About

ABOUT ME: A Cliff’s Notes Version

I was born into this world the day the Sex Pistols signed to EMI. When I was 6 years old, I played Joan Jett on the juke box of the local pizza joint every week after soccer games. That was the beginning.

Then when I was 12, my father was a repo man, and one day he let me have a few things that were left in a car he repoed, including a cassette tape with Metallica’s Master of Puppets and Anthrax’s I’m the Man. This was my entrance to the world of metal, which — with some help from skateboarding videos — soon converged with the world of punk a year or so later.

Then I was a senior in high school. Finally, after numerous garage bands that never left the garage, I joined a band that actually did stuff. We were called the Happy Accidents, and though we were young and our inexperience showed, it was an experience nonetheless. We were annoyed with the limitations of “punk,” and obnoxiously incorporated a number of un-punk styles into our caldron of cacophony. We had a few good moments — playing with F.Y.P at a kids fun zone was a highlight — but it wasn’t long before we realized the need to start over and play music we actually wanted to hear. This led to the Mute-Ants, which lasted from fall 1995 to January 1999.

The Mute-Ants started out OK but somehow got worse with each recording, most notably our full-length CD. I really don’t know what happened. The songs weren’t that bad in themselves (lyrics notwithstanding), but the recorded versions ended up faster than the originals, and they really missed the mark. Also, it didn’t help that we couldn’t agree on anything except for when it was time to break up.

Following the band’s dissolution, I went into a period of hermitage, during which time I did much soul searching, trying to figure out what to do next. I dabbled in home recording and had the idea of doing a one-man band. Only problem was, I needed a new name. And sometime in 2000, Billy Boloby was born. However, I soon gave up on the idea of a solo gig and put together a band, still using the name Billy Boloby ’cause I couldn’t think of anything better. From February 2001 to November 2004, we played dozens of shows, assuming various personas and stage themes. (See music videos and the photo collage for a better look.)

In 2005, I formed the Bittercups with Herman Von Uberstein (of my previous band) and Chuck Loose and Terra Marie of the Heatseekers. That lasted a year before I decided to switch teams, as it were, and took a full-time position as music editor of the local Village Voice Media publication (New Times Broward-Palm Beach). I had fun doing that for a while, though I knew there was only so much I could write about in South Florida before redundancy set in. So after a whopping eight months (well, three years in total, counting my time as a general entertainment editor), I realized I needed to be making music, not writing about it. I joined a band called Pots ’n’ Pans, which lasted from 2007 through 2008. And then my health turned to shit, and I find myself where I am now. Welcome to my website.