadstone. These are the guys who wrote K-Mart Girls Unfortunately no recordings exist of any of our several performances. John sold me the '76 Telecaster that remains my Nr. 1 guitar to this day. I later played in a series of college bands, the most successful of which was Les Vincent and the Tree Toads, first as "Ralph Schwartz" on bass, then as Ralph's brother Eddie on guitar. A video exists of this band.

After college I was involved in a series of unsuccessful attempts, including a long stint with Cincinnati blues guitarist Lightnin' Tim Jacoby (before he was Lightnin' Tim) and others. Tapes exist. I moved to Columbus. More abortive experiments, including some suspicious stuff with a Teac 4-track deck.. I moved to Germany. Nothing for a while. I had other things on my mind.

I became interested in jazz and tried to learn to play. Attempted a swing-quartet-with-girl-singer. This is where I met Milan, and joined his other band to help out until they found a keyboard player. This band became Drop! and here we are.

My role in Drop! is to be unbearably loud.