Dogpark - part 2 (1994-1995)

I’ll never forget my first night in Los Angeles. Bret Domrose and I had just finished the grueling 8 hour drive in a U-Haul moving from San Jose to Burbank. When we arrived Sherri informed me she and I had been invited to jam with Kevin Gilbert and the Tuesday Night Music Club that very night in Pasadena. This was the same group of writers and musicians who had written and produced the Sheryl Crow album of the same name. So before I know it I find myself, road-weary and fully intimidated, sitting in the studio with Kevin, Bill Bottrell, David Baerwald, et al. They sat me down in front a a pedal steel guitar, which I had never played before, and started the tape rolling. We jammed on a dreamy bohemian rendition of Close To You. Sheryl was no longer in the group, so vocals were sung by Jennifer Gross. A fun and interesting night, but soon thereafter the group was disbanded, so that remained the only time we ever did that. Sherri and I rented a commercial space in a small, sketchy barb-wire-enclosed complex in North Hollywood that we used as a rehearsal studio. We both got jobs in a Burbank post-production studio called Ground Control, where we worked as receptionist, runner, scoring stage hand and assistant engineers. This was a very exciting time for me as I had never worked in the industry before. It was culture shock compared to corporate life at Apple. Here we were amongst famous musicians and actors who would come in to record albums or over-dub ADR lines for movies. Sherri and I wrote prolifically during this time, and passed our demo tape onto all the local clubs and anyone who would take it. Our first bite was from Len Fagen, who booked The Coconut Teaszer on Sunset Blvd in Hollywood. He seemed impressed by the fact that the quality of our demo cover art matched the quality of the songs, and for that reason gave us our first booking!