Forty five plus years ago, sitting at the dinner table with my parents I boldly exclaimed, ” I’m going to pursue a career in music”. So began the start of a journey that brought me to many people and places that few others get a chance to experience in a life.

I always liked music, although through the Kessler brothers it sparked me into diving in head first into new and exciting genres that I never knew existed. John played keyboards and Wow Bob played drums, so naturally John talked me into getting a bass guitar, a fender precision candy apple red ( very road worn) with a tree trunk “C” neck.

The fun begins as I got pulled into the New York City music scene. John taught me the engineering part of music and at 17, I was mixing bands at the famous Max’s Kansas City on park Ave. The Ramones, John Collins Band, Mink Deville, the Dead boys to name a few. In between I was playing and started my first band, we sucked. Although the influences of all the different music I heard made a profound impression on my music and the direction I would take. Finally I put together a better band, but we did not have a name. At the time there was a person Wayne County that would be hanging out and playing at Max’s. Wayne soon became Jayne County and in one of his/her songs one of the lyric lines was wearing everything but a lampshade, well it went something like that. And to tie the story together Jayne would always come over and make it a point to say hello to me. Thus the ribbing started, well Al what’s the name of your band?, Al B and the Lampshades? Not to be too pretentious, the band settled on The Lampshades.

More to come