Chuck has been singing and playing guitar, bass and keyboards in bands and solo gigs for over twenty years. From open mic nights to headlining gigs in Connecticut, Rhode Island, Ohio and New York, he has enjoyed taking chances and playing the unexpected tune, creating arrangements of songs that fit the abilities and interests of the musicians and the tastes of the audience. Always interested in original composition, the otherwise garrulous Chuck found his creative voice and started to write heavily fifteen years ago. Starting with a blue and white Mac, Digital Performer, and a MOTU 896 interface, he has been filling up hard drives with music ever since. His latest rig is MacPro and MacBookPro based and includes products from Apogee, Universal Audio, Lexicon, AKG, Neumann, Rode, Audio Technica, Shure, Avid, MOTU, Waves, iZotope, Propellerheads, Native Instruments, Big Fish Audio, Access, Novation, Yamaha, Line 6, Fender, Weber, Analog Man, Digitech, JBL, Mackie, and others.
Chuck has used these many tools to create innumerable fragments, riffs, hooks, passages, and sound concepts, nurturing the occasional promising seed into a sprout, and the exceptional sprout into a sapling. Initially he worked only "in the box" on his own and collaborative projects, relying heavily on programming to bring the tracks to demo and copyright. But this has been an evolutionary process. Chuck and Doc are now taking a more organic approach enlisting the percussion expertise, creativity and experience of John. These three continue to write, arrange, record, and produce songs spanning several genres, while also developing and updating a collective catalog of over one hundred original works with the best gear and talent available. Each song is brought to the demo level in Pro Tools before handing it off to professional mixing engineers to polish the final product.
To further his aspirations in the producing and distributing his original material, Chuck became a member of the Manhattan Producer's Alliance, a collective of music and production professionals in NYC. He has played important roles in high-visibility ManhatPro events at the 2011 AES Conference and "A Case for Film Music in NYC" (during the TriBeCa Film Festival). In January 2012, Chuck became a Director and Treasurer of ManhatPro.
Doc literally cut teeth on music (an old wood ukelele). He spent the early years singing and playing Everly Brothers songs with cousin, mastering harmony, song structure, and arranging along the way. Doc bought a new Gretch Anniversary Model guitar & amp ($169.) at the start of high school and promptly started a rock band. By 16 years of age, he was playing in popular NYC rock and jazz venues and doing studio work (ghosting guitar and vocal parts, demos, sideman work). Doc fronted a rock band at NYC World’s Fair (’64-’65) in the Bourbon Street (Louisiana) Pavilion opposite most of the great names in jazz and big band. He turned down recording contract offers to pursue a Doctorate and professional career in Psychology (college professor and psychologist in private practice), but never stopped the music. He continued to play, compose, arrange, record, mix, and produce music over the ensuing years. His career in music spans a period that began with monaural tape recording, on through multi-track and into the high-end digital domain.
John’s story has taken many different paths, but all have shared the common theme that great art has no set road. A self-taught musician and DJ, John has played drums, guitar, harmonica, and keys for over 15 years to create unique textures in various styles and multiple genres. He has brought his talent and skill to the masses as the rhythmic backbone of Bayside's most (in)famous cover band. For the past 10 years, John has also been working on the other side of the desk as a producer and promoter with various bands throughout the metro NY area, working with them to perfect their sound and turn new corners. A man of many tastes and interests, John has worked with a variety of hip-hop emcee’s producing tracks for mix tapes and studio albums. Ever since his early days with the Akai MPC 2000xL, John has been crafting some of the most unique beats on the scene. No samples, all original content. From Three Chord Rock to Underground Hip Hop and whatever may be hiding in the dark corners in between, John is never done looking for new paths to travel in search of what moves him next.
Chuck, Doc and John write, arrange, record, engineer, and mix their own original material as a group and individually, working with outside talent as well. When operating as a band, they are called Trip The Fuse. Their first publication of original material will be released in May 2012, an EP called "Now We're Getting Somewhere". Tracks from that EP, as well as material the three have worked on together and individually, are available on the Listen page of this site.