johnhornsby

I discovered the joys of music at a tender early age when everything was new and miraculous. At my Mom's house there was always either Motown or Johnny Mathis playing. I remember alternating often between my two favorite records as a child: The Puff the Magic Dragon story record and, ahem, Barry Manilow Live. You know the one with him reaching up to the sky in his glitterazzi spandex suit. Well my tastes have evolved a lot since then. My mother bought me my first instrument the saxophone. I s...

I discovered the joys of music at a tender early age when everything was new and miraculous. At my Mom's house there was always either Motown or Johnny Mathis playing. I remember alternating often between my two favorite records as a child: The Puff the Magic Dragon story record and, ahem, Barry Manilow Live. You know the one with him reaching up to the sky in his glitterazzi spandex suit. Well my tastes have evolved a lot since then. My mother bought me my first instrument the saxophone. I spent many hours in my room leaning Kenny G licks. Like I said my tastes have evolved ALOT since then. I studied music and played the horn in the school band for several years before discovering rock n roll and the guitar. I got together with some neighborhood kids and started playing in garage bands with names like "Mixilplic" and "Psychic Groove" and even made a few recordings during those formative years which thankfully have all been collected in a cardboard box and tucked away in the dark recesses of my closet. I started playing with the indie rock band The Penny Regime after sitting in on drums with them impromptu at a live gig one evening. Using only newspapers and coat hangers as drum sticks I managed to fake my way along their songs. A week later they brought my on board as their official drummer. I continued to play drums, guitar and bass honing my song writing , stage performance and band management skills over the course of seven plus years with the band. I produced two of our albums 'Mint" and 'Mystery Plan X' and helped organize and execute a couple east coast tours with the band as well. We went through several line up changes ,more gigs then I can remember and lots of beers. I joined forces with Jeremy Price of Puddle and with a lot of help from Randy Christie of Sentient Lighting built a performance venue known as The Penthouse on the top floor of the H&H Warehouse building in downtown Baltimore. Here I continued to hone my audio engineering skills for several years, cutting my teeth running sound for local and national bands alike. I continued to work periodically as a live sound man for The Sidebar and various outdoor festivals. I went on to contribute to several other groups including Jeremiah Clark and the Lighter Thieves, Dave Cipriani and the Faith and Doubt Orchestra, The amnibigcircus can-o-pee orchestra, and Birdbath all the while working on solo material as well. My solo material generally has more of a contemplative melancholy sound weaving lyrical landscapes into the edge of a musical reflecting pool... or something fru fru pretentious sounding like that. As of late I've drawn a lot the loss of several family members as a source of cathartic musical therapy. I'm also working on some happy tunes, but the sad ones always seem to be in greater abundance and sound much sweeter.