True Confessions: I Was in an 80s Pop/Disco Band

I’m not proud of what I’ve done. I hurt a lot of people’s eardrums along the way. I had blond tips. I wore stage clothing that would make Duran Duran blush. But I was lucky. I got out. A lot of good people never did.

OK, so why am I not only admitting that I spent years of my youth in a disco band, and worse yet, sharing pictures? Well, it has to do with a chapter intro in my new “Photoshop CS4 Book for Digital Photographers,” and in that intro I stupidly mentioned that I would put a photo of some of my old bands on my blog. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but then I actually saw the photos, and then….well….I wish I had rewritten that intro.

But what’s done is done, and above you see four of the five members of my current band, Big Electric Cat, but in a promo photo from the mid-80s when we were in the band Rumor Hazit (when we played disco for a living). From left to right: Guitar player Tony Llanes, Bass Player Jackie Green, My wife (and lead singer) Kalebra, sadly that’s me on keyboards, and lastly Drummer Scott Stahley. Oh, but there’s more.

This is an earlier photo of the band, with a couple of different members. That’s me on the far left (dig the hair), Bass Player Lon Crawford, that’s Kalebra in the middle, drummer Scott Stahley bottom right, and Guitar player and vocalist Gary Granelli. You can’t see it in this photo, but my coat is actually a trench coat that goes all the way down to my calves, and I was wearing white boots like those shown in the photo below). I know. I was funky fresh! ;-)

This is perhaps the most important photo, because of the guy above on the right. That’s Barry Greene (with the pink guitar)—-the guy I wrote about in one of the book’s chapter intros, and the reason these silly photos went up here in the first place (the guy on the left is bass player Steve Burgess). This will all make sense when you read the chapter intro, but in the meantime, just enjoy some of the finest moments in fashion history.

This is my early Christmas present to you. ;-)

P.S. If you’d like to see some photos of us playing now (with Big Electric Cat), check out photographer Scott Diussa’s blog, where he shares some photos from this past Photoshop World, including shots of us playing live during our set at the Las Vegas House of Blues (here’s the link; when you get there, just scroll down a bit and you’ll see ’em). You’ll see from his photos, I haven’t aged a bit. ;-)