Been getting alot of questions on who are the collaborators on the upcoming album “Eclectic Collaborations”. In this and the next post I will give you a little biography of the players.

Kimo

Kimo is a dude who grew up on my block in Mineola, New York. For those of you who don’t know where that is, it’s on Long Island in Nassau County, New York. My block had a lot of kids on it when I was growing up, and the Steins lived on the opposite side of the street down a few houses. They had a total of 8 kids, Bob was the youngest boy of 4 and he also had 4 sisters of this brood of 8. In those days we all had nicknames for everybody and Bob was known to us a Kimo Slobie. This nickname came from the name Kemosabe in which was the term of endearment used by the fictional Native American sidekick Tonto in the American television and radio program The Lone Ranger, it became a common catchphrase. Thus Bob’s name would be from then and forever Kimo. I think when Kimo was about 11 or 12, his family moved off of the block and moved to Deer Park, Long Island. We kept in touch for a short while and then as life goes on did not have any contact for years. In those years leading up to our reunion, Bob was playing and learning his licks with numerous bands and solo adventures. He worked in the City as a stagehand in fact he is the 3rd generation of stagehands in his family. He worked on television shows such as, All my Children, Ryan’s Hope, Loving, among others. Theaters in which he worked in were The Broadhurst, Victory, Shubert, Walter Kerr and other well known Broadway theaters. Also he did  many shows on Saturday Night Live (when it was good), working and schmoozing with the likes of the Rolling Stones, Elton John, Tom Petty just to drop a few names.

As said, for many years I had no contact with Kimo what so ever and it’s funny how things happen and how small the world often is and becomes. At a Christmas party at one of my wifes friends house that we were invited to, who should I bump into but Kimo himself. His son was playing baseball with my wife’s friends son and were on the same team thus the invite to the Christmas party. We spoke for a while and traded numbers and to my surprise he had been living literally around the corner from where I now live. Nothing really materialized in the years after our reunion but we kept in touch. I knew he played and kept that in mind and when I was coming up with the concept for this new album. I gave him a call and spoke to him on the project and the concept.  He had retired from the stagehand union and had nothing but time on his hands, Kimo did not hesitate and was all in. Thus starting with one day a week working on song idea’s, putting down a riff or melody and building on those beginnings. Kimo was instrumental on most of the songs on the album and in fact two songs, Electrify Me and Losing You for the most part was his genesis. Hope to continue with Kimo on other projects in the future.

Thank You KIMO!