bio

I think my desire to write and play music started at quite an early age, although as you can tell, at this age I wasn't quite sure what to do with a guitar. Music began in Melbourne, Fl while I was actually born in Groton, CT.

I have always been quite curious of music over the years, playing on whatever instruments I came across growing up, my first keyboard was a Casio that you couldn't even play chords on. Or of course my favorite, an old plastic air organ with the slowest attack time in the world.

In 1991, I finally decided to get serious when I made an insurance claim to replace a car stereo and speakers that were stolen while I was at school, instead of putting the money back into the car, I bought an electric bass guitar, Peavey Fury, and an amp, also a Peavey. My desire to start learning bass was definitely driven by The Violent Femmes, Primus and The Cure.

During the few years I played bass, I worked on a few different projects, solo and with others. I joined a band called The Velvet Jesi, wrote a few songs with another guitarist, and recorded an experimental project called Discordent Heffer. Finally, I started solo work under the name Gear.

At around 1994 I decided to start playing guitar, there were so many different guitar sounds I liked, I wanted to learn how to play them; Hendrix, Nirvana, Mother Love Bone, Tool, and so on. During the next four years I worked under the name Suffer and wrote about six or seven solo projects. This included a song called The Process, which was my first completely arranged song. At this time I was using a PC with a Proteus sound card module and was experimenting with sampling.

I began working with one of the most musically influential people I've ever met in 1998, Billy Chapman. A solo guitarist who also played in a band called A Million Tiny Fingers. His ability, passion and friendship brought my music to a different level at the time.

In 1999 I decided to move away from Florida to somewhere with a larger city and more of an electronic music scene as I began to start getting very interested in synth music. Suprising as it may sound, the place for me was Raleigh, NC. I began working under a new name, Grim Epoch, writing and recording one song, The First. I was still PC based, but had added a second computer to the studio, A Korg Triton keyboard and a Boss DR550 drum machine. I was using Cakewalk and Samplitude at the time.

By 2000, my frustration with PC based music making had reached the breaking point and I decided to move away from PCs into the realm of the Mac. Much of the knowledge I gained I owe to a good friend, James Clark, who really demonstrated in his own studio why I needed to switch. While it was still a year or so before I purchased my first Mac, a G3, this is where I began learning about them. While I didn't do any writing at this time, I purchased a Roland JP-8000 and began learning about the world of subtractive synthesis.

Finally, in 2001 I began work on a new project, enc0der. Much of this time was spent finding a direction for my music, and discovering much more of the world of synthesized music. During the next few years my studio would evolve into something almost completely different, a Digital Performer based system with many more virtual analog synths. I also began using a Powerbook G4.

After lots of hard work, March of 2003 saw the start of the enc0der website followed very shortly in April with the release of four songs; Change, The Outsider, Darkness and Get Over. In addition, as enc0der I played my first live show at a birthday party for a group of thirty or more people. Moved by the overwhelmingly positive response, I decided to play out a few times before buckling down and working on a full length CD. The songs were released to multiple of online and independent radio stations, and dowloaded all around the world from the website.

My first four songs involved the use of a Nord Lead 3, Korg Triton, Virus B, Roland JV-1080 and an Akai Z8 sampler. Also, my Fender strat can be heard on Change and Get Over.

My debut performance was held September 6th at an event called The Zombie Room, at King's Barcade in Raleigh, NC. Opening for me was an industrial band called SpinningmantiS. For my live shows I brought on James Clark for backup synth, who continues as a member of my stage band. This show also saw the release of an EP called Experiment with my first four tracks.

Following the successful performance at King's, a new show was scheduled for Legends on Halloween opening for the band Nomad Project AV. Two new songs were written for this show; Robot Love and Freakshow. In addition, I began working with James Clark on a side project called RJE, and our first full song, Voices, was also played at that show. This show also saw the release of the enc0der vs Nomad Project AV CD.

At this time, work shifted from live shows into the studio, where it has been for the last few years. The aquisition of additional equipment and a refocusing of direction has been underway while enc0der has been evolving. In addition, I began also working with the Waldorf Q.

In 2004, both myself and James Clark decided to play out in our side project, RJE, for the Eccentrik festival, which also had the bands; Threshold 6, Oddstar, Clockwerk, Red All Over, Ego Likeness, More Machine than Man and Razed in Black.

During this time, enc0der continued to release songs every few months, like; Preservation, 1000 Times (NPAV Cover) and The Mind Killer. In addition, the Studio has seen the addition of the Novation Supernova, Novation KS, some Yamaha vintage synths, Reaktor, Mach5, MX4 and a few others.

Work is still currently underway on a full CD release with all new material, however, enc0der will continue to release non-CD tracks on a regular basis.