VAN TODD

i remember seeing a commercial advertising "rock and roll over" by KISS on tv and my life was changed. ( i had to turn a coffee can upside down to play the cowbell part on calling dr. love, thanks, JFG coffee!) i was signed up to take lessons within the month and studied privately from age 7-11. by the time i was 11 i was being requested to play in the high school musical productions and with the choruses, not only locally, but regionally. i also discovered frank zappa, rush, and jethro tull which took my mediocre musical mind into an entirely different direction.

while in high school i attended the local fine arts center and studied music theory and classical percussion. i went on to receive a bachelor's in music from the university of south carolina where i discovered miles davis (bitches brew), the grateful dead, john coltrane and jaco pastorius. this also began my first "real" experience in bands and i played for local bands psychotoy, jebel, spoonful, treadmill trackstar and even declined an audition with hootie and the blowfish.

in 1994 the musical muse moved me to chicago where i played in various bands enjoying regional success and shared the stage with such acts as los lobos, hot tuna, cowboy mouth, aquarium rescue unit, umphrey's mcgee, the zen tricksters and the brad shepik trio. i also studied privately with paul wertico and sol garnier. this musical whirlpool allowed me to further stretch and culminated musically and artistically in the formation of the bq trio with local musician, zebulun, in which we performed what we termed retro-minimalist fusion (think miles davis meets philip glass).

i left music in 2001 and moved to virginia beach, virgina to study massage and bodywork at the cayce/reilly school of massotherapy. three years later a move to atlanta re-ignited the desire to express myself musically and i auditioned for [golden] soon after my birthday. and the rest will soon be history...... drop me a line sometime! van@goldentheband.com

other interests include: photography, hiking/camping, mountain biking, woodford reserve, yoga

you can email me at van@goldentheband.com.